New WDYTYA Australian series, Cite-Builder & Other Genealogy News 16 April - 7 May 2023

So much for fortnightly updates - this is three weeks but again I have been super busy. So much genealogy happening. I never seem to be home either.     

Blogs 

My twice a year guest blog for GSQ is coming up so I have put fingers to the keyboard. It's nice to tick off something early. Also helps those who have to put the blog online. 

Books 

Definitely never enough time to read all the books I keep piling up. At Bribie Library I saw an Elizabeth George Inspector Lynley book I hadn't read. Simply had to check it out and of course, it is hundreds of pages long. 

Takes after his 'farmor'
(father's mother)

For Mother's Day I have been promising myself a couple of new books - put the order in to Gould Genealogy and now await their arrival. 

My son lives in Sweden and he has promised a FaceTime chat with my little one year old grandson. So presents and a visit - what more could I want? 

Bribie Family History Association Inc 

As President I chair the monthly meeting on the 1st Friday of the month at the Bribie RSL. 

We had 36 members out of 48 members turn up to hear Sue Reid talk about resources available after 1954 when digitised newspapers generally cut out in Trove. It was great to see so many people attend and a smaller number stayed on for lunch and more geneachat. 

Bribie U3A

The Irish genealogy class is going well with 13 attendees. I am updating/changing the course from what I did in 2021 as there has been so much change since then. New resources and more digitised newspapers. I use my own Irish families to find examples so it is an excellent way for me to do my own genealogy research at the same time.

Conferences 

The NSW & ACT annual conference in Wyong clashes with a talk I am doing for GSQ so I will just  have to attend from afar.

Virtual/hybrid conferences certainly cut the cost of travel and accommodation. Watching things later is the catch - I still have RootsTech 2023 and 2022 talks I wanted to watch. Not to mention Legacy Family Tree webinars that are featuring Australian and New Zealand speakers. 

At the Family History Down Under conference last year, I won a prize. A free premium account with Cite-Builder designed and maintained by Jenny and Andy Joyce. Sad to say this is the first day that I have had a chance to sit down and  have a closer look at how it creates citations for you. It would certainly help with consistency as that is a problem with all my draft family histories. See below.

There is a free version as well which might be all that you want. Try it out and see will it be useful for your family history writing. 

History Queensland 

2023 in person

The AGM is coming up this month and as Patron I will be attending. I'm also going to be doing a short talk on attending RootsTech 2023 in person. An amazing experience and the size of the Salt Palace Convention Centre was simply staggering. 

New Resources 

All those RootsTech sessions are online to view free. Never watch television again when you have a smorgasbord of genealogy webinars to watch.

For example, you can find out what's new at FamilySearch by watching the webinar here.

Do a search for Irish, English, Scottish or simply browse to see what might be relevant to your own research. Some of the previous year's sessions are still available. 

Talks 

Another Noosa talk on FamilySearch coming up. So many people don't use all the various search features and other resources on this website. 

My Website 

Pleased to say that my website has been sorted out again following a move to a new server platform. Now I have a bit of updating to do but at least it looks good again. Many thanks to my tech guy Joannes who is local. 

What's Coming Up

Herbert William White 
from Pitton & Farley
Wiltshire

I'm hoping to finish the first edition of my White's of Wiltshire family history. It has taken me quite a bit to locate and do my citations which I don't seem to have bothered too much with before the days of the internet. 

Thankfully I have managed to locate most of them and it was lovely to see Wiltshire records digitised on Ancestry where as before I only had transcripts from a UK researcher. After that, I only have another four main family drafts to finish not to mention some maternal lines that I would like to write up.

The end goal is to have all my research available online for free in various places. I don't want it ending up in the bin.

Enjoy your genealogy research over the next couple of weeks. Stay safe and take care.

Shauna

Legacy Webinar Marathon, Trove update, Noosa talks, 2024 invitations & more genealogy news 1-15 April 2023

 Hello everyone

I am moving back to fortnightly posts as there is so much happening in the genie world at present. It is all very exciting. April used to be a big birthday month - both my mother and my paternal grandmother had birthdays. We always used to have birthday parties with cake. I think the photo below is ca 1976/77. Strange I can really see my father in this photo of me and my mother.

April 14 would have been Mum's 89th birthday

Blogs

Some of my geneamates are participating in the April A-Z blog challenge. There are some great posts and I am trying to keep up with reading Pauleen Cass blog posts. So many great ideas and suggestions for our own family history research. 

Books/Magazines

I have been doing a massive catch up with journals from all the societies I belong to. And a blitz on Family Tree Magazine UK and Who Do You Think You Are. Did you know that you may be able to get paper copies from your local library and even perhaps an e-copy? Check out what is available online via your local library. It is afterall a free resource.

Bribie Family History Association Inc

Bribie Genealogy has taken the next step and formalised into an incorporated family history association. No surprises that I was elected President. We still meet at the Bribie RSL on the first Friday of the month, except January. There is an excellent speaker program for 2023. There is also our Facebook page. 

New Resources

Is anyone keeping up with all the new resources at FamilySearch, Ancestry, Findmypast, MyHeritage and The Genealogist? What about Trove updates or the British Newspaper Archive?  It's exhausting and some days I can't decide which family I want to review and update.

