DNA connections, blogs as cousin bait & other news - Genealogy Notes 8-15 April 2018

Mum, my brother and I a long long time ago

A lot of the last week was out and about so not a lot of desk time. U3A starts again this week so Wednesday afternoons will be Advanced Family History and Friday mornings Local Bribie History. Two week breaks seem to go so quickly.

Mum had a great 84th birthday with two cakes - one with us and one at the aged care centre. My brother and his son came up for coffee and cake. Then Max and I took Mum to lunch so she could have nachos and a wine, treats not often on the menu!

Blog Reading

My blog post on the Australian Women's Register for The In-Depth Genealogist was listed on Gail Dever's Genealogy a la Carte for 14 Apr 2018. It's always nice to see that people are reading things I write. Plus I like to browse these compilations to pick up other blog posts of interest to my own research.

One I thought would be useful if only I could find a spare day was The Legal Genealogist's post on why we should all find Time to Paint. It's all about DNA Painter and how you can match up known relatives. My problem is not knowing who my relatives are!

Elizabeth Price nee Judge born Pollard

Although blogging about your known relatives can also help connect up in conjunction with DNA testing. A couple of years ago I wrote about my great grandmother Elizabeth Price nee Judge born Pollard - a brick wall that took a while to fall. I also posted a photograph of her.

At the weekend while checking my Ancestry DNA messages I found an email from someone descendant from the same Pollard family in Croughton, Northamptonshire. They had written to tell me how similar my Elizabeth was to her Croughton cousins and sent two photos to show the resemblance.

Blogging is definitely cousin bait and if you have both done DNA tests and submitted family tree charts then it all comes together quite nicely.

Resources

Kerry Farmer is the Director of the Australian Studies certificate with the National Institute for Genealogical Studies and quite often does free webinars. There is another one on Wednesday morning (18 April at 9am Sydney time) on Trove and how it is more than just digitised newspapers. It is free and open to all but you need to register. There is no user name or password required. Just type in your first and last name and click Enter as a Guest. Link to attend. Kerry usually advertises these on various Facebook sites so keep a watch out in the future.

What's Coming Up?

Thursday is my Sporting Ancestors talk for Caloundra Family History Research. It is always a great monthly meeting and I will also be able to find out what is happening with the Waves In Time Conference in Caloundra in May 2019. This is one of my favourite areas of Queensland and we nearly settled here so it is definitely in my diary for next year. Although it is only an hour and a half  up the highway I will be staying locally to maximise all my networking time with geneafriends.

There is a meeting of the Professional Historians Association of Queensland  at the weekend and it's on the north side of Brisbane so I'm planning to attend.

Until next time, have a great genealogy week!

Oxfordshire Finds, New Books & Other News - Genealogy Notes 1-7 Apr 2018

Instead of writing this blog post over the weekend I was busy searching and finding my Oxfordshire families in Ancestry. It's been quite a few years since I last looked at this family and now the parish they came from has been digitised. Not only can I search for them but I can also see the original parish register images myself. My GGG grandmother was Mary Ann Cooper from Deddington, Oxfordshire and I could find indexed entries for all her siblings but not for her. A little bit of hunting and I discovered her indexed as Gasper which is a bit different from Cooper. This is the 1790s and the handwriting is not always easy to read so be creative when you can't find someone where you expect to.

North end of market place, Deddington, Oxfordshire
with the parish church in the background,
photo courtesy of Motacilla, Wikipedia Commons

It's also useful to then have a look at Wikipedia for an outline of the parish history and any photos. Wikipedia Deddington stated that the parish includes two hamlets - Clifton and Hempton and this helped to explain why I was finding Clifton as a place of birth in the census records.

Understanding the geography of an area and places names are all key to establishing you have the right family. Plus there were some photographs of various buildings in the parish.

When you can't just drive down the road and visit a place, this is the next best thing.


Blogs

John Trevaskis

My second Trove Tuesday blog post for the year was Gone Home to Ireland But Still Remembered Here was a real genealogy find. My great grandmother's brother John Trevaskis was killed in a mining accident in Charters Towers and his wife Mary (nee Kelly) went back to Tipperary, Ireland taking their two children with her. This was about 1906 and when she died in 1944 her son published a death notice in the Townsville Daily Bulletin to let any friends and family know. Thanks to Trove I now know when she died and that she probably still had friends or family in North Queensland.

Thanks also to Crissouli who regularly mentions my blog posts in her weekly Friday Fossicking in That Moment in Time. These weekly roundups have all kinds of links to blogs, resources, news etc so if you are having trouble keeping up, check up her weekly roundup.

Books
Well it was a bonanza week at the post office. Just like Christmas. First Nathan Dylan Goodwin's review copy of The Wicked Trade and the Suffragette's Secret genealogical crime mysteries is sitting here tempting me. I like to read Nathan's books with no distractions so waiting for an opportune time.

Unlock the Past sent author copies of the second edition of my It's Not All Online: a guide to genealogy sources offline and it looks very nice in the new style. Hard to believe that was first published in 2011 and it is still very true today. I have a standing order for any new Unlock the Past titles - I find them very useful for research, talks and keeping myself across a range of genealogy topics. New editions include So You Are Totally New to Family Tree Maker 2017 by John Donaldson; Papers Past New Zealand's Yesteryear Newspapers by Coral Shearer; and Paul Blake's Discover Protestant Nonconformity in England and Wales.

