Genealogy notes 16-21 Oct 2011 - Irish updates & writing family history

Well another week has gone with family and domestic matters interrupting my family history time. Thankfully I am spending the weekend alone and it is cold and grey in Melbourne so I am hoping to get lots done. I do love the family but it is so peaceful not having to jump up every few minutes to find something for them that is in plain sight!

Tuesday I managed some quiet time and spent it visiting various Irish genealogy sites - so much seems to have gone online since I last looked. I was very impressed with the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) will calendars and the fact that those up to 1900 have been digitised and are freely available online. Ancestry have lots of new Irish records and I have been using their Collection Priority filter (but you do need to remember to turn it off!).

FindMyPast Ireland has also been adding records and most notably this weekend they have added Irish prison records (but doesn't include the North). I'm finding the landed estates records most interesting. Another site I use a lot is Roots Ireland and again lots of new additions and I have also been using the Irish records on FamilySearch. Not doing searches on surname etc in the top section of their home page but going into the Browse by Location section and going into the records themselves and then doing the searches.

I find cross checking in all the various online databases useful if I can't find families under expected spellings or variants. Although it does take time. I have found this particularly so when using the various versions of Griffith's Valuation online which has just reminded me of the Ask About Ireland website which I also visited.

I'm looking forward to seeing Chris Paton's new book on Irish internet sites which I believe will be ready for the Unlock the Past history and genealogy cruise with a Scottish/Irish theme in November . Maybe some of my Irish brick walls will tumble on board the cruise ship! If you can't make the cruise, don't forget there are on shore talks all around New Zealand, Burnie in Tasmania, Melbourne and Sydney.

The other major achievement this week was finishing my book reviews of Hazel Edwards How to Write a Non-Boring Family History and Goldie Alexander's Mentoring Your Memoirs and doing a Writing Family History Again blog to include the reviews and to write about my own struggles in this area . By going public with my procrastination, I hope I am committing myself to some real effort in completing at least one of my draft family histories in 2012.

I haven't managed to do any genealogy reading this week although I try to follow key people on Twitter and Google+ so that I am vaguely aware of what has been happening.

Next week I have been invited to the University of Melbourne Archives to talk to the staff about what researchers want and how they might be able to increase usage of the archives. UMA is one of the archives I demonstrate in my talks It's Not All Online and Archives You Should Know but Perhaps Don't. When I first saw the invite I thought I was in trouble for using them and creating a demand for their services but it is the opposite, so looking forward to catching up with old colleagues and friends.

Hopefully it will be quieter next week and I will catch up with everything before I again pack my bag and hit the road for Pambula and the Bega Valley Genealogy Society in two weeks. At least there is never a dull moment!

Genealogy notes 10-15 Oct 2011 - military ancestors & famous explorers

Wow the whole week went by so fast but when you are staying with friends, it is easy to lose track of time as you are not in your normal environment. Plus you can't be on your laptop 24/7 without looking really unsociable. And to be honest after the big genealogy day on Sunday, I was grateful for the break.

My talk on Wednesday night to the Cobram Genealogical Group on researching military ancestors went well. There is an earlier version of this talk on my website under Resources. Cobram are a small and enthusiastic group who like most regional areas, struggle to keep their libraries open for research. As always it is the same volunteers who put their name down each month to open up and be available to assist others.

The Cobram group is co-located with the Cobram Historical Society (they don't have a website) and they share the old state school building and it was interesting to see some of the items held by the Historical Society. As you would expect, there was a heavy emphasis on old farming equipment especially dairying and of course, school items including an old school desk which was identical to the ones where I went to school. Hard to believe that I was ever that small and could fit into those old desks which were built for two children to share. The building is part of the Cobram Historical Precinct.

Another must visit place on the way to Cobram is the Byramine Homestead which was established in 1842. For those who know their Australian history, Hamilton Hume will be a well known name. Perhaps what is less known, is that he helped his sister in law Elizabeth Hume to establish the run "Yarrawonga Stations" after the death of her husband John Hume. She had nine children so obviously a determined woman.

She designed and had built the house she called Byramine which means rustic retreat. It had a range of safety features including wooden shutters and walls sixteen inches thick to help protect the family from bushrangers and Aboriginals. Husband John had been killed by bushrangers (the Whitton gang) so her desire to be safe in her new home and property is understandable. The home is privately owned although operates as a heritage tourism venture and was last for sale in 2010 and this Weekly Times property notice gives its history.

