Monday was mostly taken up with finalising my talks for Brisbane and Toowoomba in August. Whenever I visit Brisbane to see family, the local genealogy societies often ask me to give talks at their monthly meetings. This is always a good opportunity to catch up with old friends so if I can fit these meetings in, I do.
On Monday 15 August 2011 I will be speaking at the Southern Suburbs branch of the Genealogical Society of Queensland and I have known some of them for over 30 years which is quite amazing. The talk is on mining ancestors and most people in Queensland usually have one or more mining ancestors. As this is such a huge topic, the hardest part of doing this talk is keeping it to 45 minutes!
Since December 2010 I have been writing a monthly article on mining ancestors for Australian Family Tree Connections and the feedback has been really good. As well as helping people with their own research, the mining series has also put me in touch with a few of my own long lost cousins who have recognised photographs I used to illustrate the articles. Also one gentleman in a mining area where my great grandfather died even went to the remote cemetery and took photos for me. So it really does pay to advertise your family research.
The other talk I worked on was a revision of my Victorian ancestors talk which I last gave in May in Sydney for the Society of Australian Genealogists. The weekend I gave the talk was also the weekend that Public Record Office Victoria (PROV) changed its website but I still had to go with my existing slides as I had no idea what the new site looked like until the following Monday.
As well as updating the PROV slides, I also had to update the home pages of a few other sites to make them current again. It is amazing how often home pages change with new content or new looks or whatever. The Victorian talk is being given to the Queensland Family History Society at their Wednesday meeting on 17 August 2011. I am a founding member of that society (1979) so again I know quite a few of them although more recent members only know me from my periodic visits.
Preparing talks takes longer than people suspect (I think) so I didn't do too much more than check for any urgent or exciting emails and to check Twitter and Facebook similarly. I did look at all my Google+ invitations and realised that there was more than one person per invitation email so I ended up adding dozens of people to my circles, mostly other genealogists. I really need to get my head around using this for genealogy at least.
Tomorrow I hope to finalise my last Toowoomba talk and then it will be a review of all talks, print paper copies just in case something goes totally wrong with the technology and to back them up on two USB sticks. I try to be prepared for everything but there is always Murphy's Law!
I'm starting to get excited about all the talks and events in the remainder of July and August so check the list of events on my website and see if I will be visiting a place near you soon.
Monday 11 July 2011
Sunday 10 July 2011
Genealogy notes 9-10 July 2011 Royal Australian Armoured Corps Tank Museum
It was as I expected - a weekend with no genealogy as we were visiting a friend's farm and staying overnight. In some ways a technology free weekend is quite nice and it is good to know I can go 48 hours without turning the laptop on. However, I am now wading my way through various emails, tweets, Facebook and Google+ invitations.
But there is one thing that I do want to report on. We finally managed a visit to the Royal Australian Armoured Corps Tank Museum at Puckapunyal on the way home. We had gone there previously on the spur of the moment when passing, but it is not open every weekend and we hadn't picked an open weekend. This time, as it was school holidays, it was open.
Museums don't always reflect what the name suggests and this is no exception. Of course there are many, many tanks (over 70 of them) to wander around and look at. In fact, I hadn't realised just how many different kinds there were or the differences between British, German, Japanese and American tanks until you see them all lined up. Each tank had it's history and statistics on a display board which was good for people like me who know nothing about tanks. There was an icy wind blowing and rain threatening so we didn't spend all that long wandering around the huge, open sheds which give some cover to the tanks.
I found it more interesting in the interior museum which paid tribute to every war since the Boer War. There were lots of photos, medals, uniforms, weapons, with various stories and tributes in display cases. I took some photos but the museum's website has a very good 3D map which allows you to do almost a virtual tour.
Visiting these kinds of museums can help us to understand our own military research better. For example, my ancestors fought it the Boer War in Light Horse Regiments and while I knew that meant they rode horses, I had not consciously thought how they transported the horses. There is a Light Horse memorial at the Museum which is a railway carriage and when you go up to have a look inside there is a fake horse inside a horse stall. It's obvious when you think about it, but it wasn't till I explored that Light Horse memorial that I realised exactly what it meant for soldiers to not only have to transport themselves and their gear but they also had to look after their horses.
