Speaker interviews, talks & new Oz WDYTYA - Genealogy Notes 16-31 Mar 2019

March is over and Easter is fast approaching. Mum's birthday is often on or close to Easter so a time for family catch-ups. This year it is the big 85 and there is a request for pizza and cheesecake and some bubbly. If it wasn't for the bubbly, I  feel I am organising a kids birthday party, but apparently these are 'delicacies' not often found on the aged care centre menus. Lots happening in April.

Blogs

My ambassador blogs for Waves in Time genealogy conference have continued - read about Jason Reeve from Ancestry here and Dan Kelly from Boolarong Press here. One of the other ambassadors has pulled out so another two speakers are now on my list - more to follow soon.

Conferences

As Waves in Time is not that far off now (May), my sights have turned to later in the year. There are two that have caught my eye in August and September. First is the Unlock the Past DNA Genealogy Downunder tour which goes to a number of capital cities including Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth plus a 3 day event in Sydney. I will be going to the one in Brisbane on 14 August and seriously thinking about Sydney at the end of August.

I usually try and get to the NSW/ACT conference each year in September but missed last year as I was in Alaska. The theme this year is Exploring the Past. It is also in Sydney and just two weeks after the UTP DNA event. The program is not up yet which makes planning difficult. Two trips to Sydney in a fortnight or stay there, but then that gets expensive. Decisions decisions!

Closer to home there is the annual Moreton Bay History Seminar on 16 May at North Lakes Library which looks at the history of South Sea Islanders in Queensland, the history of Redcliffe as a penal settlement and then as a seaside resort. One of my favourite speakers, Dr Jennifer Harrison, is on the program. It is part of the Australian Heritage Festival organised by the National Trust. It's free but limited places so make sure you book.

Resources

After re-looking at some of my earlier research, I decided to reread the local histories of the area I am researching on a particular family line. My first read was about 40 years ago and a few flick through the books since. As I have discovered a lot more in recent years, this time something leapt out at me that has truly staggered me.

Now I just have to find out what happened to the written/oral stories included in the publication. They only used a snippet and one gets the feeling it was part of a much longer reminiscence. Fingers crossed it is still held by one of the local historical societies. 

Talks

In April I am speaking at the Caloundra Family History Research on A Soldier in the Family which looks at military records. I always enjoy speaking there and everyone wears purple and they have yummy afternoon teas.

My talk at the Bribie Island library on convicts and criminals was good and question time revealed that some people have some really interesting convicts. Especially those who covered their tracks once their sentence was up. The presentation is on the Resources page of my website, scroll down to Presentations.

To the right is my great grandmother's brother, Denis Patrick Finn. He enlisted in WW1 as a 17 year old and spent his 18th birthday in a German prisoner of war camp. His life story is quite sad and he often features in my talks.

Television

Not a heading I use often, but this is must watch viewing. The new Australian series of Who Do You Think You Are on SBS starts on 30 April. Make sure that is in your diary dates. Check out the celebrities this year, it looks like it will be a great series.


What's Coming Up

Term 1 of U3A finished first week of April then we have a two week break and resume again after Easter. Most of my 'students' are returning in both the advanced family history and in the family history writing class. Those that aren't are going on their annual winter trek to warmer places. Having lived down south, I don't think Bribie ever gets cold, certainly no frost on the ground and no snow. Maybe they just like travelling.

My list of things to do in this two week break is almost ridiculous especially when there are other temptations like walking along the beach on blue, sunny days or swimming or even gardening to get back on top of the weeds that went berserk during that hot and humid, supposedly autumn March.

Until next time, happy searching.

Conferences, publishing & DNA update - Genealogy Notes 1-15 March 2019

Super effort to catch up this fortnight and stay organised. Another study tidy up and rearrangement of furniture, books and family history folders. So neat and tidy and no place to just pile up anything. Yes neatly labelled draws with my only fear that it will be 'out of sight out of mind'.

Blogs

Niles when he visited Bribie Seaside Museum 

It was actually good to get back to some blog writing. March is International Women's Month and it is a long standing practice to write about my female ancestors. This time I have written about Finding Female Ancestors which includes some of my favourite resources for locating women in the family.

Also completed the first of my Waves in Time conference interviews with speakers is Niles Elvery from the Queensland State Archives. Next up is Jason Reeves from Ancestry with Dan Kelly from Boolarong Press to follow.

Conferences

Apart from the Waves in Time conference, there is also a book publishing conference in Brisbane on 27 April 2019 which looks interesting. There is a modest registration, it is only one day although a long day if I add travel time from Bribie.

Most family histories won't attract a commercial publisher, but more and more are opting for the self publishing option as either ebooks or print. We still need to know about editing, and what the various production methods are these days.

