Asylums, Societies & Land Records - Genealogy notes 9-16 May 2015

It has been a strange week as I have spent a bit of time without access to the internet which is extremely frustrating when you need to get certain things finished. Seriously thinking about my internet set up as I do need to depend on it at times and need reliability.

Max at AFAQ Cottage May 2015

On Friday we went with a group of U3A Bribie history lovers to the Amateur Fishing Association of Queensland's headquarters at Bongaree where Max's great uncle Adkins Robert Spencer was a President for over 16 years back in the 1920s and 30s. There were photos up on the wall, an honor roll with his name on it for all those years and copies of the minutes of meetings from when he was President. The cottage is basically the same as it was then except it has been raised up a floor. We find it incredibly moving to walk where our ancestors have been and to be in the same place that they spent time. A great outing.

One consequence of no internet access was that I didn't write any blogs in the last week which feels quite strange, perhaps it is like an exercise person who misses their daily run. All revved up but no place to go. Basically I focused on upcoming talks. I reviewed my talk Family Skeletons or Just Old & Sick: Looking into Asylum Records which I presented yesterday at an education seminar for the Genealogical Society of Queensland. You can see the presentation on my website Resources page, scroll down to Presentations.

It was almost a packed house and there were lots of questions and discussions over morning tea. The Society had copies of my book on asylum records for sale and it was nice to see people purchasing them. Copies of my other research guides sold too and I gave a shout out to Chris Paton's Down and Out in Scotland when someone asked about British asylums.

Presentation area GSQ Library 

It was my first visit to the GSQ's library and as always I was impressed with just how many resources are available to genealogy/family history society members. There are internet resources, microforms, old card indexes (not always in a database), books and magazines and not to mention the wonderful volunteers who give advice to people looking for information on their families.

It always amazes me when people say they don't need to join the local society as they have no Brisbane (or wherever the society is) connections. Australian society libraries have resources for all over the world but especially the UK and other Australian states and you can access Ancestry and Findmypast and perhaps other subscription sites there as part of your membership.

One of the things I keep forgetting is that many societies have resources online in members only sections of their websites. I rejoined GSQ when I came back to Queensland in 2012 and this was my first visit to the library and I have yet to visit their members only resources online. I really need to go back for a research visit as I spotted a few things I want to follow up and in the members only section one of the things I want is online - at least the index is and with the reference I can request a copy (for a fee) without making the trek down to the library.

How many people are not making the most of their Society membership? No time is one of my ongoing issues but it is also not consciously thinking of how best to use my memberships. Of course if you are not a member of a society you are totally missing out in the first place.

Perhaps the most exciting news I picked up during the week was the release of historical land information for South Australia. Historical Torrens titles and name indexes are now online and free to view and download. It is not searchable so you need to open page after page of the name index until you find the right entry. From there you get the CT reference (Certificate of Title) and then it is a simple to preview or download a copy. Have a look at the YouTube demo here or go direct to the SAILIS website to start your search. Thanks to my friends on Facebook for highlighting a great new resource.

Social media such as Twitter, Google +, Facebook and so on can show us some exciting new resources or how to use them as others pass the news along to their friends and followers. Are you missing out?

Trove have sent me a few messages telling me that articles I had flagged on Trove are now ready to see - remember if you see those 'coming soon' messages you can ask them to notify you when the article is available. I find it a handy reminder that I want to see something in particular.

This coming week I have my webinar with Society of Australian Genealogists members on Queensland resources so I am a bit worried about the dodgy internet connection at the moment. I have selected some interesting and not so well known online resources to talk about so it should be good, touch wood! Webinars are one of the members only benefits that SAG offers although you have to be quick to book as they are extremely popular.

Next weekend is a bit of a family gathering, my son's birthday and my niece is turning 21 so a catch up with Mum and my brother's family and dinner out to celebrate. As I am already in Brisbane for that I am taking the opportunity to meet up with a distant cousin who found me via one of my family blogs on the Finn family. She has my GGG grandmother's family bible which my GG grandmother brought out from Ireland with her. How exciting is that! Plus there is other information we can exchange so I am really looking forward to that.