Totally new titles from Unlock the Past include Discover The Poor Law in England and Wales by Paul Blake; Manorial Records for Family Historians by Geoffrey Barber; Hiring a Professional Genealogist You Can Trust by Legacy Tree Genealogists and The Madness of 'Mac' Surnames by Carol Baxter. Yes the whole book is for anyone with a Mac surname and it looks at all of the possible surname variants with lots and lots of examples. All Unlock the Past titles can be purchased online from Gould Genealogy & History as print or e-copies.

U3A
I have been busy doing some talks for the second term of my Advanced Family History class at Bribie U3A in 2018  - there are 10 weeks so rather than a mad weekly panic to have something ready I have prepared sessions in advance. I may even start giving some of these talks in a wider context if they are well received and the students like the approach. Plus there are the presentations from last year which new class members won't have seen. It starts up again next week with about double the numbers we have had previously. I'm a little nervous or perhaps I'm just used to our little group around the table.

What's Coming Up
This is a big week for meetings with the Bribie Island Historical Society on Wednesday and the Bribie Island Family History Group on Thursday. The Society's blog has everything you ever wanted to know about Bribie history and remember a local historical society may have information on your ancestors too. Plus it is Mum's birthday on Saturday and we are hosting coffee and cake here for the family.

This week has been absolutely fabulous for new genealogy information on quite a few of my family lines. So glad I decided to review some of my older research and discover what is now available online. Until next week, have a great genealogy week with lots of exciting finds.

WDYTYA, DNA, & Other News: Genealogy Notes 23-31 Mar 2018

I'm not a fan of acronyms as not everyone knows what they are but they do save you a lot of keystrokes. The two in the title of this post should be familiar to everyone.

This week was the last U3A session for Term 1 and there is a two week break before Term 2 starts. My advanced family history class looks like doubling so I need to do some planning. Many students continue on plus there will be new students which means that I have to balance so that the 'oldies' aren't bored and the 'newbies' are not overwhelmed. Plus I need to keep myself interested otherwise there is no point volunteering to do these sessions. It is actually a great way to keep up to date!

DNA

My Ancestry ethnicity profile

How exciting to be contacted by Chris Paton and be told that we are related! He found me through FamilyTree DNA while looking for connections to his Mitchell family in County Fermanagh. This didn't mean anything to me but looking at some of his other surnames I recognised three from my own grandmother's Irish and Scottish families. Now to work out the connection!

While on the topic, Queensland Family History Society is hosting a seminar with Maurice Gleeson (Irish genetic genealogist amongst other things) on 19 May so a trip to Brisbane is coming up. Maurice is also on the Alaska Unlock the Past cruise that I'm going on in September but this is another opportunity to try and understand my matches.

Genealogy/family history societies have an active education program so check out your local society and see what speakers or seminars are coming up. They are great opportunities to learn something new as well as chatting to like minded people about your family history problems, or perhaps you can help someone with their brick walls.

Blogs/Articles

The Congress satchel

The Genealogical Society of Queensland invited me to do a guest post on the recent Sydney Congress 2018 for those who couldn't attend. It will be posted on 2 April on their weekly blog. Some of the other posts might interest you too.

I also managed to get my monthly blog post for The In-Depth Genealogist in on time as well as my monthly article.  The deadline is always the end of the month and despite my good intentions of doing it early in the month, I always seem to be hovering around the very end!

With all my Congress 2018 blog reports finished, I'm hoping to do a Trove Tuesday blog post this week. It's been a while since my last one - January to be precise on the Samuel Plimsoll. So much for doing one a month but the last two months have been busy and I was away from home twice.

Resources
Thanks to Carmel (Library Currants) we have a handy website that allows you to customise a tombstone for your blog posts, articles or family histories. Try out Tombstone Builder. I quite often pick up nice little tips from Carmel's blog Library Currants so if you haven't seen it before have a look.

Ancestry have added the New Zealand police gazettes 1878-1945 and I love police gazettes because you can find out all kinds of unknown family snippets. Yes you might find a crime or a desertion but there were also missing friends/family and of course victims. My great uncle managed to have his bicycle stolen not once but twice and I would not have known this without browsing Queensland police gazettes.

If you don't have an Ancestry subscription you may have access to it through your local council library or your nearest genealogy/family history society. One of my families spent time in New Zealand so this Easter I will be checking out the New Zealand police gazettes just in case!

Television
Who has time for television when you are a family historian? There are a few shows I like to watch and one of my favourites is starting a new series on 19 April on SBS - the 9th series of the Australian WDYTYA. Celebrities include Justine Clarke, Ernie Dingo, Noni Hazlehurst, Natalie Imbruglia, John Jarratt, Todd McKenney, Patti Newton and Charlie Teo. The 8th season went to air in 2016 so it has been a long wait but I'm ready and excited.

What's Coming Up

My orchids Easter 2015

It's Easter which means some of my orchids are in flower but they are not as spectacular (must be all that rain we have had this year) as they were when I took this photo. It's in a much larger pot now so I was hoping for more blooms. Perhaps a dash of fertiliser!

Apart from gardening I like to get out and about and my next talk is at Caloundra Family History Research on 19 April with a presenatation on Sporting Ancestors.

Enjoy the Easter long weekend with family and friends, try not to eat too much chocolate and do spend your time on your family history. I hope you have some fabulous finds.

Until next time