The final thing I did in Yarrawonga was to collect my father's cuckoo clock from the Clock Museum (it doesn't have its own website). On an earlier visit I had left it there for a clean and tone up as it is one of the few things that I have from my father. He was given the clock by my brother's first in-laws and Dad  loved watching the cuckoo come out every hour but I don't think Mum was as enthralled. Certainly she didn't seem to mind giving it to me after Dad died.

The Clock Museum is a fascinating place and there are over 500 antique and novelty clocks on display and it is worth a visit as all clocks are in working order (that's a lot of ticking). It's privately owned and the owner knows everything about clocks which is why I took my cuckoo clock to him for restoration.

I had to be back in Melbourne for the committee meeting of the Victorian Association of Family History Organisations (VAFHO). Lots of things are happening with updates to the website, thinking about speakers for the next Don Grant lecture on Family History Feast day (30 July 2012 so save the date), planning for the next VAFHO conference in 2013 in Ballarat and also looking at a membership drive to get more representation across Victoria.

Back home I had a small mountain of snail mail, mostly bills, but one was an envelope postmarked Ireland and I knew it was my Irish marriage certificates. I ordered two a few weeks ago so with great excitement I opened the envelope to find two certificates but they were the same certificate, not two different ones. I'm not sure what has happened but I will need to contact them and sort it all out.

This weekend is going to be a catch up weekend with everything. It's nice having time away and sitting on an immigration channel bank fishing and watching the birds but now I have emails, newsletters, blogs and some new breakthroughs in my own family history research to follow up. Not to mention preparing my talks for the Unlock the Past genealogy cruise which is now only four weeks away and before that I am travelling to Pambula, NSW for the Bega Valley Genealogy Society annual seminar where I am giving two talks.

Although I have been saying I will take it easier next year, I find I am already committed to a growing number of genealogy events next year. I start out saying NO but then they seem to find my soft spot - I need to find it myself and concrete it over! Still it is nice to be in demand and I probably wouldn't like to see that change.  

Genealogy notes 5-9 Oct 2011 genealogy seminars & heritage tourism

Thursday and Friday we spent travelling through the Yarra Valley and we finally did a wine tasting at Helen's Hill Winery and had a three course lunch at Vines Restaurant (this was all part of my partner's retirement gift from his workmates). We couldn't share our experience as there was no phone coverage (at least not for our provider) and on Thursday night we stayed in a motel (just 2 km outside a nearby town) and I couldn't even access the Telstra network with my laptop modem. It made me realise (yet again) how hard it is for rural/regional people to have the same type of easy access that those in more metropolitan areas enjoy.

The next day we travelled up to Lake Eildon which has spent the last few years with less than 5% water capacity but is now back up to 98% capacity. It is really amazing to see all the water again and hard to believe when you drive over the bridge that there was no water there for years. We weren't the only tourists so hopefully all those businesses will get back to normal, especially with the summer season approaching.

So after two days 'in the wilderness' I was glad to arrive at our friend's place at Yarrawonga and again have access to phone and emails etc. While up this way, we have been exploring some of the food and history trails and on Saturday we went to Tocumwal on the Murray River where I was surprised to learn the town (first established in 1862) was the site of the largest aerodrome in the Southern Hemisphere during World War II. As well as Australians, the base also saw over 7,000 Americans and today it is hard to imagine all that activity and people. I found the photographs and other memorabilia at the Tocumwal Historic Aerodrome Museum fascinating and it is definitely worth the 'gold coin' entry donation.

For car and caravan buffs, Chrystie's Museum is worth a visit and I was particularly interested in the early caravans although there was a whole range of other memorabilia in display cases.

If you want the best strawberry pancakes ever then don't go past the Big Strawberry (yes I can add another 'Big' icon to my list of places visited). I don't think I have ever seen so many varieties of strawberry jam or wines and liquers for that matter. I settled on fig and ginger to take home.

But we are not up here just to see the sights and yesterday I spent talking to members of GMAGS (Goulburn Murray Association of Genealogical Societies). While most people were from local societies (within an hour's drive or so) I did meet one couple who had travelled down from Deniliquin. My three talks on mining ancestors, online newspapers and caring for family archives were all well received with plenty of time for questions after each talk. There was also lots of discussion over morning and afternoon tea and lunch.

