Pandora, Aussie blogs & other news - Genealogy Notes 8 - 14 Jan 2016

Wow the second week of 2016 went past in a blur and with all my rehabilitation I didn't get time to do much. But it was a week when three good things happened from a genealogy viewpoint and just a shame I couldn't write about them all at the time.

First up I was alerted to a blog post by State Library of New South Wales about the second edition of my book What Was The Voyage Really Like? It was fantastic to see one of my books being used to help people who go into SLNSW. It is part of their popular questions blog series. Thanks to a number of geneabuddies I was alerted to the post otherwise I might have missed it. Read their post here. My books are for sale online through Gould Genealogy & History and are part of their Unlock the Past guide series.

The second piece of good news was a couple of days later with an email from the National Library of Australia asking permission to archive my website Shauna Hicks Historical Enterprises into their web archive Pandora. This is a great honour and I was thrilled. This Diary blog was added to Pandora back in 2013 so now both my websites will be available into the future.

Through Facebook posts I discovered that many Aussie geneabloggers have been added to Pandora recently which is a fantastic recognition of some great blog writing on genealogy in Australia. Congratulations to all those selected. Unfortunately the Library can't archive everybody but this is a great start.

I am a member of a closed group on Facebook for Australian Local & Family History Bloggers and GeniAus compiled a list of everyone's blogs and it is amazing at just how many blogs there are. Not everyone fits the criteria for membership of this group so there are other Aussie genealogy related blogs out there. We could easily spend all day just reading blogs! If you are short of time I always check out GeniAus' GAGS (GeniAus' Gems) - read her round up for 15 Jan 2016.

That might be my excuse for not doing any blog writing myself yet but it is more that other things have higher priority just now. Every time my specialist says it is a 12 month rehab program I just want to say bring on 2017! Perhaps the first month is the hardest and it will get easier.

Back to my good news. The third item was a message from the Post Office to come and collect a parcel. A bit late for Christmas so I went down and was very pleased to discover that I had been sent a lovely tote bag from The In-Depth Genealogist for being part of their writer's team for Going In-Depth, their digital genealogy magazine. It is the only one of its kind in Australasia although some of my Aussie geneamates going to Rootstech in February will bring one back too.

I will get to Rootstech one year but this time I am on the Unlock the Past genealogy cruise around New Zealand and southern Australia in Feb/Mar. While at the post office I was surprised to find another parcel waiting for me.  Yes my tickets and booklet for the cruise so not long now, less than four weeks. I just have to finalise my eight talks before then!

One news item I picked up this week was the release of WW1 hospital diaries by the National Archives UK. It is not only UK forces but also Australia, Canada, India and New Zealand. Read more about the records here.

Next week is busy. I have a good friend from Canberra coming up for a visit over the Australia Day weekend so it will be a great catch up and she can see our lovely Island. My friend is going to Rootstech so I might see if she will bring me back a souvenir! Another visit to the surgeon, not so thrilling but a routine 4 week check up. And as we have a visitor coming, I really should do some housework which has been neglected since my December hospital visit. Or should I just call up the cleaners we used when I had my broken elbow (which is still in therapy mode too)? Decisions decisions.

Have a good geneaweek and check out some of the Facebook sites for Australian genealogy or follow some of the Aussie geneabloggers - always lots of tips and new resources to follow up. Until next time.

New Access Releases, Book Reviews & Other News - Genealogy Notes 1-7 Jan 2016

Happy New Year and welcome to 2016. Diary has had a bit of a makeover and when I can decide on a personal new look, I will post a new image of me too.

I love the first week of January because BDM Registries and State Archives open up another year of records to access. Already I have some new data from Queensland BDMs which I then use to search Trove. This often allows me to pin down an exact date of birth, marriage or death (assuming I haven't already found it in Trove) or to discover the names of children born in collateral lines.

This year Public Record Office Victoria received some excellent coverage from ABC News with their new releases for 2016 but then with a headline 'Bigamy Madness Murder: 75 year old files opened' it was sure to get people's attention. If you missed it, read about it here.

What this means is that we should all have a look to see what's new. A bit time consuming every yearas I have research in most States but there are lots of exciting new finds waiting to be discovered.

I finished my book reviews - somehow they take longer to write up than actually reading the books. Both were a great read and as usual I could not put down The America Ground: a genealogical crime mystery by Nathan Dylan Goodwin. It is the fourth Morton Farrier, forensic genealogist story and I can't wait for the fifth. Read the review here.

The other review was Hazel Edwards memoir, Not Just a Piece of Cake: Being an Author which was easy to read and inspirational. It triggered many memories from my own life and family experiences and it shows that memoirs do not have to be written from birth onwards in chronological order. Read the review here.

So far I am sticking with my resolution to not commit myself to anything ongoing this year but I have been very much tempted by Dear Myrtle's Finally Get Organised weekly checklists for 2016. The first week looks good so I will probably follow on an ad hoc basis rather than signing up.  The benefit of registering is that it does make you more aware of keeping up with the checklists and how much you do always depends on you but with last year's health issues dragging into 2016 I need to be more of an observer.