My writing family history classes at U3A have a wide range of student projects, so something like this conference might help answer some of their questions. Seriously tempted.

Cousin Visiting

The Eldridge girls on the steps of
their grandparent's house on Bribie

In this online world we should not lose sight of the need to make personal contact with distant cousins. Last week our second cousins on the Burstow line visited Bribie and we caught up for the chat and swapping of information.

Then we went for a drive and they were able to show us where the original Burstow home was at Woorim on the other side of the Island. Where the house was is now a block of four units but at least we know that the family story of just being able to walk down the stairs and across the dunes to reach the beach was totally true.

DNA Update

We are probably all aware of the new DNA tools announced during RootsTech 2019. There are various papers from the conference available for download and not just on DNA - so check out the Conference Syllabi.

As a way of looking at these various new tools, I used my own families to illustrate them to my U3A class in advanced family history. While it is possible to talk about Ancestry's Thrulines it is much more meaningful when you can show people how it relates to real examples. Many of my Cornish lines have extensive paper trees, and this is now being confirmed by DNA matches with distant cousins.

MyHeritage's new cluster groupings were mostly on my mother's side of the family. Of my 27 clusters, only two were on Dad's side. Wondering what this means?

There is also a new DNA interest group established on the Island and we will be meeting on the 3rd Thursday of the month at the Bribie Library starting in May. This should be a great way to ask questions, learn about new tools, and share our own experiences.

Talks

Court sketch and only known
image of John Finn

My next talk is at the Bribie Library and will be on convicts and criminals, a topic of interest as most of my families were behind bars at some point. The records are similar and provide a wealth of information not always found in other records. Sometimes they were acquitted but the records were still created while they waited for their day in court. Where and when I am speaking can be found on the Events page of my website.

What's Coming Up?

Only two more weeks and U3A breaks before starting Term 2. Easter is just around the corner and Mum will celebrate her 85th birthday. Apparently she wants fish and chips down by the passage. The aged care centre also provides a cake for Mum and the other residents so it will be a full on weekend.

I have been working on an update to the Price family history for her but there is so much new material I'm not sure it will get finished in time. There are still three weeks, so no more bright shiny objects of distraction!

Until next time, have lots of geneafun.

School records, archive resources & other news - Genealogy Notes 15 -28 Feb 2019

I'm cheating a little bit with this fortnight by including the first weekend in March. Hopefully I will get back to a normal blogging routine during the month.

Blogs

No blogs this fortnight but I did note Alona's Women's History Month challenge for March. Surely I will be able to get at least one post done and be part of this worthy challenge. Previously I have written about my four great grandmothers so perhaps it's time to look at my GG grandmothers or at least those who came out to Australia. Why not join me and take up Alona's challenge?

Conferences

My first Waves in Time speaker interviewee has returned their questionnaire. Watch out for Niles Elvery from Queensland State Archives telling us about why he became interested in history and why he is excited to be speaking at the conference in May. Blog post within the next two weeks, I promise!

Also over the last week we have had Facebook and Twitter posts from various Aussie geneamates who attended RootsTech in Salt Lake City or who stayed home and just did the live streaming or catch up videos. Lots of announcements have been made and I'm still trying to catch up with them.
all the news.

DNA

Perhaps the most exciting announcements from RootsTech were the new DNA tools released by Ancestry and MyHeritage. So far I have managed to have a play with Ancestry's cluster tools and their new ThruLines look like they are going to sort out some of my more distant Cornish lines. Anyway I have a whole lot of 'to follow up' notes from my brief play. Haven't even looked at MyHeritage yet. Why aren't there more hours in the day?

Resources

Fred as a baby on his mother's lap

Another exciting South Australian collection from FamilySearch is the school admission registers 1873-1985. There are now over 185,000 entries. The indexing looks a bit doubtful. I searched for Max's father but could not find him (possibly not indexed yet).

But then I looked for his brother and found him, but with indexing errors. Frederick was Frederich which is an easy mistake but their father was Henry and that is indexed Stenry which doesn't even look right. Frederick's date of birth was correct 10 December 1909 and it showed that he enrolled in school on 16 May 1922 in Adelaide, but didn't give the name of the school. He would have been 13 years old.

While the record says there is a digital image it does not appear to be connected to the indexed entry yet. Another follow up task!

Talks

At the weekend I gave two talks as part of the Queensland Family History Society education seminar - both talks were about using archives and libraries for Australian family history research. Both presentations are on the Resources page of my website, scroll down to Presentations. I meant to take some photos for this blog post, but was too busy catching up with friends or answering questions. A cousin I hadn't seen in decades turned up to say hello as well. Good to see others in the family are still chasing their ancestors.

What's Coming Up?

