RootsTech, New Resources & Other News: My Genealogy Weeks 16 January - 14 February 2024

Well January is done and dusted and we are half way through February. From now on it will be back to regular genie society meetings, attending special events and meeting new people. There is never a dull day when you research your family history.

Blogs

The ship dwarfed by Alaska's
Inner Passage 2018 

My first guest post for the Genealogical Society of Queensland was completed and there were some interesting comments on both the blog page and on Facebook. 

Many people identified with some of my points. The post is called Shauna's family history A-Z and you can read it by clicking the link.

In the post I put C is for Conferences but now I am thinking perhaps it should have been for Cruises. The Alaska genealogy cruise was a stand out with Cyndi (from Cyndi's List - another C) and amazing Alaska scenery. 

I am planning to keep Diary more regular this year. My tip is to schedule in my calendar and then do it rather than whenever I remember or think of it. This will be my year to be organised! All good except I drafted the end of January post and then forgot to publish it. Hence the delay.

Books

Reading so many interesting books for my PhD on Incarcerated Women in Colonial Queensland 1850-1900. Perhaps not surprisingly, many are also of interest to my family history research. A bonus. Interlibrary loans will get a workout this year. 

The Bribie Family History Association Book Club is having its first meeting in February. We have been readingThe Ancient Paths by Graham Robb. We had a good time discussing the author's incredible use of resources and the attention to detail. Not the easiest book to read but definitely one to make you aware of the need for thoroughness of research.

Our next book club read will be Kate Grenville's A Room Made of Leaves which I am really looking forward to. I am a big fan of her books. What if Elizabeth McArthur had a secret diary? What if indeed!

Conferences

RootsTech 2024 is almost upon us and I am disappointed not to be there this year. So many more Australians going than last year. Still there are all the virtual sessions so it is definitely a genealogy feast for the last weekend in Febrary. 

2024 in person 

The big news is the 2025 AFFHO/History Queensland congress now has a website. The theme is Connections Past Present and Future and the dates are 21-24 March 2025 in Brisbane, Queensland.

Keynote speakers are the wonderful Judy Russell (The Legal Genealogist), Nick Barrett (Who Do You Think You Are) and Hamish Maxwell-Stewart (Digital History Tasmania). 

Details of accommodation, call for speakers and other news is all online now. Check it out and book a space in your diary.

Also looking forward to the final Unlock the Past genealogy cruise in December 2024 with Chris Paton, Mia Bennett and others. It is a Southern Australia cruise and I have also seen it advertised as a wine and food cruise. Definitely my kind of cruise.

New Resources

Not quite a new resource but I have just done a 3 week workshop on Artificial Intelligence with Fiona Brooker and Andrew Redfern through the Family History Academy. Wow there are certainly ways to do some things more efficiently and quickly using ChatGPT and other AI tools. I think the issue will be indicating that you have used AI in a project or whatever. The ethics are an interesting topic all on their own. 

Great session and I love playing with ChatGPT which is free. That's my new technology toy for the year done and dusted.

Presentations

So far I have given a Zoom/hybrid presentation to 93 people in Monash Library/virtual and in person presentation at Caloundra where they had their biggest turn out since pre Covid. Next week I have an in person presentation at Noosa which is fully booked. 

Perhaps we are getting back to our pre Covid lives?

Details of where I am speaking are on the Events page of my website.

Special Projects

I have been working with a group of people revising the Queensland Family History Society's library policy. Like any revision project, there are lots of things that need to be looked at and how these will be dealt with in future. Think ebooks and ejournals and archival records of the Society and donations and dare I say it, legacy issues and backlogs arising from moving premises more than once. 

The good news is that the revised library policy is coming along and a project plan for all the legacy issues will be developed and then it will be a case of one smaller project at a time. Boxes in storage sheds are not ideal conditions for books and archival materials. Looking forward to working more with the volunteers.

What's Coming Up?

Miegunyah 2014 via Wikipedia

A visit to Miegunyah (Queensland Women's History Association), an afternoon of talks with the Brisbane History Group and my regular weekly Genie Chats. This term is all about English Genealogy. 

Since starting my Ph D my own personal family history writing has come to a stop. I want to allocate time to completing my citations and drafts and getting them up into NED (national edeposit).

Until next time, happy searching. Do try and make some time for your own research, no one else will do it and others will benefit now and in the future. 

Take care, stay safe.

Geneastats from 2023 & Other News: My Genealogy Weeks 1-15 January 2024

The first two weeks of 2024 have seen devastating storms, flooding and incredible heatwaves almost in a rolling pattern. Now another cyclone seems to be looming off our coast. Stay safe everyone, out thoughts are with all those impacted.

Blogs

Each year I do two guest blog posts for the Genealogical Society of Queensland. I picked January and July for my efforts. This means the January guest blog is lined up and ready to go in early February. I will be interested in all feedback on my 2023 thoughts. A direct link will be in the next edition of this Diary blog.
 

Books

I have so many books to read now. There are those for sheer pleasure, those for genealogy and family history and those for my Ph D research.

