Webinars, Virtual Conferences & Family Discoveries: Australian & New Zealand Genealogy News October/November 2021

 

Diary is changing again. That doesn't mean that I am again getting out more in person to genealogy events but it does signify that I am looking to record more of my own family history. Over the last few months I have had more opportunity to do my own research (what a luxury) and I am finding more things that I want to share with other researchers. 

Sometimes I do that on Twitter or Facebook but it is not always easy to find things again on social media. Another place I am talking about my genealogy finds and tips is at the two monthly meetings of Bribie Genealogy which are not recorded. By putting these finds in a blog post I can use Google to help me find topics of interest. 

The aim will be a weekly summary of what I have been researching, any tips or tricks and of course, any success stories. This is partly possible as we are entering the quiet part of the genealogy world in Australia as everything slows down for Christmas/New Year and the January holiday period. 

Future Proofing Your Research

I have written quite a bit about my own attempts at this on my website blog and I am still on my mission to downsize and make my research more accessible online.

This is definitely at the forefront of my mind as I have been asked to assess a donation of records to the Genealogical Society of Queensland. It is five large archive boxes of research in no particular order. Societies cannot take large collections of manuscript material, especially if there is no order or easy access. 

By doing my own downsizing and writing up my research I hope to avoid this situation and to give copies of my digital research to multiple groups/people or make it freely available online. The trick is to do all of that before it is too late. 

In a dedicated push over the last few weeks I have been simply writing up my family history from my folders and database. Looking up and adding citations and wondering why didn't I do that 20 something years ago! 

Basically ending up with an outline of the family back home and the family and their descendants here in Australia. 

All similar formats at this stage but I have one draft for each immigrant couple. Now to add photos, edit, polish up and add anything else that should be in the history. There is a definite sense of satisfaction in looking at the printed copies and I can visualise the images and flow of the text. Now to keep the focus and go from draft to final.

The binders are slowly disappearing!

New Resources

In October FamilySearch added electoral rolls 1865 to 1957 for New Zealand. Over 900,000 names and one of my grandfather's brothers, Thomas Price, spent time there with his family. Another item on the follow up list.

In October Findmypast expanded their exclusive collection of Catholic parish registers with over 100,000 records covering 59 parishes across Cornwall, Devon & Dorset.  Published online for the first time in association with Diocese of Plymouth, this valuable new resource spans 1781-1921 and includes;

• Over 55,000 baptisms
• Over 16,000 marriages
• Over 15,000 burials
• Over 15,000 congregational records

Each record includes both a transcript and scanned colour image of the original document. How good is that!

Webinars and Virtual Conferences

FamilySearch run free monthly webinars on a whole range of topics including how to use the various resources within FamilySearch, European, plus a range of topics on British Isles, Asia, US and Canada genealogy. Check out what is on in November here. Scotland is definitely the focus this month and even within a country grouping you can find generic topics such as Organising Your Genealogy which is in the US section. I tend to learn something new from each webinar.

For example I registered for the latest Scottish Indexes Conference which are run regularly and are free. As a result of revisiting some of my Scottish research and following up tips from different speakers I found the burial record of my 8th great grandmother. Just because it is a Scottish Indexes conference doesn't mean that it is all about Scotland, I have heard Welsh and DNA talks. Check out the programs, there may just be a talk that will solve your brick wall.  The last Scottish Indexes Conference is on 5 December 2021, details on the home page.

What's Coming Up?

At the time of writing this post I am at the Virtual Genealogical Association annual conference, virtual of course, and I have just presented a talk on the Australian gold rushes and how miners from all over the world flocked here in the 1850s. I have until March to watch all the other speakers and there is a wide range of topics.

My last presentation for 2021 is at THE Genealogy Show Winter Event in December and I will be talking about asylum records in Australia. Live on stage in a virtual world. 

I have just added my 2022 presentations to the Events page of my website. There is a gap around May/June as I am hoping to go to Sweden and see my first grandchild. 

Perhaps a spot of research in the UK while I am over there. No firm plans yet as the Queensland border has yet to come down and governments are still sorting out their restrictions, I will wait a bit longer before finalising anything.

Good luck with your own research. Stay safe and well. Until next time.

A Geneafeast of Conferences & Other News: Australia and New Zealand Genealogy News September 2021

What a wonderful month for even more virtual genealogy events. 

One weekend I was trying to watch three different events and I didn't want to miss any of the talks. Luckily most events now record and allow you to watch over the next week or so.