Wasn't this wonderful news? From the Trove press statement - 

The National Library of Australia welcomes the commitment made by the Albanese Government to provide $33m over the next 4 years to maintain Trove, with $9.2m ongoing and indexed funding from July 2027. We are delighted that Trove’s future has been secured. 

Talks

I am starting to get requests for talks in 2024 which is amazing. 2023 is not almost into May and life has definitely sped up. Perhaps it will slow down now after all my overseas trekking.

There are more talks coming up at Noosa and Moreton libraries and for the Genealogical Society of Queensland. Normally I would say check my website but as you will see below, that's a bit tricky at present.

Webinars

Legacy Family Tree Webinars held a 24 hour genealogy marathon and I was one of the speakers. The sessions are available for one week free. After that you need to take up a subscription which is modest or it would make a great birthday/Christmas present. A wide range of fantastic speakers and topics. 

My session looked at Australian online indexes for family history research which you might not know. Here is the link.  https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/australian-indexes-online-for-family-history-research-you-might-not-know/

Thanks to the 269 viewers so far

Website

This month my website was moved to a new hosting service and the move has not gone well. You can still see most of the pages scrolling down but it looks like a dog's breakfast. My wonderful website guy is going to try and restore how it looks. 

What's Coming Up?

More Irish genealogy sessions at Bribie U3A. It's amazing how much new material I find while preparing this talks. 

Another talk at Noosa on FamilySearch which will be an in depth look at using all the features that FamilySearch offers.

More time will be spent on updating and finalising my draft family histories. Last weekend I worked on the White family history - adding missing citations, inserting photos and despite my resolution not to do new research, I managed to expand from 90 pages to 115 pages. And I have five of them to do. I need more weekends which is what I used to say when I worked full time.

Front page of my draft White family history 

Until next time, happy geneasearching

Shauna

Genealogy Updates for March 2023: in person conferences, new resources, & other news

 March was a huge month travelling to the USA for my first ever in person Roots Tech conference. The rest of the month was mainly spent travelling and I would like to thank all those who followed my Facebook photos of the trip. It was fantastic and good to know that others enjoyed my experiences. The most genealogy I did was via emails - reading enews and genealogy ejournals and checking Ancestry and MyHeritage for new DNA matches.

Blogs

FamilySearch Library books and more books 
& even one on an area that I am researching in County Antrim, Ireland

My review of the RootsTech 2023 genealogy conference from an in person perspective is here. 

As always I kept a travel diary so I can go back and see what I did and given that RootsTech was so full on I'm glad I did that. So many experiences!

Books

Very proud of myself in that I only bought one book over there. Diahan Southard's Your DNA Guide.

To be honest there wasn't a lot of temptation as it is too expensive to ship books to a conference. So many exhibitors had order forms or referred you to Amazon. Nathan Dylan Goodwin was the only one with a pile of books around him at the start but by the end those piles had dwindled. I am an impulse buyer so his strategy worked better - the bird in the hand. 

Also good to finally meet him in person. 

Conferences

Although Roots Tech 2023 is over, you can still view the sessions online at home. There is enough to keep us all interested until next year. The dates for Roots Tech 2024 are 29 February to 2 March.

The next Australian genealogy conference is the NSW Association Annual Conference and this year it is hosted by the Wyong Society. The there is The Running Waters of History between 8 - 10 September 2023. Speakers include Martyn Killion, Michelle Patient, Mark Bundy, Geoffrey Potter, Michael Bell and Jeffrey Madsen. The conference is in person and virtual. This year I will be a virtual attendee, as I have conflicting dates with a talk for the Genealogical Society of Queensland that same weekend. 

New Resources

Do you ever check the new additions to the British Newspaper Archive? I get their enewsletter but I usually skip over as I'm busy but then of course I never revisit the email. One of my new promises to myself is to read things as they come in. Not always practicable but worth trying for.

For example, in March they advised that they had added more to the Birmingham Mail which was first published in 1870. Almost another half million digitised pages which made me quite excited as both Max and myself have Black Country ancestors. Years covered include from 1871 to 1999 with gaps. I particularly like that newspapers post 1954 (Trove cut off) as it can lead to discovering more recent cousins. 

Talks

First week home was busy with talks to Strathpine Library on genealogy for beginners and Noosaville Library on resources for women as part of International Women's History Month. 

Next is my talk as part of the Legacy Webinars 24 hour genealogy marathon on 13 April. My session is Australian Indexes Online for Family History Research That You May Not Know About. The event is free but you must register to receive the link. Check out all the speakers and topics here.

What's Coming Up

Due to all my travels I have agreed to run the Irish genealogy course again at Bribie U3A. The first term missed half the lectures due to my absence so they have enrolled again.

Salt Lake City in person 2023

The rest of April will be spent sorting my notes from Roots Tech and following up on all of my action points. 

Easter is next week and the school holidays are always an opportunity to catch up with my brother. Not to mention that I also have a fondness for hot cross buns which I never buy outside of  March/April.

Have a great genealogy month and I hope to be back to regular reports now that all my big trips are out of the way. Until next time, stay safe and well. Shauna