Genealogy notes 29 Mar 2012 - Day 2 of Congress

This daily blog is a bit late because I slept in this morning - too many receptions and get together dinners! Barely made it in time for the first plenary session of Day 3 of AFFHO12!

Yesterday got off to a great start with Jenny Higgins from the National Library of Australia talking about Did They Do That In Those Days? which looked at why you should put social context in family histories. And of course she used the resources of the NLA to illustrate her points. I was very pleased to accept an I Love TROVE badge as I am one of its many fans and hardly a day goes by when I don't try and find something in it. I also mention TROVE in just about every talk I give so yes, I'm a fan (or is that an addict?).

The next session I went to was Barbara Baker talking about Scottish Research Online and I hoped she wasn't just talking about Scotland's People and although a great site, there are other sites which can provide different information and social context. I wasn't disappointed and Barbara mentioned quite a few URLs that I will have to follow up when I get home. One obvious omission, and you can't always fit everything into a presentation, was the FreeCen, FreeReg and Free BMD sites.

Then there was morning tea but as I was speaking next I quietly went to the big theatre where I was speaking and checked in with Liana from WA who was chairing the session. I always like it when I have long time friends chairing sessions as it makes me feel at home and amongst friends. You would think after giving talks for over 30 years I would lose the nerves but I don't. Today's talk was Are You The Family Archivist? and from verbal feedback afterwards, it achieved my objective to get people thinking about how their family records are kept and more importantly, what will happen to those records in the future. I have an earlier version of this talk on my website Resources page and it is also the basis of one of my research guides Your Family History Archives: A Brief Introduction.

With all my talks out of the way I could enjoy lunch and wander round the exhibits and catch up with people. I finally got around to renewing my membership of the Society of Australian Genealogists and it's always good to catch up with Heather. Over on the National Institute of Genealogical Studies stand I caught up with Brenda and Kerry and on the Genealogical Society of Victoria stand was Linley, another well known genealogist and expert on the GSV library.

After lunch we had a very entertaining talk from David Holman on Fascinating Facts and Figures which kept us all awake laughing at various name combinations and statistics. His section on Extreme Age interested me especially when he started tracking claimants back through the census and their ages varied considerably each ten years! One of the unusual forenames he mentioned was Zenobia and I have a surname and oddly enough, Alan another friend from Victoria and sitting beside me, also has a Zenobia but until that moment neither of us realised we had that in common. Small world, especially when you do family history.

My next session was Pat Lokan talking about Parallels and Contrasts Life in Cornwall and South Australia 1825-1875 and this was of personal interest as my Cornish gg grandparents came out  from Cornwall to Moonta SA in 1863. I really liked seeing the photographs of places in Cornwall and it is over 30 years since I first visited Moonta so time for another visit. It was also interesting to note that Cornish mining landscapes have achieved World Heritage status - see Cornish Mining World Heritage.

Afternoon tea goes so quickly because by the time you walk back to the exhibition area, it is almost time to turn around and walk back and that's not even factoring in toilet stops! Start chatting to someone and timing becomes real tight. My last session of the day was Dan Poffenberger giving a personal presentation on the life of his grandmother and I don't think I've seen that many marriages within a family before! It also showed how most of our ancestors lives took many turns depending on the circumstances they came up against.

Then it was a quick dash back to the hotel to get ready for the Adelaide Lord Mayor's reception for speakers and other dignitaries. Max came in to join me and while there were a couple of speeches, the wine flowed freely and the finger food seemed to be plentiful and delicious. Afterwards we joined some friends for a very nice and cheap Chinese banquet and again the drinks flowed freely as did the conversations. Perhaps that's why I had trouble waking up this morning?

Anyway Day 3 is now over and I am madly trying to finish this Day 2 blog before going out to attend the Conference Dinner and if you don't see the Day 3 blog tomorrow morning you will know I had a great time at the dinner and slept in again! Must dash now, until next time.

Genealogy notes 28 Mar 2012 - Day One at AFFHO Congress

Well Day One is over and already my notebook (still paper and pen I'm afraid) is starting to fill up with new ideas and things to follow up. The day started with John Bannon's opening address which recalled my years with the National Archives of Australia. John is the Chair of NAA's Advisory Council and he is a good spokesperson for their achievements and future directions. It was a good introduction to the AFFHO Congress and touched on many topics that I think will be mentioned again and again in other presentations.

