Cousin Bait, Blogging, Talks & Other News - Genealogy Notes 19 -28 Feb 2018

Full on the last few weeks with time out for talks and a couple of trips to Brisbane. The whole of summer seems to have flown past although the start of autumn still seems hot and humid. While browsing the local bottle shop for some birthday party wine, I came across this wine label and I simply had to buy the bottle. Luckily I like red wine! Who would have thought we would be using convict photos to sell wine?

Articles

Managed to get my monthly article to The In-Depth Genealogist for their Going In-Depth digital journal in on time despite the short month, those 2-3 days make a difference. This time I was looking at the wonderful digital resources on the State Library of Western Australia's website and last month it was State Library of Victoria. We really do have some wonderful libraries offering free access to key genealogical resources. Both articles will appear in future issues of Going In-Depth.

I was also excited to be asked to do a Q&A for Traces magazine which made it's debut at Christmas. It has taken over the now defunct Inside History magazine and many of our favourite pieces are still in the new magazine. The website is worth a visit as some of the old Q&A content from Inside History is on the Traces website and the advice is still good advice.

Cousin Bait (aka blogging)

Maria Jeffers

I first wrote Letters Home - My Irish Families in March 2010, eight years ago which doesn't seem possible, and I am still being contacted by people who are related to the Jeffers family. Just this week there was another email from yet another unknown branch. Blogging and Google make it so easy for distant relatives to make contact. Anyone doing a Google search on Jeffers from Portadown will find my blog post and me. Amazing and I'm surprised that not everyone is telling their stories online.

My U3A class this week discussed the issues with putting your info online and how some simply take and never acknowledge which is disheartening. So I guess that has to be weighed against the benefits of finding people you would never be able to track down easily or cheaply. I never put everything online which encourages people to make contact and that's always a plus.

Resources

With many mining families, both in Australia and in England, I was excited to see that Find My Past has added England, Mining Disaster Victims. There are over 9000 transcripts from four counties - Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire. I really wanted Staffordshire as one of my direct ancestors was killed in a mine accident, (from the burial register) but so far I haven't been able to find a reference to the accident in the newspapers. 

There are so many new collections going online all the time it is hard to keep up with everything. Repeat searches are a must.

Thanks to Queensland Family History Society March enewsletter Snippets I found out that New Zealand was also sending its convicts to Australia - a fascinating article Soldiers Thieves Maori Warriors: the New Zealand convicts sent to Australia by Kristyn Harman. Back issues of Snippets are online and always some good tips.

Talks

My talk on Weaving Your Stories on the Web at Arana Hills Library went well with a very enthusiastic audience all keen to either start a blog or improve what they are already doing. Moreton Libraries have indicated they might get me to do it at some of their other libraries later in the year. As usual my presentation is on my website Resources page - scroll down to Presentations.

What's Coming Up?

I can't believe Congress 2018 is next week in Sydney where I, and 599 other delegates, will experience some fantastic talks, catch up with friends and spend money at the exhibitors stalls. I fly to Sydney on Thursday and hope to collect my Congress satchel at the Society of Australian Genealogists in Kent Street before they close Thursday afternoon. That way I will beat the rush on Friday morning. Plus I always like to go through the goodies before the Congress starts.

I will be too busy over the four days, attending sessions and giving two of my own talks. So there won't be daily blog updates but there will be daily reviews once I'm back. Flying home on Monday night so it will be a late night and probably a sleep in, but then straight on to blogging all the news and excitement.

This coming week I need to prepare two U3A sessions - Fleshing Out the Family and Some Different Websites for Genealogy so that I don't have to panic when I get back. The sessions are popular and there are so many on the waiting list that we have decided to dispense with tables in the room and just have chairs. This should double the numbers next term. I send my session notes via email so we don't use the tables and it will be nice to have new faces and a wider pool of experience.

If you are going to Congress, I will see you there. If not, have a fun week searching for those ancestors.

Geneafiction, Freebies, Cornwall & Local Talks - Genealogy Notes 29 Jan - 18 Feb 2018

We had a week away tuning in to nature instead of technology which was fantastic. So much more relaxed but of course you do have to come back and read those emails, blogs and open up those bills. I hardly ever get mail via Australia Post these days and no more paper cuts!

