Immigrant health, Baltic geneacruising & other news - Genealogy Notes 12 - 20 Nov 2015

A busy week with a few medical appointments in Brisbane which really take up whole days what with the drive there and back plus waiting time in doctors surgeries. This time I took some of my printed reading material backlog and there is some fascinating reading which a lot of people won't see because it is not online. For example, in the Royal Historical Society of Queensland August 2015 journal there was an interesting article by John Pearn Emigrating to Queensland: medical advice for intending colonists. On a similar theme was Duncan Richardson's Breaching Quarantine: the Flying Cloud Incident 1864. It also talks about the health of Brisbane in the early 1860s which was when a lot of my families arrived. Lots of good context for placing my families in that early Brisbane environment.

It's funny how one thing often leads to another with family history research. I also caught up with my National Trust magazine Trust News Australia and in the May 2015 issue there was an article on the historic Queen's Wharf in Brisbane. This neatly tied in with the two articles from the RHSQ journal! Thousands of immigrants first stepped ashore at Queen's Wharf and it now has its own website with lots of Queen's Wharf stories.

Those who have heard my talks in the last couple of months will know that I have had a bit of a family history crisis. Well I have finally ordered a DNA kit from Family Tree DNA and my brother has agreed to do the test for me. This is following up on my earlier test with Ancestry DNA which was just me taking the test. It will be interesting to see the results and there just might be a sequel to my Love Sex & Damn Lies talk which is now booked twice for next year already.

All excited before the cruise!

During the week I managed to write two blog posts - I finally did my report on the Unlock the Past Baltic cruise last July which I really enjoyed despite breaking my right elbow - read the report here. The other post was Week 43 Geographical Places Names in my personal genealogy blog challenge 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2015. If I am going to finish the series this year I need to write at least two a week from now on.

Momento were one of Australian National Family History Month's prize sponsors and they are now getting ready for Christmas. Momento is offering a $150 gift voucher for a Christmas giveaway. Only open to Australia so if you are in Australia just email me at shauhick @ gmail.com 25 words or less about "how you manage your photos" by 30 November and you could win. See how easy it is to create a unique Christmas photo book gift, card or personalised stationery with Momento's software here. There is a 25% discount for books and boxes until 26 November. The winner will be announced in early December.

Momento gift ideas

Further to the mention of National Family History Month, I have some very exciting news to announce soon. In the meantime, I hope everyone has August in their calendar marked as NFHM and that you remind your society, library or archives to have an event and be part of NFHM 2016. It will definitely be bigger and better, especially if everyone helps me to spread the word.

During the week I often look at sites suggested by friends on Facebook, Twitter or Google +. As part of my new look for Diary in 2016  I will be including a few links that I find useful. The hard part will be selecting just a few. For example this morning I have been reading about Rosemary Kopittke's exciting finds in the new freemason membership registers for the UK on Ancestry. After I finish this I will have to investigate.

My next week has more medical appointments in Brisbane but I still have to write some articles for The In-Depth Genealogist and Inside History Magazine. Plus I must keep working on my church records module for the Australian certificate with the National Institute for Genealogical Studies.My book review on personal archiving for the Australian Society of Archivists is almost complete and that has given me lots to think about to in regard to my own personal family archives.

We are in the middle of a heat wave here at the moment so staying inside and writing is a good option but the pool looks awfully tempting too! I hope everyone has a good genealogy week and remember when the family asks what do you want for Christmas, think of something that you need in your research. Otherwise it will be perfume and chocolates! Until next week.

Rockhampton Seminar & Travelling the Burnett - Genealogy Notes 28 Oct - 11 Nov 2015

Yes I have been away from the keyboard for a while. A week's holiday (and I actually did no work, blogging, writing or anything much else) at lovely Bargara near Bundaberg. Max has a 94 year old aunt that we like visiting - she has some great memories and stories of his mother's family. We also spent some time with her youngest son.

Keen members of the Central Queensland
Family History Association 

As Bundaberg is only about 4 hours from Rockhampton it was a great opportunity to present an afternoon of talks to the Central Queensland Family History Association. I did two talks before afternoon tea and two after and although four talks is a stretch, everyone was still really enthusiastic at the end. As usual I have put the four presentations on my website, go to the Resources page and scroll down to Presentations.

By doing this, it takes away the need for the attendees to madly note urls, points of interest or whatever, they can simply sit back listen to the talk knowing they can go home and look at the slides again. In the four hours I covered lots of different kinds of archives, church records, knocking down brick walls and finding online pictorial collections. I also gave away as lucky door prizes one of my books and some issues of Inside History Magazine, kindly donated by them which also had people enthused.

Our display of Unlock the Past titles was appreciated and there was some keen buying with authors Chris Paton, Thomas MacEntee and myself as the popular authors of the day. The Unlock the Past genealogy cruise to the Great Barrier Reef next March was also promoted by the Society as quite a few of their members are planning to go on it as part of their 30th birthday celebrations. I am a bit sorry now that I am not going on that one as they are a great group of people and will be enthusiastic geneacruisers.

The Big Orange at Gayndah

We spent the next day looking around Rockhampton, Max was last there with the army in 1968, and we also went down to Yeppoon and Emu Park. As we didn't want to travel back home the same way we decided to do a leisurely trip down the Burnett Highway. There wasn't a great lot of traffic so not a lot of tourists which is a shame as there is so much history along this highway. I was going to include our adventures here but it became too wordy so now a separate blog post on my website - read it here.

