Yesterday was a strange sort of day, did a bit of searching on our friend's brick wall that I mentioned last time - mostly rechecking sources that they have already covered. But sometimes a second pair of eyes helps or you use a different search strategy or different spelling variations. Some of the sources I covered included:
Ancestry.com.au trying to pick up a date of death, or mention on an electoral roll
FindMyPast.com.au again looking for electoral rolls
Victorian BDM's - I always check the individual State indexes as well as the Ancestry version - with the online indexes you have to pay unless you have access to the indexes on CD
TROVE - Australian newspaper searching on both married and maiden names, of course if she entered into a de facto relationship or simply changed her name we will never find her!
PapersPast - another newspaper search but this time in New Zealand in case the earthquake story is correct
Rootsweb mailing list archives - I always like to see if anyone else has posted a 'missing person' notice and this did turn up emails from the family but with no success in finding her.
While I was finding references to the family, there was nothing pointing me to where she had gone or when she had died. I decided to park the problem and let ideas come to me. It was about then that the postman arrived bearing the 5th issue of Inside History, a relatively new Australian genealogy magazine. So I decided to break for a cup of tea but that stretched into lunch as I settled down for a good read.
After lunch it was a nice walk down to the library in the 'rare' sunshine and then packing up my talks and bits and pieces for the Unlock the Past South Australian and Victorian Border Expo 22-23 July. We are having a few days in Adelaide before heading back to Mount Gambier for the expo - it's a chance to see the family while we are relatively close or closer!
I'm finding that I'm spending even more time on emails and social media with the advent of Google+ as I get notifications on new connections, when I start looking at the genealogy stream (or other streams) I get sidetracked, much like Twitter sidetracks me with interesting new links and genealogy news. I'm starting to think it is all like television, it it's on, I watch it and don't do anything I should be doing. Might start up a time log but then I will worry about what I might be missing!
Thursday 14 July 2011
Wednesday 13 July 2011
Genealogy notes 13 July 2011 National Family History Week 2011
As I've mentioned over the last few days I am busy updating existing talks and doing new talks - in fact I am giving 11 talks over the next six weeks! See my schedule for more details.
Why so much happening around this particular time? Well it is winter in Australia and if we didn't have genealogy events to go to, we probably wouldn't venture out of our homes - not that winter here is anything like it is overseas. But more importantly, winter is the time when we have our National Family History Week - to be more exact it's 29 July to 8 August.
This is an initiative of the Australasian Federation of Family History Organisations (AFFHO) and their other big initiative every three years is a genealogy congress and the next one is 28-31 March 2012 in Adelaide with a theme of Your Ancestors in Their Social Context. There is a great line up of speakers and talks so it is definitely not one to miss.
But back to National Family History Week - anyone can add an event but unfortunately not everyone lists their events here. Still, depending on what State or Territory you live in, you can easily find events of interest. Here in Victoria one event I have attended every year is Family History Feast at the State Library of Victoria. Scrolling through the list of events in Victoria shows that there is a great variety of talks and not just in Melbourne which is great.
So check out your State and see what you can attend for National Family History Week and if your organisation is having an event and it's not listed, encourage them to add it. All too often I hear people say they would have attended something if only they had known about it. So let's all publicise National Family History Week in 2011.
Yesterday my other half came home after visiting friends with a rather detailed family history chart in his hands. His friends have a genealogy brickwall and he assured them that I might be able to help solve it. He has great faith in my abilities and I must admit I do like a challenge - however this one is where the wife leaves the family, never to be seen again. Already my mind is thinking of all the possibilities and to complicate it further it has both Australia and New Zealand links. Wish me luck!
Why so much happening around this particular time? Well it is winter in Australia and if we didn't have genealogy events to go to, we probably wouldn't venture out of our homes - not that winter here is anything like it is overseas. But more importantly, winter is the time when we have our National Family History Week - to be more exact it's 29 July to 8 August.
This is an initiative of the Australasian Federation of Family History Organisations (AFFHO) and their other big initiative every three years is a genealogy congress and the next one is 28-31 March 2012 in Adelaide with a theme of Your Ancestors in Their Social Context. There is a great line up of speakers and talks so it is definitely not one to miss.
But back to National Family History Week - anyone can add an event but unfortunately not everyone lists their events here. Still, depending on what State or Territory you live in, you can easily find events of interest. Here in Victoria one event I have attended every year is Family History Feast at the State Library of Victoria. Scrolling through the list of events in Victoria shows that there is a great variety of talks and not just in Melbourne which is great.