It also means that there was nothing to report last week although I will comment on the book I read while lazing around. This week has been catch up and trying to get organised for some events coming up soon.

Blogs
GeniAus' blog post Getting Conference Ready was a wake up call that Congress 2015 is almost upon us. I'm not going to Rootstech 2018 like so many of my other geneafriends but I will be following it via social media. It starts in a week or so and Congress a week or so after that. An exciting geneamonth coming up.

But back to the post - lots of good tips for newbies to Congress and a good reminder to old hands as we always want to try and fit in more than we possibly can over the four days. Already there are additional meetings, breakfast, lunch and dinner gatherings for various groups and you really can't go to everything. Plus you also want to just chat with geneafriends you only ever see at Congress every three years.

My tips are comfy shoes as there is a lot of walking and standing, money/credit card, business cards, notebook and pens (I'm a Luddite), camera, and try not to make your bag too heavy. I carry an across the chest bag to help distribute the weight more and not burden my shoulder/neck.

Freebies
It's a while since I mentioned genEbooks but they offer a free download and this month's caught my eye - Ranks and Badges in the Australian and American Navy, Army and RAAF published ca 1943. It should be useful to help identify uniforms in family photos. It's a simple process to download, even easier if you are already registered which saves entering your email etc. You can usually find the free download in with the specials.

Rootstech 2018 is where about 30,000 genealogists will gather for four days of talks, explore or is that be enticed by exhibitors  and catch up with old friends and meet new ones. Probably more than 100,000 people will also participate remotely via livestreams and social media. The world's biggest geneaevent.

Check out the livestream schedule and remember to convert to your local time. If it is not too inconvenient time wise, you might want to attend some of the sessions. You need to register or you can wait till it is over and watch at your leisure.

My preference is to watch afterwards without the pressure of a busy week during Rootstech. You can still watch some of the 2017 sessions for free.

Reading
While on hols I read Marie Benedict's Carnegie's Maid which is a fictional story of an Irish maid who worked for the Carnegie family. While my grandmother on Dad's side was a Carnegie there is no connection to Andrew Carnegie and his family (unfortunately). The story is presented through the eyes of the Irish servant and how she was forced to leave Ireland and her family to seek work in the US to help her family. She connects up with Irish cousins who went before and sees their struggles to adjust to life in their new homeland.

We also see what life was like for the servants and what type of tasks they were asked to perform. As a lady's maid, the book's heroine has to help her mistress dress, undress, hair, makeup and accompany her places. Today we find it strange that people didn't brush their own hair or put their own hand cream on. It was an interesting insight into that type of world. I never give away the key story but this was a nice lighthearted look at the trials of being a lady's maid in the mid to late 19th century. 

I simply love geneafiction and once started, rarely put a book down until finished. So it was good to pick up some genealogical fiction 'must read' from Janet Few's blog post Genealogical Sleuths - Fiction for you to enjoy on the In-Depth Genealogist. I'm already a fan of Nathan Dylan Goodwin's genealogical books but there are some new authors for me to follow up.

Resources
There are always new resources each week and it can be hard to keep up with things. The best way I find is to subscribe to free emails that give you weekly updates from Ancestry, Findmypast, MyHeritage and FamilySearch or smaller national/state archives and libraries.

For example, this week FamilySearch added collections for Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, England, Panama, Russia and Slovakia. Now most of those countries don't interest me but the English collection was Cornwall parish registers 1538-2010 with almost 500,000 indexed entries. I usually use the Cornwall Online Parish Clerk but will also check out this new FamilySearch collection. I was also surprised to see that BillionGraves is now in FamilySearch as that is another resource used frequently.

What's Coming Up?
My immediate priority is a talk on blogging for family history which is 21 February at Arana Hills Library. There is a sizable audience already registered to learn the benefits of blogging - not only capturing your own family stories but also learning from the experiences of others. It should be a good afternoon and I just hope I don't get too lost again. Arana Hills Library is one of those places that is tucked away in suburbia. It is also the most far flung of the Moreton Region Libraries, almost Brisbane!