Not sure if I mentioned it last year, but we have started up a Bribie Family History Association Book Club and we have been reading The Ancient Paths by Graham Robb. Not an easy book to read but quite fascinating and the archival references are amazing. We operate via the Moreton Bay Region Libraries which makes it very easy to operate a book club.

Plus I try to keep up with the digital genealogy magazines that I can borrow from the local library.

Conferences

The AFFHO Congress is coming up in 2025 and they have released the dates for that. It will be held in Brisbane which is good news for all the locals. The last one was on Norfolk Island which was a much smaller affair due to the remoteness of the venue but still an excellent conference. 

The Congress theme is “Connections: Past, Present and Future” will be held in Brisbane on 21 – 24  March 2025. The venue is Brisbane Technology Park, Clunies Ross Court, Eight Mile Plains and is situated next to hotel accommodation. Save the date and I will be staying onsite as battling highway traffic each day to and from would leave me a total nervous wreck. Everyone is always in a rush and there is usually a bingle or two to slow traffic down further. Plus that would give me an extra four hours a day to chat and mingle with friends. Much more pleasant.

Unlock the Past is having its final genealogy cruise in December 2024 and that has some big name speakers and sails out from Sydney. Booked and will probably give a talk or two depending on how the final program develops.

The NSW/ACT Association of Family History Societies usually have an annual conference about September. There is nothing on their website yet about 2024 so hopefully that will be announced soon.

New Resources

It is almost mind blowing to read some of the statistical accounts from the big genealogy databases on how much is added each year and 2023 was no exception.

FamilySearch added over 30,000 newly digitised books to their online collection which now stands at 586,813 digital books online. I just did a search for Islandmagee in County Antrim, Island. It has returned a number of volumes including the Brennen Chronicles (one of my family lines is Brennan for Islandmagee). Another book mentions the Cain/Kain family of Islandmagee, another one of my family lines. In fact there are 33 pages of references to all kinds of books and journals. I would hate to be searching for a big parish. 

There are now over 18.36 billion historical records online for over 70 countries. A big addition was the digitised 1931 census for Canada. One of my Scottish families went to Canada and I would love to find some DNA matches to confirm that this is one of my family lines. 

MyHeritage also had a very big year and I can't sum it up anymore than their own image of achievements. You can read more about these statistics in the January blog post. I'm beginning to think we could do genealogy 24/7 and still not use all the resources out there. 

And all the others Ancestry, Findmypast, The Genealogist, Irish Roots, Geneanet, WikiTree and others added to their collections. There is so much out there now  that it is often hard to decide where to search first. 

Online trees can be a real time saver but you have to remember to check them carefully and go back to original sources. Recently I found a tree that was exactly what I wanted but they had a different surname for the wife (which was different from the marriage certificate) but absolutely no explanation for this discrepancy. It is so frustrating when people don't give sources and don't add a note that explains such a major difference between the marriage certificate and their tree. 

Nick Vine Hall (NVH) Awards

It is going to be exciting to be part of the NVH Awards for 2023. We have three new judges, revised criteria and all member societies of AFFHO are encouraged to enter one of their 2023 journals/newsletters.

My main job over the next couple of months will be promoting the awards and encouraging editors to submit. Of course members of individual societies have to write up their own stories for publication so make sure you write at least one article this year for your society editor. Don't be shy and who knows it might lead to further information on the family.

Talks

My first talk for 2024 will be for Monash Library in Melbourne in the first week of February. They are a great group and have hybrid meetings. The session is Researching Australian Ancestors and anyone can join but you need to register and what out for daylight saving time if you live this side of the border.

Then it will be up to Caloundra for my annual appearance there. Another great group and not just because they all wear purple shirts. So friendly over afternoon tea. The talk will be Researching Family in Ireland Online. 

What's Coming Up

Bribie Family History Association is having its first meeting for 2024 and our guest speaker is Sue Reid an excellent presenter on researching newspapers. Afterwards some of our members meet for lunch. No doubt we will be busy sharing our success stories over the summer break. 

Our AGM is coming up in February and here is a happy snap of the current committee hard at work.

My monthly meeting with my Ph D tutors is also challenging especially when they ask to see what I am working on. 

Last month it was my database of incarcerated Queensland women 1850-1900 and this time it is my research plan for Queensland State Archives and my Bibliography to date. It is only seven months since I started so quite full on. 

Take care over the next few weeks of summer weather. A good opportunity to stay inside with a good book, either digital or print. I'm almost preferring digital to my surprise. New skills, new ways of doing things. Until next time, happy researching. Shauna

2023 ending, 2024 beginning & what's new: My genealogy weeks 15 - 31 December 2023

2023 went by in a blur. So many great things happened and keeping this Diary helps me to remember just how much I do in a year. 

Blogs

Jill Ball aka Geniaus has again offered her Accentuate the Positive Geneameme for 2023. Another great way to think about what happened in your genealogy research in 2023. Read my response here.

I have a guest blog for the Genealogical Society of Queensland coming up in January. The big question as always, will be what to write about.

Books & Magazines

For various reasons my attention has been drawn to Charles Dickens and his association with Australia. To my shame, I suspect, I have only ever read Great Expectations for school. To redress this I am currently reading Tom Keneally's That Dickens Boy. Not quite a Charles Dickens novel but a great insight into the Dickens family. It may even inspire me to read a real Dickens book again.