As a surprise, I had bought along some lucky door prizes which included some copies of Inside History magazine (which is about to celebrate it's first anniversary) and also some copies of Australian Family Tree Connections and some genealogy journals from the Genealogical Society of Victoria and the Australian Institute of Genealogical Studies. Jan Parker was the lucky recipient of a copy of the digital scrapbooking program My Memories. I know Jan is a keen scrapbooker so I will look forward to hearing what she thinks of digital scrapbooking.

When talking about genealogy seminars in rural areas, you simply also have to mention the catering. People brought along plates of food to share and there is nothing better than home cooked slices and cakes. Do it yourself ham or chicken salad rolls for lunch went well with plenty for everyone. There was a $10 charge by GMAGS for the day and this included lunch and the talks so great value.

I again highlighted the value of social media and especially blogging as a way of easily telling their family stories so it will be interesting to see how many explore this option. They started to see the possibilities when I explained the various family connections I have made after distant relatives found my blogs via Google.

I have one more talk at Cobram on Wednesday night - it's on military ancestors so I'm looking forward to that. We should also get the opportunity to explore some more local towns but haven't decided which ones yet. I still have those book reviews to do but its hard to sit here at the laptop when you know there is so much history out there, just waiting to be explored!

Genealogy notes 29 Sep - 4 Oct 2011 value of genealogy conference papers

I've been a bit quiet but only because I was determined to finish a long standing project. A while back I told the Victorian Association of Family History Societies Organisation (VAFHO) that I was doing a complete listing of all papers presented at their conferences between 1995 and 2010. The details of the project are here, plus a link to the online list. As this is just a diary update I wont' go into all again, but I am glad that it is now completed.

I've also been busy reading my two books for review and I hope to finalise those by the end of this week. Then I will only have the CD publication and the scrapbooking software to review. I like doing reviews but they do take time and they always seem to come at the same time!

Some of my e-newsletters have been Snippets (Queensland Family History Society), Public Record Office Despatch (PROV), Now & Then from State Records NSW, qsa bulletin from Queensland State Archives, Lost Cousins, and the SAG e-newsletter from the Society of Australian Genealogists.

The other major task that's kept  me quiet has been updating my three talks for the Goulburn Murray Association of Genealogical Societies (GMAGS) this coming Sunday. I'm looking at Mining Ancestors, Newspapers Online and Caring For Your Family Archives so it will be fairly intensive day with something for everyone.

While up that way I will also be giving a talk on Researching Military Ancestors at the monthly meeting of the Cobram Genealogical Group. I'm a member there and their representative on VAFHO but I don't get up there that often for monthly meetings.

So another busy week coming up.

Genealogy notes 23-28 Sep Business and trade union records

Last Sunday I gave two talks to the Australian Institute of Genealogical Studies here in Melbourne. Both talks highlighted how much is not online (based on my book It's Not All Online: A Guide to Genealogy Sources Offline) and as usual the feedback was along the lines of they 'had never thought to look there'. Two of my favourite websites are the Guide to Australian Business Records and the Australian Trade Union Archives. Although most of these types of records are not online, you can use the online catalogues to identify information that might be relevant to your own family history.

I have a few reviews to do at present (even an e-book and digital scrapbooking software so there's two new experiences) which means I have been doing a fair bit of reading this week. Given Melbourne is having a return to cold, wet and windy weather that hasn't been a bad thing. The hard part comes writing up the reviews, although they are all subjects that I am personally interested in. Stay tuned.

The other thing that has kept me busy is scanning family photos and relooking at some of my older research. By using TROVE and in particular the digitised newspapers I can now add more details to my original research. It is so easy to find stories or family notices doing simple keyword searches especially if you have dates and places. Of course once I find relevant entries, I then have to correct the OCR text and I usually add a tag (person's name or place) so that others can then find it even more easily.

When I took an early photo of my parents out of its frame (originally from my grandmother's place after she died) I found another photo behind it of a woman and child, but of course no names or date. The woman has a slight resemblance to my grandmother but I have no idea who it might be. I will take the photo up to Mum's at Christmas and hope she may know who it is.