Colleen Fitzpatrick, a forensic genealogist, was the first keynote speaker and I really liked her dry sense of humour that came out at various times even though she was largely dealing with a very sad topic - the death of nearly 1500 people when the Titanic sank in 1912. Colleen was involved with the identification of The Unknown Child on the Titanic and it was fascinating to see what steps were involved including exhumations and tracking families backwards to find common ancestors before tracking forwards to find living descendants. For a fleeting minute or two I wondered if I could exhume a few of my more difficult to trace ancestors but I suspect it's not that practical! It was a great talk and I'm now keen to read some of her publications as were others judging by the lineup of people waiting for her to sign their copies.

Just as I was about to go in for morning tea, one of the conference organisers grabbed me and said that they didn't have a copy of my two talks and as I had previously sent copies in separate emails I was a bit puzzled. Checking with the technician my talks were indeed missing in action. This was a bit deja vu as I had got up in the middle of the night looking for my spare USB stick when I realised I had left my USB with the copies of my talks on it, in my other handbag in the caravan down at Brighton. I always have a copy with me in case something goes wrong. To my horror, I found that I didn't even have a spare USB as I had cleaned out my laptop bag. Borrowing a USB from the technician I quickly went back to the hotel, did another copy and then raced back to the speaker's room and had my talks uploaded. At least it was sorted out before my first talk later that day!

However it did mean that I missed morning tea and the first twenty minutes of Kath Ensor's presentation on Unlocking Ancestors' Stories from Mental Asylums which is a topic that I give talks on too. Many of my ancestors were in various institutions and the records are fantastic as they usually have detailed biographical information. Kath's talk was on Victorian mental asylums and Public Record Office Victoria has many of the asylum admission books and case books digitised on their website.

Then it was lunch time and a chance to chat with people and it is great to see so many Canberrans here that I knew while living in Canberra a few years back. The strong contingent is because the next AFFHO congress is in Canberra in 2015. They have already done a lot of planning and have a website up and are starting a free e-newsletter to keep interested people informed of progress. Of course, I signed up there and then!

There is also plenty of time to wander round the exhibits and I managed to chat with a number of people, Ben from Inside History magazine, Paul from FamilySearch, Vicki from FindMyPast Australasia, Alona and Anthea from Gould Genealogy and Kim from MyHeritage to mention just a few. I will do a better list of exhibitors when I'm not racing the clock in the early hours of the morning! So far I've only bought one book but temptation is strong!

After lunch Daniel Horowitz was the keynote speaker on How we Share and Preserve Memories in a Digital Era and he is the founder of MyHeritage so basically the talk was about how MyHeritage lets people record their family history and share it with other family members. I'm always a bit wary about having major sponsors give keynote addresses as it can tend to be just a promotional talk for their products which some attendees may not want to listen too. Of course the reality is that congresses need sponsorship and if it was in a concurrent session, they wouldn't get as many people. Having said that, I did enjoy Daniel's presentation and it was good to see how MyHeritage operates and while I have a few family names in it myself, I realised I am not making full use of all the social networking facilities.

I missed the next session as I always like to review my talks before giving them and take time just to gather my thoughts. I also spent a bit more time going round the exhibits before I wandered over to the room where my session was. I was pleased to see that the Chair of the session was Don Mountain a long time friend from Canberra and a fellow HAGSOC committee member back then. I hadn't done Ancestors in Church before so I was a bit nervous as to how people would receive it as it is so broad ranging and I can't cover in detail all religions and denominations. I was pleased with comments afterwards when people said it had given them new ideas to follow up which is exactly the type of feedback I like.

I also used my session to give a plug to Geniaus' blogging beads and to raise the profile of the various Geneabloggers present at this conference. We are the ones with the bright, colourful, maybe small or large, beads hanging around our necks and we are all writing up our thoughts and comments on the various speakers and other activities. I'm amazed at how quickly Geniaus (perhaps that's why she's called that?) gets all her congress photos up - see her blog for all the latest photos!