My next talks are in April so my focus in the short term will be on doing some blog posts and tutoring my U3A family history classes. Once term starts, the weeks just seem to fly past. The writing group is doing well and we have just agreed to do another term. Everyone has a different type of project and already we can see progress as they discuss what they are doing and we run through some standard writing and style tips.

Have a great fortnight and until next time, happy searching.

South Australia probates, historical society journals & other news - Genealogy Notes 1-15 Feb 2019

This is late as a dreaded lurgy has been stalking me for the past couple of weeks - not sick enough to stay in bed but enough to slow me down. So all energy has gone into commitments and I am just realising that tutoring two family history related classes at U3A is a bit full on. Still I have enjoyed the interest and motivation coming out of the writing family history class. Everyone has a really great project to work on.

Conferences

As an ambassador for the Waves in Time Conference in May, I will shortly be bringing you some blog posts about the speakers. We have a range of questions we are asking each person. We will get to know a little more about them and their areas of expertise.

My favourite question is why someone became interested in family history. Sometimes it is quite roundabout. Should be fun and starting soon.


Resources

I was excited to see that FamilySearch have added South Australian probate records. There are over 45,000 indexed names but no images according to the FamilySearch newsletter. But when I looked there were images and of course, the documents contain more information than the index. It is a series of probate and administration books which include transcribed wills rather than the ecclesiastical files themselves. Still better than nothing.

Another plus for me was the addition of Hampshire Parish Registers 1538-1980. Hoping to take a few family lines further back. Over 2 million names and again the newsletter indicated no images. I have Hampshire families and when I looked at the collection, there was an image symbol next to the entry. But when you click on it, there was a message saying it was not available at this time. Some of the entries also said it was available at a family history centre or an affiliated centre. If I can find enough references it would be worth the trip.

The Royal Australian Historical Society Journal is now available online via Trove. These journals have interesting articles on people, places, subjects and as the Society is based in New South Wales, anyone with NSW families should have a look.

The Royal Historical Society of Queensland's journal has been available for sometime via Text Queensland although the index is on the RHSQ's website. The Royal Historical Society of Victoria journal is available via State Library Victoria. Some journal articles can be discovered through Trove but I also like to check journal indexes and browse contents.

The Chyebassa (image courtesy State Library Victoria)

What's Coming Up?

There are several talks coming up in March and April starting with the Queensland Family History Society education seminar Taking Your Australian Research Further. I'm giving two talks on making the most of archives and other resources. The Chyebassa  was the ship my great grandfather Herbert William White came out to Queensland on. I have found some fascinating snippets on all my Australian families and these will be illustrating my talks at the seminar. It is amazing what is out there when you look.

Janice Cooper is the other speaker. It will be held at Gaythorne in Brisbane on 2 March. Hope to see you there.

U3A and my writing project will also keep me busy. I just need to shake my lurgy and get some more energy. Until next time, happy searching.

National Archives of Australia news, Waves in Time & Other News - Genealogy Notes 16 -31 Jan 2019

A busy start to 2019. There has been time for some new research - what I find is that in preparing  for my U3A sessions, I am locating new information on my own families to use as examples. A win win as they used to say in my old work environment. A lot of the websites I am looking at are old favourites, but there is so much new information since I last looked. Reviewing your families on a regular basis is essential. 

Archive News 

Reception area, Brisbane Office NAA

Here is the exciting news from the Queensland Office of the National Archives of Australia (NAA). I usually just take a few camera images when I visit but this will be much better. The instructions are straight forward and now I just need to organise another visit.

The Queensland Office of the National Archives is testing the feasibility of allowing self-service digitisation of selected records by the public in a controlled reading room environment. Note that this is a service being trialled in the Queensland Reading Room only, from 8 November 2018 to 30 April 2019. If you wish to participate in this trial and digitise a record for your own use:
1. Ask the Archives Officer on duty if the file you wish to digitise is suitable for this service. The Archives Officer will allow digitisation of files that are robust enough to handle the process with minimal risk of damage.
2. The Archives Officer on duty will ensure the scanner is ready to operate. If in doubt, ask.
3. Do not change any scanner settings. The scanner is set to the Archives digitisation standards.
4. Digitise each page
a. Start at the front file cover.
b. Press the green button on the scanner, or click the ‘Scan’ button on the screen.
c. Scan every page, starting from the top page and continuing to the bottom.
d. Place the page in the centre of the glass – the scanner will align the image automatically
e. Include the back of any page that has information regardless of its significance
f. If you make a mistake, just repeat the scan and inform the attendant.
g. Once you have finished, return all pages to the file pin.
h. It is important that the pages are returned in their original order.

5. If you have any questions, ask the Archives Officer.
6. If you wish to digitise more than one file, inform the Archives Officer. After each file is complete, the Archives Officer will collate the images into a file folder.
7. Once completed, the Archives Officer will download the images to a usb for you to take with you.