We continue to declutter our house and make preparations to sell and move further north where it is warm. Although now there is talk we may just live in a caravan for a while before we decide where to buy. That all sounds nice but I can't see where all my family history files are going to live, not to mention my books and other memorabilia. While I am slowly digitising my research of the last 34 years it won't be finished by the end of the year. I can't see myself leaving it in a storage shed somewhere or even in a shipping container. All I can hope is that we will finally agree on where to settle on our next trip up and down the Queensland/New South Wales coast!! Christmas/New Year is going to be interesting.

Genealogy notes 19-22 Sep 2011 Value of Blogging

There's a lot happening at the moment. After my Judge family breakthrough, see Diary for 15-18 Sep 2011, I have been changing online family trees and entering all my new correct data. I still have to do that with my personal database and of course, go through all my paper files. Still I'm glad I've finally found the real Elizabeth Judge even if she is technically Elizabeth Pollard.

I reviewed my talk Archives You Should Know But Perhaps Don't and updated Powerpoint slides where necessary in preparation for today's talk at the Genealogical Society of Victoria. I received nice feedback and it's good to see genealogists broaden their knowledge outside of the usual national/state archives thinking. Hopefully they will all be on their computers tonight looking at all the various sites. My website Resources page has a number of my talks and handouts with links so that people don't have to write so fast.

We finished up with a discussion about blogs (this was after a show of hands revealed hardly any hands)! I was stressing how good they are to find out what is happening and what other people are doing. Also how blogging your family stories can lead to distant relatives finding you. I gave my Maria Jeffers blog Letters Home My Irish Families example. The comments on that blog include responses from family members descended from the person mentioned in the letters. They had no idea the letters even existed! I hope GSV attendees at least look at some blogs and maybe even try out Blogger themselves. With luck they are reading this now!

I did another guest blog for MyHeritage and that should appear tomorrow and I watched Brad Argent from Ancestry on Mornings with Kerri-Anne on Channel 9 on Wednesday talking about famous Australian celebrities. But I forgot to watch Who Do You Think You Are that night - at 10pm it's a bit late for me. I'll have to get the DVD! It's the second series of the US version and Wikipedia has a nice summary of the WDYTYA US shows, both seasons.

The September e-newsletters I've read since last time include Ancestry, Lost Cousins, National Archives UK, Unlock the Past Crew, FindMyPast UK, and S&N Genealogy News. Sometimes I think I subscribe to too many e-newsletters but they are mostly free (except for my subscription sites) and I usually find something of interest in all of them. I like how you can click on links and follow up items of interest which you can't do if  reading paper magazines (I know you can type in URLs but nothing beats instant link). I will confess I do speed read, skim, only look at the pictures etc unless it is specifically on an area of personal interest.

Genealogy notes 15-18 September 2011 Red Herrings & Brickwalls

I have continued my tidy up of the study and it is so easy to get distracted. I am finding as I look through my family history files and research folders, I want to revisit the research as there is so much more now that is easily accessible online. TROVE is a fantastic resource for finding information on families in Australian newspapers. Of course once you are on TROVE it is not so easy to get off - it's so addictive and because you are turning up little nuggets on the family, why stop?

I've also gone through my Problems folder - questions I couldn't answer, families I couldn't find and so on. I dragged out my Elizabeth Judge question - I had a birth certificate in 1857, a marriage certificate in 1878 but couldn't find her on either the 1861 or 1871 census. I had looked many times, originally on microfilm but more recently in both Ancestry and FindMyPast.

Yesterday was the day I was going to solve it once and for all and I spent the better part of the day just doing that. I also proved my research of 34 years totally wrong and now I have to go back and clean everything up. Not only in my Legacy Family Tree database but also my online databases in Genes Reunited, Ancestry and My Heritage. It is going to take some time but at least now I know the real story. Intrigued - it's all in my Online Research, New Resources, Fresh Eyes.

The other thing I did yesterday was to get back into the 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History blogging series and Week 37 was Earliest Memories. I looked back on my first day of school and if you want to see me in my Grade One uniform click here. I find photographs terrific for helping to retrieve long forgotten memories.

As much as I would like to just sit here gazing outside and watching the birds, I have a family tree to clean up and as my other half points out, the house also needs a bit of a tidy up! He's gone off on his motorbike, so I can't ask him what housework needs doing - it all looks fine to me. So perhaps back to TROVE?