Then of course I have the weekly preparations for the Advanced Family History Session I tutor at Bribie U3A. It's another enthusiastic group and we are covering a wide range of topics suggested by those attending.

Plus I'm starting to work through my Congress 2018 preparations to make sure everything is ready to go. I don't think I will do any live blogging while there, too busy having fun but I will write up my adventures on the return home.

Have another great genealogy week. Until next time.

Samuel Plimsoll (ship), new archive releases, free webinars & other news - Genealogy Notes 21-28 Jan 2018

Last week I said that I would randomly review one of my families and see if I could take it back further in Hampshire and Wiltshire. Well there were some deaths post 1837 that might be mine but the information on UK death certificates is not going to confirm that unless my ancestor was the informant. So I haven't paid out any money yet.

All Saints parish church, Winterslow, Wiltshire
image Trish Steel via Wikipedia

On the plus side I did find digitised images of parish church records in Ancestry.  My GGGGG grandmother Hester Parrick's baptism was in 1727 and she married in 1747. Her mother (that's 6 Gs) Martha Parrick was buried in 1742, all in Winterslow, Wiltshire. Amazing that I can sit here and view these images. Somehow it makes my ancestors seem more real.

I also like to read up on a place and find Wikipedia useful for a quick overview of a parish. Plus there is usually a map showing where in the county a parish is located and a photograph of the parish church. Check out the entry for Winterslow.
Blogs
Rootsfinder asked for permission to reuse one of my Trove Tuesday blog posts from last year in their How I Solved It series. Which Trove Tuesday blog post did they choose? It was the one where I found my great grandfather's accidental death, not by name (Thomas Price) but by the place name because the journalist recorded the wrong name (William Price)! Read the Rootsfinder post here and why not check out some of the other blog posts in this series for other ideas.

And speaking of Trove Tuesday, I managed to do my first Trove Tuesday blog post for 2018. It was a wonderful find - Samuel Plimsoll (ship) 1878 illustrated sketches. Thomas Price, paragraph above, arrived on the Samuel Plimsoll with his new bride Elizabeth Judge in Sydney in 1878. I'd previously located reports of the voyage out but on rechecking, I discovered these fantastic sketches. It might pay to see what else is under the Illustrated filter!

Education
The internet provides so many ways to learn more about genealogy and family history and how to improve our searching skills. FamilySearch conduct free webinars on a monthly basis and you can see what's coming up in February here. Handouts from past webinars can also be downloaded and some of the sessions on using various aspects of FamilySearch more effectively are quite useful.

Reading

Although it arrived a few weeks back, I have finally sat down to have a good read of Traces: uncovering the past. This is a new magazine and Volume 1 reminded me a lot of Inside History which I also loved reading.

This is what the cover is like if you are trying to locate it in a newsagent. I've taken up a subscription as there are not a lot of newsagents on the Island and the range of genealogy/history magazines is not great. One of the things I miss about not living in a big city.

Sources
Once upon a time in my archives work life, I used to get excited about the 1st of January as that was the day new access releases were made. So this completely slipped my mind this year but there are another year of BDMs to search, and more items opened up in our state archives.

Public Record Office Victoria usually does a very handy list or blog post and this year it is an extremely interesting read with some great photos. Check out New Archival Records to Explore at PROV. There is also a complete list of all new releases under their Section 9 openings. If nothing else, the list will give you a wonderful idea of what can be found in our state archives.

What's Coming Up

Apparently the summer holidays are over, and the Bribie U3A resumes this coming week. On the grapevine I heard that my advanced family history class on Wednesday afternoon is fully booked and there is a waiting list. There has even been the odd email asking can I sneak someone in.

I also go to the local history class on Friday mornings so my weeks will be busier for the next 10 weeks, then the Easter holidays. Reminds me of my school days.

This photo was my first day of school in my new uniform, taken in the back yard. Just to the left of me was the 'old dunny' and it looks like it was before we got the 'hills hoist clothes line' as there is no shadow from it.

Until next time, have a great genealogy week.