Until next time have a great genealogy week.

Immigration & Getting Ready for NFHM 2015 - Genealogy Notes 1-8 May 2015

Last Diary I was getting ready for Southern Suburbs Branch of the Genealogical Society of Queensland's immigration seminar. It was a great day and I learnt a few new things and you can read my report on the seminar here. I've also spent a bit of time exploring (playing) with my new Queensland Customs House Shipping 1852-1885 passengers and crew CD.

Thanks to Rosemary's talk on it, I have been doing different searches plus I wanted to check out what was on it for the 1864 voyage of the Legion of Honour which I had spotted in her talk. Imagine my surprise when I put in the date and name of the ship and nothing came up. Not all databases use soundex and bring up similar spellings and when I put in Legion of Honor there she was. The ship's name is spelt both ways in a variety of sources so it was a simple thing to find. It is a useful reminder that the difference of one letter might be all that is stopping us from finding what we are looking for. So remember to search for name variations!

National Family History Month 2015 was my other priority this week as I want to get as many events in the web calendar before I go on holidays in July. As it is a manual process to put events into the calendar and a voluntary position I do for AFFHO, I am not taking NFHM on holidays with me! So I am encouraging all genealogy and family history societies, archives, libraries and others to put their events up early so that people can plan what they intend to go to during August. Read more about what's in store in my NFHM blog post and please note that NFHM is in August so only August events will be listed.

I seem to be having some allergy issues at the moment, lots of sneezing which makes it hard to concentrate or do anything as it is non stop sneezing. The chemist sold me some tabs which control the sneezing but then your head just feels like it is full of concrete. We had prebooked on a trip to North Stradbroke Island with the Bribie RSL Branch and I did not want to miss out so I popped a tablet and went.

Why North Stradbroke? Last time I was there was back in the late 1970s and not a lot has changed accept the more modern ferries, love the Big Red Cat (a vehicular ferry). But back then I did not know that my great great grandfather John Finn had lived at Dunwich Benevolent Asylum for a time, nor did I know of his time in Brisbane Gaol and Woogaroo Asylum - all of that was waiting for me to discover ten years in the future. Next weekend I am giving a talk on asylum records for the Genealogical Society of Queensland so I have been thinking of John as his story is in my presentation.

The only trouble with travelling with a bus load of other people is that you stop at the scenic places (we went to Dunwich, Amity Point and Point Lookout) and drive straight past the cemetery and any of the other historic places. I would have loved to visit the museum but there was no time. Still it was a good day out although an 11 hour round trip! I will certainly plan to go again and do the historical things we missed out on this time.

Mum and I ca 1975 (where did 40 years go?)

Tomorrow is Mother's Day so I will be visiting Mum and letting her know she still has two cousins older than her. I expect she will be surprised. My son is also going to go to Mum's so a chance to all see each other at the same time. My brother might even be there, a real family day.

As I mentioned above I have my asylums presentation next weekend and then I am doing a webinar for the Society of Australian Genealogists on Queensland resources online. So another technologically challenging session for me but one way to learn about new technology. Personally I think I prefer nodding heads in an audience rather than a laptop screen at home by myself.

Everyone have a great Mother's Day either being with our mothers or remembering them. Until next time, have an exciting genealogical week.

Serendipity & new resources - Genealogy notes 23-30 Apr 2015

I am starting this week's Diary post with one of the best blog posts for genealogy/family history societies I have seen in a while. It is Long Lost Relatives aka Susan Petersen's An open letter to genealogy societies and I can relate to all of her points and mostly agreeing. Although regular readers will know that I am still pretty much a paper based reader but then that is probably because I do most of my reading in bed and the only technology in the bedroom is the ancient clock radio. I am a member of five societies at the moment and renewal is coming up and I am seriously thinking of letting my membership lapse for some of them. Why pay for something that you don't use or get value for?