Plus it is now spring time down under and there are flowers everywhere. 

My favourite double hibiscus. It keeps flowering all year.

Books

Now reading the final (5th) volume of Conn Iggulden historical saga on the family history of Genghis Khan through to his grandson Kublai Khan. A great read and hard to put down at times. It was a hard life for their women and children and I especially found the details around camp life interesting. 

Bribie Genealogy

September saw us permitted to meet in person again which was good. David Barnes shared at the Friday meeting how he organises his family history records and at the Monday night he walked us through the Tier One level of Gedmatch for DNA results. 

Good to see everyone in person again and some of us even shared a lunch.

Conferences

The NSW & ACT Association of Family History Societies conference With Conviction was virtual but hosted by Port Macquarie. There were some interesting talks and I really liked Michelle Patient's Celebrating Cousins and Cate Pearce's Using DNA for Aboriginal Family History. In the virtual goody bag, you could download handouts provided by speakers, a digital copy of Traces magazine and other useful leaflets and forms. Next year will be in the Maitland/Newcastle area and I really hope to make this one in person. Although I have been to Newcastle many times, I never knew that it was the home of Dad's biological families. Will also spend additional time for family research and see what more I can learn.

The Professional Historians Association Queensland conference also went virtual and I missed a weekend stay in Brisbane. All the papers were interesting and stimulating and it was not surprising to me to see that so many professional historians now use genealogy resources. Probably because there is so much more online now.

Legacy Family Tree Webinars declared it Webtember with free webinars throughout the month. Some great sessions were on offer. Personally I have a subscription as it is such a good learning resource and not that expensive. Makes a good birthday/Christmas present each year if the family are looking to buy you something. 

Finally I went to the Irish Lives Female Finds virtual conference hosted by the Ottawa Branch of the Ontario Society, Canada. Don't you just love the capability of Zoom. Sessions were recorded so I didn't have to stay up all night. The Irish DNA talks were related to my own family research on Islandmagee, Antrim and I won one of the lucky door prizes, a year's full subscription to MyHeritage.

New Resources

It was exciting to see the list below of new digitised newspapers at Findmypast, especially if you have London ancestors. Every time I see these updates I want to do new searches but I try to limit it to a couple of times a year. Below is the notice in the Leicester Chronicle on 31 January 1846 reporting on the death of Paul Spencer's first wife. Elizabeth was only 24 years old, and it also gave her father's name. So much information can be discovered in newspapers.

• Chelsea & Pimlico Advertiser covering 1860-1863 and 1865-1866
• East London Advertiser covering 1862-1866
• Kingsland Times and General Advertiser covering 1860 and 1862-1863
• West London Times covering 1860-1861, 1863-1864 and 1866-1867
• Westminster Times covering 1863

While additional pages have been added to the following titles:

• Albion from 1852
• Birkenhead News from 1914
• British Banner from 1850-1851, 1854 and 1856
• Croydon Times from 1934-1947, 1950 and 1952-1961
• Daily Director and Entr’acte from 1860
• Daily News (London) from 1922-1923, 1925 and 1927
• Limerick Reporter from 1849
• Liverpool Daily Post from 1858-1859
• Morning Herald (London) from 1808
• Sheffield Independent from 1929

Talks

As we come up to the end of the year I only have three more talks - all virtual even though two of those talks are in Australia. All talks are listed on the Events page of my website. 

What's Coming Up

At the October evening meeting of Bribie Genealogy I am doing a presentation Downsize and Pass On Your Family Research based on my own experiences of trying to downsize 45 years of personal genealogy. 

I first started the project two years ago and progress is not as fast as I expected. Time is not always our friend, even in lockdowns. Making decisions and simply sorting papers and digitising photos takes time.

My other task is to follow up all the tips I wrote down during all those September webinars. Perhaps I won't watch so many in October? 

Take care and stay safe and happy researching. 

National Family History Month & Other News: Australia & New Zealand Genealogy August 2021

 Wow what a fantastic month for genealogy. So many great events and with so many virtual, it was easy to attend events without travel costs. National Family History Month (NFHM) is over but with ongoing lockdowns and nowhere to travel to, we still have plenty of time for family history.

Blogs

First pair of shoes, still in the wardrobe!

I managed to do two blogs during August. First there was Genealife in Lock Down and I followed that up with Tossing Out the Binders which was the result of last year's lock downs. Both are on the blog page of my website. 

