Wiltshire discoveries, new resources & seminars - Genealogy Notes 1-15 Oct 2018

Herbert White (far left) was from Wiltshire

Still coughing as this chest infection seems reluctant to go. The weather has been a bit wet and perfect for staying indoors and doing research.

There have been some exciting new discoveries with my Wiltshire ancestors when I found out that Ancestry have added lots of records from the Wiltshire Record Office.

It really does pay to go back and look at your research from time to time as new records are indexed and made available. In this instance there were images which is even more exciting. I pushed back one of my Wiltshire families another generation.


Blogs

My guest blog post for the Genealogical Society of Queensland on the benefits of genealogy cruising will be posted next Monday. I enjoyed doing that as it brought back all those wonderful Alaska cruise memories, pre chest infection. Just happy I made it home to be sick, nothing worse than being sick while travelling.

Docked in Alaska

DNA

I equate bed rest with also sitting in front of a laptop and so some hours were also spent trying to analyse my DNA results and sort out those only related to Mum. Anything else must be Dad's and surprisingly Dad has about three times the results of Mum. If only I had some family names to match or his DNA for closer results. With Mum's I can see which results relate to our Cornish families on her mother's side and which ones relate to families on her father's side.

The DNA workshop at Bribie Island was good as I learnt a few more tips for analysis so it really is the more you listen/learn, the more sense results make. Especially if you have all your family names.

Education 

A while back I did the free online genealogy course with Future Learn (University of Strathclyde) and enjoyed it as well as learning new things or being reminded of things I had forgotten. Just noticed they have another free course starting on 5 November 2018. Only six weeks but covers a lot of topics - have a look at the program and see if it interests you.

New Resources

Outside the study window - so distracting!

It is almost impossible to keep up with all the new resources being added to the major genealogy sites. Findmypast have added electoral rolls for the UK 1920-1932 and more newspapers have been added plus existing titles have been added to.

FamilySearch have added FindAGrave and BillionGraves indexes which mean that you get prompts to check those sites out for names that you search for in FamilySearch.

The Ancestry update told me that they now have New Zealand naturalizations from 1843-1981 which is great for those with European ancestors. My NZ connections were all British.

It is definitely useful to subscribe to the update enews as you just don't know what will be relevant to your own research.


Talks

I managed to do my talk on Making the Most of Trove for the Bribie Island Family History Group with the help of cough lozenges, lots of water and an understanding audience. The presentation is on the Resources page of my website, scroll down to Presentations.

Three more talks coming up next week and then it will only be U3A talks for the rest of the year (which isn't that long to go).

What's Coming Up

Caloundra Family History Research have a one day seminar on 10 November with the theme End of World War 1: The Soldiers Come Home. Four speakers, morning and afternoon tea and a light lunch for the modest cost of $30 if you are a member of a reciprocal genealogy group or $35 for others. Bookings and further details are available on their website. Unfortunately I will be away that week so I am missing out! They are also hosting the Waves in Time conference next May and I will definitely be there for that.

Most genealogy and family history societies run excellent education programs and if you are not a member of a local society you are missing out on some great opportunities to learn and network with other geneafans.

Next week is a super busy week with talks and then a short visit to family. After that the plan is to start writing up some of my family stories in the six weeks left of 2018. Until next time, try and have some time with your ancestors.

Alaska cruise reports, SA school pupils & other news - Genealogy Notes 16-30 Sep 2018

That cold I hinted at last Diary turned into a rather nasty chest infection which meant a lot of bed rest and avoiding anything that was going to make me cough. Luckily it was the U3A term break so I didn't have to worry about getting someone to take my place and there were no other talks planned.

Blogs

Visiting Juneau Sep 2018

The down time did give me the opportunity to do some blog posts on my US/Canada trip.
Read the Seattle DNA/Irish one day seminar report here.
Read the two part report on the Alaska Genealogy cruise here - Part 1 and Part 2.

I have also been asked to do a guest blog for the Genealogical Society of Queensland on the benefits of genealogy cruising and that's due week after next.

Resources
There are always new resources being released on the mega database sites but I was particularly excited to see that FamilySearch have just added South Australian school admission registers 1873-1985. Indexed Queensland school admission registers have been on FindMyPast for some time having been indexed by the Queensland Family History Society.