Part of the Anzac Day parade on Bribie 2015

Anzac Day was huge on Bribie Island and Max also had his RAAF reunion here so there was lots of social activities over the weekend. The parade on Bribie was bigger again this year and it is great to see all the schools involved too. For a small island, Bribie has two primary schools and one high school and an amazing number of children when seen all together. The distance was too far for Max and his walking stick but we watched the parade and attended the service at the Bribie RSL.

Max before the service at Bribie RSL

Last week I wrote about her I was trying to see if Mum was the last of her generation and I said there were two olders cousins still unaccounted for. The very next day I received an email contact via Ancestry from the son of one of those cousins (which was a little spooky or is that serendipity) to say that his mother and her older sister are still alive. Wow. Since then he has updated me on that side of the family as I have not been in touch with them since the 1980s.

Finding cousins (several times removed) is so much easier these days, especially if they have put their family history interests online in a subscription database or one of the free sites. If they are blogging their family stories that is another plus as Google can search and find them for us. I find it ever so much more effective than the old genealogical research directories that we paid to put our names into together with a broad date range and county.

In the last month I have been contacted on three different family lines because they have found my interests online somewhere. The information all three has filled gaps in my own knowledge of the family and I am going to meet one of them in a few weeks to see family memorabilia in person. We live a few hours apart but will be meeting somewhere in the middle. All very exciting.

Serendipity also played a role in my Week 37 Military Histories and Unit War Diaries entry in my personal blog challenge 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2015. While I knew about those resources I had not used them before so if I hadn't gone to the talk, I would not have been inspired to look. We never know when and where we are going to find clues for our family history. If you have not seen or used these resources read my Week 37 post.

Work continues on my Occupations course for the National Institute of Genealogical Studies. When you start to focus on a particular subject area it is amazing how many 'new' resources you discover as one thing always leads to another. This is my way of saying I am easily distracted by fascinating websites and start looking for my own families instead of keeping up the writing. Really the internet just has to be the most fantastic resource for family history but it's not all online yet.

Updating my talk on what the voyage was like for Sunday's seminar at Southern Suburbs Branch of the Genealogical Society of Queensland also made me realise how much easier research has become as I first gave a version of this talk back in the 1980s. Newspapers are now digitised and online (but not all), as are photographs of ships, many shipboard diaries have been digitised and again, I was distracted and went looking for information on my families. However, my talk now has some fascinating new snippets on my own research so a win win.

My next blog post and article for The In-Depth Genealogist were finished just in time (end of the month is the deadline). The blog is a series of posts on some of my favourite research institutions in Australia and as we have so many great archives and libraries I suspect it will go on for quite some time. With the articles I am taking a subject approach and like the examples above, I am finding new information myself just researching and writing these posts and articles.

I am pleased to say that some events are starting to come through for National Family History Month which is now only three months away. Next week I will be doing a blog post on it to let everyone know what is new this year and what they can look forward to in August. Remember to remind your local society to add their August events into the web calendar to be eligible for the wonderful sponsors prizes for societies.

It is a very wet weekend here so I have stacked up all my paper genealogy magazines received over the last couple of months and am planning a nice time sitting back reading. I also have quite a few digital copies to read too but sitting at this desk is not quite as appealing as the recliner lounge. I must learn to use my IPad better - I do have some digital books on there but most of my magazines are on the laptop.

No doubt there will be lots of things I will want to follow up from my reading so I'm guessing before too long I will be back at my desk, one of my family history folders on the table beside me, looking up a website to see if I can find anything on the family that I have not already got. Just as well we need to eat, drink and sleep otherwise I would always be at this desk!

Only one more month of autumn then winter will be upon us. But then winter up here is not quite like it is down south. While I miss those wonderful autumn colours, I don't miss those frosty mornings. Have a great genealogy week and I hope you are making as many exciting discoveries as I am. Until next time.