So check out your State and see what you can attend for National Family History Week and if your organisation is having an event and it's not listed, encourage them to add it. All too often I hear people say they would have attended something if only they had known about it. So let's all publicise National Family History Week in 2011.
Yesterday my other half came home after visiting friends with a rather detailed family history chart in his hands. His friends have a genealogy brickwall and he assured them that I might be able to help solve it. He has great faith in my abilities and I must admit I do like a challenge - however this one is where the wife leaves the family, never to be seen again. Already my mind is thinking of all the possibilities and to complicate it further it has both Australia and New Zealand links. Wish me luck!
Tuesday 12 July 2011
Genealogy notes 12 July 2011 DNA genealogy
Another day working on talks for my Brisbane/Toowoomba trip in August. I'm happy to say that all talks are drafted and I'm now in the review stage to make sure they run to time, make sense and give attendees information to further their own research. Without knowing an audience, you have to try and cater for everyone from basic beginners to those who may have considerable experience.
Amongst my emails yesterday was an updated report from 23andMe which is a DNA company which specialises in genetic testing for health and provides an insight into various health risks through maternal DNA. I have also had people contact me to see if we are related because of DNA strands matching up, although this is more 4th or 5th cousin relationships. So far there have been no definite connections. This is an area that I have been exploring more this year and I will probably do a DNA test with one of the companies that is more into family history rather than health issues.
I also need to read more about the subject as well and recently purchased a book DNA For Genealogists by Kerry Farmer to help me understand more. I have heard Kerry's talk on DNA at an Unlock the Past history and genealogy expo but it is a lot to take in so the book will build on that (I hope). Science was never one of my strong subjects at school.
Another interesting email was from Unlock the Past and a draft brochure for their War Comes To Australia: WWII 70th anniversary tour to commemorate the bombing of Darwin in 1942. I have been asked to give a talk on Tracing Military Ancestors as part of the tour which is 17-22 Feb 2012. There will be two seminars as part of the tour and other speakers are Brad Manera and Dr Tom Lewis OAM. It should be an exciting time to be in Darwin next year.
I still receive mail from the postman and while not as much as via email, it is still exciting to open up the mailbox and see letters and journals. Yesterday I received my latest copy of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria's journal and newsletter. You can also see the latter on their website, even if you aren't a member and it is a good read with lots of information on research in Victoria and what is happening with affiliated historical societies. The Society has a lot of information, indexes and databases online and anyone with Victorian ancestors may find it worthwhile to search for their names and places.
We are leaving for Adelaide on Saturday and I have so many things I want to do before then. To do lists are something that I'm good at but they do have a problem of growing faster than I can tick them off. The next six weeks are incredibly busy and I'm looking forward to some down time in September. Fingers crossed!
Amongst my emails yesterday was an updated report from 23andMe which is a DNA company which specialises in genetic testing for health and provides an insight into various health risks through maternal DNA. I have also had people contact me to see if we are related because of DNA strands matching up, although this is more 4th or 5th cousin relationships. So far there have been no definite connections. This is an area that I have been exploring more this year and I will probably do a DNA test with one of the companies that is more into family history rather than health issues.
I also need to read more about the subject as well and recently purchased a book DNA For Genealogists by Kerry Farmer to help me understand more. I have heard Kerry's talk on DNA at an Unlock the Past history and genealogy expo but it is a lot to take in so the book will build on that (I hope). Science was never one of my strong subjects at school.
Another interesting email was from Unlock the Past and a draft brochure for their War Comes To Australia: WWII 70th anniversary tour to commemorate the bombing of Darwin in 1942. I have been asked to give a talk on Tracing Military Ancestors as part of the tour which is 17-22 Feb 2012. There will be two seminars as part of the tour and other speakers are Brad Manera and Dr Tom Lewis OAM. It should be an exciting time to be in Darwin next year.
I still receive mail from the postman and while not as much as via email, it is still exciting to open up the mailbox and see letters and journals. Yesterday I received my latest copy of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria's journal and newsletter. You can also see the latter on their website, even if you aren't a member and it is a good read with lots of information on research in Victoria and what is happening with affiliated historical societies. The Society has a lot of information, indexes and databases online and anyone with Victorian ancestors may find it worthwhile to search for their names and places.
We are leaving for Adelaide on Saturday and I have so many things I want to do before then. To do lists are something that I'm good at but they do have a problem of growing faster than I can tick them off. The next six weeks are incredibly busy and I'm looking forward to some down time in September. Fingers crossed!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)