There are other great blogging participation programs out there so have a Google or check Geneabloggers. A real Aussie one is Trove Tuesday where people blog about their finds on Trove every Tuesday using the hash tag Trove Tuesday. Speaking of Trove, there are lots of great new titles coming up in the next six months. Have a look here to see what will be available by June 2016. The North Queensland papers will be fantastic for my own research.

Where I am speaking between January and June 2016 is now on my website Services & Events page and although I have only have three events listed I am giving ten talks! The second half of the year will be busier including talks during National Family History Month.

Speaking of which, this coming week I have to really start thinking about National Family History Month in August and the new website we will be showing off at the end of January. There has been a good response from some of our usual sponsors but I still need to follow some up and of course, new sponsors are always welcome. I feel sure that our new logo and website will make NFHM 2016 the best ever yet.

It's been a big week with some welcome rain and for the first time in the three years we have been here, we have seen green frogs. Full grown not just babies so very exciting and I have to report they are not the easiest to photograph. Every time I tried to take a photo he hopped further away, it was almost as if he knew.

A big day of gardening down the back revealed a dreaded cane toad, thankfully we have not seen many. It was humanely dispatched according to RSPCA guidelines. The coming week will be warming up so I'm planning on staying inside and doing some genealogy research in the new resources. Have a good genealogy week and hopefully some exciting discoveries! Until next time.

Townsville Cemeteries & Other News - Genealogy Notes 24 - 31 Dec 2015

Well the last week of 2015 went quickly in the blur of Christmas, Boxing Day and the lead up to New Year's Eve. Not a lot of genealogy happened but I did receive some contact from distant cousins on different family lines. One had found my website and blogs on the Jeffers family from Portadown, Armagh and the other my Finn family via Facebook.

Perhaps my most fantastic genealogy discovery in all of 2015 was the family bible of my GGG grandmother Sarah Fegan nee Cane. I only got to see this wonderful treasure because a distant cousin on a collateral line had read my blog posts on the Finn and Fegan families of County Wicklow, Ireland. We met, exchanged information and I held this bible in my hands and felt a connection to someone who had only been a name with basic information on my family tree. It was a fantastic moment.

I have lost count now of the number of times I have made contact with people I suspect I could never have tracked down (at least not easily) simply because they have done a Google search. It really is fantastic but I know lots of people who have no online social media presence. Imagine how much we could discover if everyone blogged their stories or posted interests on social media.

The other wonderful thing about Facebook for genealogy is that 'friends' post links to new resources or to things they have discovered which can be of relevance to my own research. Just this week the link for the Townsville cemeteries was in a Facebook post by the Queensland Family History Society and my mother's family were from Charters Towers and then Townsville. Mum's sister Alice died in 1920 as an infant but I was never sure which city and as it was not a direct line I had not purchased her birth or death certificates. A quick check of the Belgian Gardens cemetery list revealed that Alice Dorothy Price was buried there and that she was only seven months old at the time of her death.

A bonus was that she was buried with her aunt Elizabeth Ann Price who had died at the age of 26 years. I had purchased Elizabeth's death certificate as I was curious to see what she had died of. Therefore I knew she was buried in Belgian Gardens but not that she shared a grave with the niece she never lived to see. There were other Price family members there and I was able to add new information on collateral lines. It was good to revisit this family and I probably would not have done it without the Facebook prompt.

I finally wrapped up my personal genealogy blog challenge 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2015 - it was a hard decision to combine the final nine topics but I want to start 2016 fresh. Read Final Post to discover the remaining topics. Thanks to everyone who followed this blog challenge and commented with their own tips and sources.

 I love this time of year as my hibiscus blooms really well, although it has been very dry. The incredibly windy conditions, coupled with the dry spell, means that we have lost quite a few palm fronds so there is a bit of garden work coming up this weekend. I also need to repot my orchids after their beautiful blooms in 2015, they seem to have doubled in size since I last looked.

Early morning or late afternoon jobs which mean that I can settle down in the heat of the day to catch up on my reading of e-journals. When one of my subscription journals comes in, I download and save to read another time. I'm usually busy doing something else to read them immediately.

But so often I forget to go back and read - it is not like the physical pile of journals, magazines and books which is a constant reminder to catch up. I need a better system to work out what my e-reading priorities are - perhaps if I do a list as they come in and then cross the issue off when I have read it? Does anyone have a system that works?

I have avoided any new resolutions or aspirations for 2016 as 2015 was so full of unexpected events that totally hijacked my genealogy intentions, as well as every other aspect of my life. At this stage I am going to go with the flow and embrace the opportunities as they come up and thanks to my social media presence, I suspect I will be very busy with lots of great genealogy discoveries in 2016.

May everyone have a fantastic genealogy adventure in 2016. Until next time.