They also added the England & Wales national index to wills 1858-1957 which has been available elsewhere but the advantage of having a lot of these big indexes all together in a supersite is that sometimes you get surprises in the search results. How you search and who you are searching for can vary which is why I always try and do the same search in a variety of places.

Spencer family, South Australia

One way to keep up with all these new releases is to get the free email news from the various sites although it does lead to more email and of course, once you see an exciting new resource, there goes the rest of the day/evening while you check it out.

What's Coming Up

Next week is a super busy genealogy week - there is a two hour workshop on DNA analysis at the Bribie Library, the first week of U3A term 4 and I am giving a session on searching UK archives and finding records online and I am giving a talk to the local Bribie Island Family History Group at the RSL. I always like doing those as we go to lunch afterwards and the genealogy chat continues.

On 19-20 October 2018 the Unlock the Past team are presenting a two day DNA/Irish seminar in Brisbane with lots of my favourite speakers including Richard Reid, Louise Coakley, Kerry Farmer and others. There is also a Family Tree Maker stream for those who use that program. See the full list of speakers and provisional program here.

I have a blogging presentation at Strathpine Library on 23 October and I am one of the speakers at the Genealogical Society of Queensland's annual seminar on 27 October so it is a very busy genealogy month in Brisbane and surrounds. At least I won't be short of blogging topics!

Have a wonderful time with the latest resources and check out what is on at your local library and genealogy society. Attending talks and workshops is a great way to learn and make new friends. Until next time

Alaska Update, DNA & Other News - Genealogy Notes 1-15 Sep 2018

Well I am back home after 16 days in Canada and the USA. It was a wonderful trip with some great scenery and experiences. Plus it was a digital detox for the whole time - no laptop, phone, tablet, or social media for 16 days. It is a great way just to be in the present and not miss anything because you are too busy sending Facebook/Twitter posts or writing up blogs. The only negative is that I appear to have caught a cold but then quite a few on the cruise seemed to have a bit of something that was going around. At least I am home and it didn't impact on the holiday.

Explorer of the Seas at Juneau 

Alaska Cruise 
This was 7 days with the Unlock the Past team and attendees from the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Had a fantastic time catching up with past cruise mates and making new friends. As usual I will blog the genealogy learnings separately, probably in two blog posts as we had two full genealogy days, a half day plus a nightly lecture. Hope to have them done during the next week. The two talks that I presented - Finding Pictorial Images and Caring for Family Archives are on the Resources page of my website, scroll down to Presentations.

DNA News
There were lots of sessions on DNA as part of the cruise program and one of the things I picked up was that you can upload your Family Tree DNA raw data into MyHeritage for free. To find as many matches as you can you need to have your data placed in all the various sites as you don't know where potential cousins may have tested. So one of the first things I did since returning home is to upload my raw data to MyHeritage. While catching up with my blog post reading, I noticed that The Legal Genealogist wrote MyHeritage DNA Changes - and Deadline and the option will only be free until 1 December 2018. So don't wait.

Seattle's famous Sky Needle

Seattle Conference
This was held the day before the cruise left and it was mostly DNA talks by Blaine Bettinger with some Irish talks by Maurice Gleeson and a how to dig deeper on the web with Cyndi Ingle. Another great day and a chance to meet fellow cruisers and others before we sailed. A blog post on this is also on the way. While in Seattle I also took the opportunity to do a bit of sightseeing and learn more about the First Nations people who lived in the area.

Tillicum Village, Blake Island, Seattle

What's Coming Up?
Back to Bribie U3A on Wednesday for the last class for third term. The 'students' have asked for a free ranging talk on my Alaska learnings so that will be a lot of fun. Should also help me to start thinking about what to include in my blog posts on the cruise.

On Thursday as part of the Moreton Region Older and Bolder program I am on a walking tour of Bribie's World War 2 involvement when various forts and other military buildings were erected as part of the defence of Brisbane. It should be interesting.

Then there are two weeks holiday from U3A although I will be preparing the sessions for Term 4. It is Advanced Family History so I'm planning something a little different for the final term for the year.

No talks until October so that gives me a chance to catch up on other things and to get over the last two weeks of travelling where I did over 25,000 km. No wonder I feel tired although the head cold probably has something to do with that.

Until next time, have a great time researching.