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

Genealogy Update for February 2023: RootsTech 2023 in person & other news

Didn't February go quickly. But then again it is only six weeks since I arrived back from my trip to Sweden and meeting my first grandchild Theo. Now I am heading off to the USA on more adventures. I am a RootsTech 2023 influencer so will be in the thick of the action in the media hub.

Books

My aim is not to buy any books at RootsTech. I have to carry them around afterwards and keep the suitcase under weight regulations. Will I achieve this? 

I'm also hoping to meet one of my favourite authors in person at RootsTech - Nathan Dylan Goodwin. I've already got all his books so no temptation apart from a selfie with him. 

See website link above

Conferences

All I can think about is I will be at RootsTech in person this year for the first time. It doesn't seem to be as big this year as it is also virtual and many have chosen to watch from afar. Still there are a lot of exhibitors and talks and people I want to catch up with. Plus I want to visit the FamilySearch library, another long term bucket list item. 

So looking forward to walking through the doors
of the FamilySearch Library image via Wikipedia

New Resources 

MyHeritage added 41 million records in January. I can't even imagine that many more records being added. The collections are from 12 USA state, the UK, Australia, Finland, Greece, Israel and Portugal and include BMDs, obituaries, migration and voter registration records. Australia caught my eye and it is the South Australian Adelaide Gaol Prisoner Registers 1848 to 1912. There are 76,555 records that are indexed and digitised by FamilySearch. It seems a lot of crime in the City of Churches but exciting news for anyone with Adelaide ancestors. Perhaps they were repeat offenders?

Do you subscribe to the Trove newsletter? Each month there are interesting stories from the collections. Plus there is a list of new resources in Trove. Below is a copy and paste because I always find it fascinating what is added and to also see who is behind the funding. Some historical societies are also funding the digitisation of newspapers for their geographic area. How good is that? 

Look at February's offering - great for teachers in New South Wales, and I'm interested in The Catholic Advocate in Brisbane and the Port Lincoln Times in South Australia.

National

• Education: journal of the NSW Public School Teachers Federation (1919-2019) [New South Wales Teachers Federation]
• Papers of Frank Macfarlane Burnet (1928-1985) [Australian Academy of Science]
• Hemisphere Journals (1957-1984) [National Library of Australia]
• Colonial Art [National Library of Australia]

TAS

• Colonial Times and Tasmanian Advertiser (1827) [Libraries Tasmania]

QLD

• Nanango News (1912, 1913, 1920, 1922) [Nanango History Room Inc]
• The Australian (Brisbane, Qld. : 1878-1888) [State Library of Queensland]
• The Catholic Advocate (Brisbane, Qld. : 1915) [State Library Queensland]

SA

• Daylight (1919-1928) [State Library of South Australia]
• Port Lincoln Times (1955-1965, 1992-2002) [State Library South Australia]
• The Blackwood Magazine (1914) [State Library of South Australia]

WA

• Common Wealth (1933)  [State Library of Western Australia]
• The Maylands & Bayswater Chronicle (1905) [State Library of Western Australia]
• The Sun (Kalgoorlie, WA. : 1919) [State Library of Western Australia]

VIC

• Kyneton Guardian and Woodend and Malmsbury Chronicle (1863-1870) [State Library Victoria]
• Nagambie Times (1882-1913, 1919-1920) [Nagambie Historical Society Inc]
• The Bacchus Marsh Express (1884) [Bacchus Marsh and District Historical Society]

NSW

• Forbes Times (1899-1902) [Central West Libraries]
• Mittagong Argus (1902-1904) [Berrima District Historical & Family History Society]
• Mittagong Express (1899, 1901-1902) [Berrima District Historical & Family History Society]

Talks

I was busy in February with talks in person at Burpengary Library, Caboolture Library and Caloundra Family History Research as well as a virtual with Monash Library in Victoria and the Association of Professional Genealogists in the USA.

There are more presentations coming up at the end of March and into April. Check the Events page of my website for details.

What's Coming Up

Due to my travels the Advanced Irish Genealogy at Bribie U3A was cut short so I have agreed to do Irish again in Term 2. That will keep me busy as most of them have tricky Irish brick walls which we have looked at during other terms. 

I also want to get back to my own research and finish one or more of those draft family histories that have been haunting me for years. 

Take care and stay safe while I jet over to Salt Lake City for RootsTech 2023.