Please be aware that the images you create may be processed and loaded to the Archives’
RecordSearch database where they can be viewed by the public. The images will be subject to quality assurance before they are loaded. Some files may be rejected.

Blogs

No time for blogging. My only writing during the fortnight was my final assignment for the Writing Family History course with the University of Tasmania. The first draft didn't take long, it was all the rewriting and fiddling to make it interesting, not boring. Some of those new skills will be handy when I get back to blogging.

My topic was a brief biographical account of my great great grandfather John Finn. Trying to fit his wide ranging life into the assignment word length was not easy. You have to pick just the events you really want to include and succinctly. Perhaps I should have picked a less colourful ancestor.

I did manage to do my regular monthly article and blog post for The In-Depth Genealogist. Fixed deadlines definitely motivate me.

Books

My parcel of genealogy books from Amazon (Christmas present) arrived and were eagerly unwrapped. Now there is a small mountain waiting to be read and I can't even decide what order to read them in.

A number require me to then put into practice what the book suggests so that will be challenging. All to be reported here when I get myself organised. Not surprisingly that is the subject of one of the books - any guesses what the book is?

Talks

Since last time I have had another two invitations to speak - both for National Family History Month in August. One clashed with another event so sadly I had to turn that down. It is always a busy month but an exciting time for genealogy and family history. Where I am speaking can be found on the Events page of my website - still to add all the August talks. Hopefully next week.

What's Coming Up?

Next week is super busy. There is a committee meeting for the Waves in Time conference on the Sunshine Coast in May. I always enjoy these and catching up with other committee members over lunch.

U3A first term is underway so there are my weekly advanced family history sessions plus my new beginners writing family history group. This will require me to put aside dedicated writing time on a family history story to discuss/share at the fortnightly sessions. It will be good to see what others in the group do too.

To end the week there is an exhibition launch at the Bribie Island Seaside Museum. The new exhibition is on Bribie Streets and how/why they were named. A local member of the Bribie Island Historical Society will also give a talk. The morning teas are always good but I need to get away early. I'm enrolled in a 5 week course to learn to use my smart phone more/better.

I am almost exhausted just thinking about next week but it will all be great fun. Take some time to do some genealogy searching or simply review what you have done to date. Until next time enjoy

Australian Websites, Trove Finds & What's Coming Up - Genealogy Notes 1-15 Jan 2019

2019 might just be going faster than 2018, this is already a few days late. So much has happened but let's hope it is just new year madness. There have been invitations to speak and participate in projects, planning for U3A, endless hosing the gardens and lawns as it refuses to rain (we have bore water), and trying to read all the books I received for Christmas. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday period.

Blogs

My favourite 25 Australasian websites was the first blog post for 2019. It is amazingly hard to narrow down to your favourites and of course it can vary depending on what you are currently researching. It was good to see this listed in Gail Dever's Creme de la Creme list for 19 January. I love lists that are compilations of weekly blog posts - it is easy to scroll down and see what others are writing.

Sunday Mail 23 Nov 1952 via Trove

My Trove Tuesday post was Karisma Estate, Toorbul & the Carnegie Family. This was a bit of local history and family history and we really should explore our families in the context of the communities in which they lived.

I also was included in Gail Dever's This Week's Creme de la Creme blog round up (12 Jan 2019) with The Prosecution Project for The In-Depth Genealogist.

Books

Finally managed to sit down and read Kate Grenville's The Secret River which is based on one of her convict ancestors. It is a fictional account and a gripping read. If you want to know what life was like for early convicts in Sydney find yourself a copy. My local library had it as she is a popular Australian writer.

Rereading Hazel Edwards classic How to Write a Non Boring Family History. So many good tips but of course the main thing is to simply set aside time to write, and then rewrite and rewrite.


Talks

National Archives of Australia Brisbane office

My talks for 2019 start with a QFHS seminar Taking Your Australian Research Further.

My first session is what's in the archives for Australian family history that you don't know about and the second is what other resources are you not using for your Australian family history research.

The other speaker is Janice Cooper and how to place your families in their local communities and historic times. Should be a good day.

Moreton Region Libraries have asked me to do a series of talks for them in National Family History Month (August). Seems ages away but probably here before we know it.

My first talk for them this year is in April on Convicts and Criminals at the Bribie Island Library.


What's Coming Up?
Amazingly I am almost at the end of the Writing Your Family History course with the University of Tasmania's Diploma in Family History. The weeks have just flown past and I have read so many interesting family stories from other students in the course. Some weeks you just don't have time to keep up with all of them. I haven't decided yet if I will do any other subjects.

Many years ago I did the Society of Australian Genealogists Diploma in Family Historical Studies and that was a good way to make progress on my own research. Just need more hours in the day!

Until next time happy searching.