Although we were travelling I still followed social media as that is where you can learn all kinds of new information. Only today I found out that Victorian BDMs have now removed the search fee from their site. A quick test for some of my names and it seems to be an improved search too. But if I hadn't seen the posting on Facebook I would not have realised it had changed. Of course these exciting news snippets tend to sidetrack you from whatever you originally started out to do.

I subscribe to the Queensland BDMs free enewsletter which has updates on what is happening along with some interesting stories. Read the latest issue here and it includes a link to subscribe.

A big development, at least for us, is that we have finally decided to get a landline again to have greater internet capacity. The mobile wi fi has served us well but most months I was running out of data and going slow. I am still keeping the mobile wi fi at a reduced level as we still trip around or head down to Mum's and need it then so together slightly more expensive but way more data. I can feel a few more webinars, podcasts and other exciting adventures coming up.

As usual I have come home to a mountain of everything to catch up on so until next week, have a good genealogy time and have lots of exciting discoveries.

Online seminars & New Resources - Genealogy Notes 18 - 27 Oct 2015

This last week has been interesting thanks to a fishing competition which meant I was home alone for 5 whole days and 7 nights. Yes I could have done some spring cleaning, some gardening and other domestic goddess stuff but I decided, with a birthday looming, that I would spoil myself. I started out data entering all my new data and filing things I had discovered while I was incapacitated with my broken elbow.

Relooking at these finds sent me in search of other discoveries and even in the last couple of months new resources have gone online and I found even more to get excited about. In Findmypast I think I have found a death notice in the Irish newspapers for my GGG grandfather Robert Fagan in Wicklow, Ireland - the name, age (80 years) and place (Glasnarget) are all spot on but no one else is mentioned in the notice. It is not a common name in the area but I would like to find more confirmation.

An intriguing sentence at the end is - American papers please copy. Does this mean that while his daughter Sarah Fegan came to Queensland, did some of her siblings or Robert's siblings or other relatives go to America? Something else to follow up!

But the point is that the last time I looked in the Irish newspapers there was no result for him at all so you really do need to go back and look regularly. I have particularly noticed this with Trove and since they have added the Brisbane Telegraph and the Daily Standard I have found lots more references to my families than I ever did in the Courier Mail. You have to check every newspaper as it may be totally new information or perhaps just slightly different.

While I made some really interesting discoveries in all those digitised newspapers, it did seem to soak up the hours or else it got dark early that day!

On Facebook I noticed that Kerry Farmer from the National Institute for Genealogical Studies was giving a free webinar on local history for genealogy and fresh from the History Queensland family and local history conference (see my review) I decided to listen in. Only a small group attended which surprised me, but Kerry squeezed an amazing amount of information and sources into that hour.

While I was familiar with most of the sources some of the NSW examples were new to me. I hadn't realised that you could get all those exciting parish maps online free. I was madly trying to write down URLs while Kerry kept talking so that I could follow up later. She also reminded me about QueryPic which I used to use a lot when I lived down south but since coming north it seems to have slipped out of my mind. I could have really used it in my keynote talk at the History Queensland conference but QueryPic is now back in the forefront of my search strategies again. So a great hour of reminders and new things and all for free. Thanks Kerry.

Sketch of my GG grandfather John Finn
 in the Brisbane Truth 

Week 42 Gaol and Prison Records in my personal genealogy blog challenge 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2015 had me delving into Trove again and yes more references to all my criminal ancestors. It is a rainy afternoon as I write this and I am so tempted to open up Trove and just have a little browse. Yesterday was Trove Tuesday (actually every Tuesday is Trove Tuesday) and many of my Geneablogger friends do a Trove Tuesday post. It is really interesting to see what others find on their ancestors. Another great way to spend some time!

Genealogy Sunshine Coast have asked me to do an all day seminar as a grand finale for National Family History Month 2016 which sounds a great way to end a genealogy and family history month. I haven't quite got around to thinking about NFHM 2016 just yet but I will have to start thinking about sponsors and planning soon as August has a way of catching up to me. Sponsors and ideas are always welcome and as 2016 will be the 11th year I am hoping for a new look.

In a week or so I will be in Rockhampton presenting 3 talks to the Central Queensland Family History Association so that will be exciting. The talks are all done and I will have some of the Unlock the Past research guides for sale too including my own titles. We are planning to go up the Bruce Highway and come back via the Burnett Highway to see a little more of that part of Queensland.

Mum, a cute me and my baby brother

My mother has just told me that it is 6 weeks to Christmas and asked what are we doing this year. I am having trouble even realising that 2015 is almost over. It has been a big year with broken limbs and time spent in hospitals and doctor's waiting rooms so a quiet uneventful Christmas/New Year sounds good to me.  But Mum is a traditionalist so I need to start giving it some thought but my grandmother's rum ball recipe has leapt to mind. I always loved them!

Next week is Melbourne Cup, my birthday (the old Guy Fawkes night
for those old enough to remember) and I will be doing what I love most, travelling. Diary will be coming from an exotic Queensland location yet to be disclosed but one I always love going to. Have a great genealogy week and remember, keep looking for new information online, it can pay off.