When I look around at everything still in my study, I don't think I am doing too well with this downsizing project. Plus there are the memorabilia you don't know what to do with - do I take photos of Mum and Dad's 21st keys and then toss the originals? What about Mum's wedding dress? 

Every time I open the study wardrobe, my first pair of shoes are there on the shelf Why can't I toss?

But when I look at my achievements, I realise how far I have come in what is basically a very slow process when you have 44 years of research to downsize.  

Books

Weeding the bookshelves is part of the overall project and many books have been given away or put aside to give to others. It's not a rash decision in that the piles stay there for a week or so to allow me to change my mind. There is also a small pile that I want to read or read again before making a decision. Of course, at the end I will have to go into my LibraryThing account and update my books and shelving locations. 

Does anyone else pick up a book and wonder why they bought it? Or believe the price they paid for it? Why have I got so many unread books? 

Bribie Genealogy

Both of our August meetings were cancelled due to Covid lockdown and we managed to Zoom the Friday meeting with Helen Smith who spoke about doing DNA plans for research. Sadly there was no lunch post meeting which is always a fun time with our guest speakers. For context on a segment later in this post, Bribie Genealogy does not have a physical home but we have free use of a room at the local RSL for our monthly meetings, complete with wifi. We don't have subscriptions or a journal/newsletter and we usually send out slides from presentations to members, or Zoom recordings if no physical meeting. So we are a virtual society with physical meetings when we can.

Fingers crossed that the September meetings go ahead.

DNA

Who was my Dad's father?

Excited to learn that I have a 2nd cousin on Dad's side and it looks like my hypothesis and prime suspect might be correct. Although I would like to see more matches on that family line. Interestingly they share more DNA with me than my brother. It is good to do the comparisons.

New Resources

My main source for what's new or new to me this month has been all the webinars or Zoom meetings that I have attended. I always try to learn at least one new thing from a talk but lately I am ending up with a page of 'must follow up' notes. 

For example, Fiona Brooker gave a good talk on the 1939 Register (UK) and that made me realise I have not gone looking for any descendants of common ancestors for most of Mum's families. No doubt that would help with DNA matches too.

Talks

My advanced Irish genealogy course continued via Zoom as Bribie U3A never opened up for third term due to Covid restrictions. Not quite the same as in person, round the table but certainly better than nothing. The other plus is that I can record the sessions and attendees can play them back and do their own searches at the same time.

My talk at the opening event of NFHM is still on the Webinars page until the end of September if you want to watch. It was looking at the future of genealogy post Covid and what role societies might have. It certainly caused a lot of discussion on the night and afterwards I suspect. I loved this comment from a New Zealand person: I was most impressed with Shauna's presentation (clever intelligent Lady) even more so, with how Bribie local Genealogy Societies and how they cope without a main Genealogy Society or base.

Mum's teenage diary 

I gave a Zoom presentation to Caloundra Family History Research on using diaries and letters for family history which was well received. Although I do like travelling to their meetings as their afternoon teas are pretty good but Covid put an end to that. The slides are on the Resources page of my website.

My last talk was a tips and tricks Zoom session on how to use Australian archives which I offered as part of NFHM. Attendees got the recording afterwards so that they could just relax during the talk.

What's Coming Up

The Association of Professional Genealogists conference is virtual over three months so that more people can attend and I have enjoyed the first two days. 

Another Zoom session, this time with Family History ACT on Writing and Sharing Family Stories which is a four speaker seminar. My session is on blogging family stories but other sessions are on charts as stories, doing a book using Family Tree Maker software and what is involved in self publishing and how to set up your manuscript. 

The Professional Historians Association Queensland conference has moved to virtual but that will occupy me over a weekend. The part I really miss is catching up with people in person and I was looking forward to a couple of nights in Brisbane. 

Similarly I am attending the NSW & ACT conference in Port Macquarie via Zoom instead of the long drive down. They decided early on to be a virtual event which proved to be the right decision given NSW's current Covid situation. 

I know a few family history people out there that still do not want to learn to Zoom or attend live webinars. However, I honestly don't think life is going back to how it was before. We have to adjust to the changing times and take advantage of technology as now is, in some ways, another boom time for genealogy. Attending overseas conferences has never been easier or cheaper. Try it and you won't be sorry for learning yet another techno skill.

Until next time, happy searching. Stay safe and well.