It's a great place to visit and if you don't live in Victoria, do the website tour and look for other military museums - who knows what you will learn and perhaps even better, it will be of interest to your own family history.
But there is one thing that I do want to report on. We finally managed a visit to the Royal Australian Armoured Corps Tank Museum at Puckapunyal on the way home. We had gone there previously on the spur of the moment when passing, but it is not open every weekend and we hadn't picked an open weekend. This time, as it was school holidays, it was open.
Museums don't always reflect what the name suggests and this is no exception. Of course there are many, many tanks (over 70 of them) to wander around and look at. In fact, I hadn't realised just how many different kinds there were or the differences between British, German, Japanese and American tanks until you see them all lined up. Each tank had it's history and statistics on a display board which was good for people like me who know nothing about tanks. There was an icy wind blowing and rain threatening so we didn't spend all that long wandering around the huge, open sheds which give some cover to the tanks.
I found it more interesting in the interior museum which paid tribute to every war since the Boer War. There were lots of photos, medals, uniforms, weapons, with various stories and tributes in display cases. I took some photos but the museum's website has a very good 3D map which allows you to do almost a virtual tour.
Visiting these kinds of museums can help us to understand our own military research better. For example, my ancestors fought it the Boer War in Light Horse Regiments and while I knew that meant they rode horses, I had not consciously thought how they transported the horses. There is a Light Horse memorial at the Museum which is a railway carriage and when you go up to have a look inside there is a fake horse inside a horse stall. It's obvious when you think about it, but it wasn't till I explored that Light Horse memorial that I realised exactly what it meant for soldiers to not only have to transport themselves and their gear but they also had to look after their horses.
It's a great place to visit and if you don't live in Victoria, do the website tour and look for other military museums - who knows what you will learn and perhaps even better, it will be of interest to your own family history.
Friday 8 July 2011
Genealogy notes 8 July 2011
Amazing how fast Fridays seem to come around. On Fridays I like to write my contribution to the Geneabloggers blogging theme 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy and History and this weeks topic was Vacations. Questions to spur memories included where did you go, favourite places, are they still there and if not, how have things changed. My reminiscences were all around the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast as we lived in Brisbane when I was growing up.
There are always great conferences going on but sometimes the fees are on the high side (now that I'm semi-retired), especially if there are only a few sessions that you are interested in. This is particularly true in sister professions. For example, I have been looking at the Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers (ANZSI) conference program - it will be held in Brighton, Victoria 12-14 September 2011. I'm not an indexer but have an interest in indexing and in the past I have given papers at their conferences. It's over three days and of course, all the sessions I want to see or participate in are over all three days otherwise a one day registration would be the way to go. The other problem is that two of the sessions that most interest me are on at the same time. Decisions!
I always enjoy reading Heritage Tasmania e-news, and the June issue has a range of interesting stories. Also caught up with the June issue of the qsa-bulletin from the Queensland State Archives. I like to sign up for the free e-newsletters as they keep me up to date with new indexes, new records, seminars and so on. Back issues are also online. I have subscriptions for quite a few of the archives where I have family interests.
My weekend diary may be a combined effort as we will be travelling. My partner says I can't do genealogy 24/7 but I think he might be wrong! I suspect I could or at least give it a real good try.
There are always great conferences going on but sometimes the fees are on the high side (now that I'm semi-retired), especially if there are only a few sessions that you are interested in. This is particularly true in sister professions. For example, I have been looking at the Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers (ANZSI) conference program - it will be held in Brighton, Victoria 12-14 September 2011. I'm not an indexer but have an interest in indexing and in the past I have given papers at their conferences. It's over three days and of course, all the sessions I want to see or participate in are over all three days otherwise a one day registration would be the way to go. The other problem is that two of the sessions that most interest me are on at the same time. Decisions!
I always enjoy reading Heritage Tasmania e-news, and the June issue has a range of interesting stories. Also caught up with the June issue of the qsa-bulletin from the Queensland State Archives. I like to sign up for the free e-newsletters as they keep me up to date with new indexes, new records, seminars and so on. Back issues are also online. I have subscriptions for quite a few of the archives where I have family interests.
My weekend diary may be a combined effort as we will be travelling. My partner says I can't do genealogy 24/7 but I think he might be wrong! I suspect I could or at least give it a real good try.
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