Books are piling up around me, season gifts and Ph D works plus the number on my IPad is growing at an alarming rate. It seems I may have been converted to the convenience of the ebook. 

Also using Moreton Region libraries more and their app Libby which lets me read all those genealogy magazines as part of my library subscription. Not to mention all the ebooks they have.

Conferences

Not too many on my horizon this year. However, there are lots of webinars and online sessions that I can catch up on. 

Legacy Family Tree Webinars have just announced their 2024 program. Good to see the Down Under series continues with some good Aussie/Kiwi speakers. You can register to watch live for the whole year and its free to watch for the first week after the session. Check it out here.

New Resources

The Australian Home Beautiful
Vol 29 No 7 July 1950

Findmypast added new Kent records, plus opened up more redacted entries in the 1939 Register. There are almost 188,000 of these previously closed records now open. Family history is indeed never ending. Over 90,000 more newspaper pages have been added.   

Trove Treasure in December 2023 and January 2024 and for all our holiday cooking, they have now digitised over 100 classic cookbooks. Confession time. I can spend hours looking at cookbooks, not necessarily cooking, just looking. I can't wait to explore this new collection of cookbooks. 

Or you could read all those wonderful magazines that have also been digitised. Remember the 1950s and all those wonderful hot winter puddings. I loved the pineapple upside down cakes although mine never quite looked like the recipe image.

Over 800,000 images were added to Trove in 2022-2023. More will be coming in 2024 and here is a preview list. Good to see the community cooperation between Trove and regional genealogy societies as well as school and local history groups.

NSW

• Border Morning Mail (1952) [Albury City Libraries]
• Coolamon Farmers' Review (1910-1917) [Coolamon and District History Group]
• Coolamon-Ganmain Farmers' Review (1906-1910, 1917-1918) [Coolamon and District History Group]
• The Pastoral Times and Deniliquin Telegraph (1895-1950) [Deniliquin Genealogy Society Inc]
• The Seagull (1957-2015) [Tweed River High School]

SA

• Australijos Lietuvis - The Australian Lithuanian (1948-1956) [Australian Lithuanian Archives]
• People's Weekly (1890-1926) [State Library of South Australia]
• Port Lincoln Times (1982-1986) [Port Lincoln History Group]
• Seasider (1956-1963) [National Trust of SA - Wilunga Branch]
• South East Kingston Leader (1962-1976) [Kingston Branch of the National Trust of SA]
• The Standard (1959-1965) [Prospect Local History Group]

VIC

• Gippsland Farmers' and Glengarry, Toongabbie and Cowwarr Journal (1923) [Latrobe City Libraries]
• Sun News Pictorial (1922-1954) [State Library Victoria]
• The Journal: Glengarry, Toongabbie and Cowwarr journal (1923-1929) [Latrobe City Libraries]
• Yarrawonga Mercury and Lake Rowan, Tungamah and Mulwala News (1882) [Yarrawonga Mulwala Historical Society Inc]
• Yarrawonga Mercury and Mulwala News (1882-1897) [Yarrawonga Mulwala Historical Society Inc]
• Yarrawonga Mercury and Southern Riverina Advertiser (1897-1905, 1921-1927) [Yarrawonga Mulwala Historical Society Inc]

Talks

My list of talks for 2024 so far are now up on the Events page of my website. As usual I am looking forward to presenting and catching up with friends at these events.

My Genie Chat sessions here on Bribie are continuing in 2024 and the first term will look at English genealogy.

What's Coming Up?

January is traditionally a quiet time and there are lots of little catch up tasks on my list. Like sorting out all my travel and family photos from this year. I tend to download them into subject folders and promise myself I will get back to delete the not so good and identify the ones I want to keep. No surprises but I rarely do that so I have quite a bit of tidying up just in my photo folders.

Alice Price and her daughters

I could mention the scanning word, but there are too many projects there. I managed to sort Mum's photos into categories and give my brother some that related to his children. But the little piles of scanning are still sitting on the shelf behind me. In the photo above I am reasonably sure that my son could not identify anyone. Even I'm not sure if that is Mum on the far left, she was a lot younger than her siblings. I do know the rest - from left to right Alice Price nee White, her daughter Beryl, daughter in law Peggy, daughter Mavis and daughter Hazel. 

The Genealogy Squad and Cyndi Ingles has her Filing Friday Facebook challenge and occasionally I have set aside a Friday to just tackle things like filing and scanning. Could I keep it up every week? No for starters the Bribie Family History Association has its monthly meeting on the first Friday. Then there is lunch afterwards. But 3 out of 4 Fridays might make a difference to my photo projects. Have a look at their last post for 2023 and the plan for 2024.

Thank you to all my readers over the year - I have not been as regular with blogging as I hoped. Travel took up quite a few weeks and you can follow those travels through my Facebook page. Your ongoing support of this blog is very much appreciated.

I hope that you have all had a fabulous genealogy time in 2023 and that 2024 will be equally fabulous. Stay safe and well until next time, Shauna