I also missed the opportunity to get together for dinner with other members of the KIVA Genealogists for Families project (founded by Judy Webster) due to other commitments but there are a few of us at Congress as well. Geniaus even has those photos up - check it out here. It's a great way to help other people in mostly developing countries to set up or run their own businesses. I've got six loans and most of those are almost paid off and with the repayments I use them to finance another loan to someone else. If you haven't heard of it before have a look!

Today is another big day starting at 8.30am so I better finish this off now and get moving!

Genealogy notes 22-27 Mar 2012 - At 13th Australasian Genealogy & Heraldry Congress

The trip over to Adelaide was great and as usual we wandered from our original itinerary and it's just as well we always give ourselves more time! We ended up staying a night at Dimboola in western Victoria (still trying to get over recent flooding), then onto Kingston SE on the South Australian coast (home of Larry the Big Lobster) where we couldn't resist a fresh cooked lobster and of course the obligatory champagne to wash it down and then we went to Goolwa, a very historic town at the mouth of the Murray River. From there we went up to Brighton and the nearest caravan park to where our family live. It was great to spend some time with them before I moved on into the CBD to be close to all the action at the 13th Australasian Genealogy & Heraldry Congress.

After checking in, I went down to the Migration Museum for a quick meeting with Catherine curator of their exhibition Who Are We Now? and to see how they had used one of my blogs on my Irish ancestors. The social media aspect of the exhibition was quite small but when it eventually moves online there will be more scope for online involvement. Still it was a thrill to see a page from my website blog and a small quote on why I think blogging our family histories is so important. I had an even quicker look at the other  non permanent exhibition outlining the life of a Japanese woman (Portrait of My Life: Tomono Wynn's Story) and it was a really interesting way to tell a person's life story. In the same building is Behind the Wall, the story of the Adelaide Destitute Asylum and some of the unfortunate people who lived there at various times. I've always been fascinated by asylums (several ancestors were inmates for various reasons) and am always drawn to photos and stories of inmates - there really is so much history inside asylum walls (same for prisons where even more of my ancestors resided)!

From there it was a quick dash back to the registration centre at the Adelaide Convention Centre where I collected my congress satchel and its various goodies (I always love taking it back to the hotel room and spreading the contents out to see what I've got). It was also a chance to have a quick look at the exhibitor stalls although some were still busy setting up and there were lots of faces I knew so quick chats here and there. One of the advantages of staying close to a congress venue is that you can duck back to your room and leave the satchel before heading back over for the welcome reception. The other advantage is that you generally run into other congress attendees, and I met lots of people in the hotel lift as well!

I'm not sure how many people are attending the congress, but there were lots of people at the reception and I managed to say hello to old friends from my former home towns of Brisbane and Canberra, while catching up with people from current home town Melbourne and Sydney, not to mention Adelaide and Perth. I didn't see anyone I knew from Darwin or Tasmania but with so many people it's hard to know who's there and who isn't. I love conference attendance lists so that you can find out who's there and actively look for them but so far I haven't seen one for congress.

While there were nibbles and soft drinks at the reception, I joined Kiwi  friends (New Zealand for American readers) Seonaid (Auckland City Libraries) and Robyn for dinner and international speaker David Holman (from Cornwall and Chairman of the Federation of Family History Societies) also joined us. Over a wide ranging discussion I enjoyed a soft shell chilli crab which was to die for and washed down by an equally good Margaret River semillion sav blanc. David made us all envious when he brought out his iPad to show us various apps and tell us about his travel plans while here in Australia.

Despite a much later night than I usually keep, I still woke up at 5.30am this morning all eager to get to Congress. The official opening is at 9.00am with an address by John Bannon AO, Chair of the National Archives of Australia Advisory Committee and former Premier of South Australia. At the reception last night, Geniaus (aka Jill) handed out her blogger beads (an innovation she brought back from Rootstech 2012) to a number of us who will be tweeting and blogging about the congress over the next four days. The Twitter hashtag is #AFFHO12 and I will try to pull some of the blogs together in this Diary and I will use AFFHO12 as a tag for this blog as well.

I always enjoy the congress which only happens every three years, and this one already seems bigger with its four days and four concurrent sessions plus plenary sessions, but there are congress proceedings so for all those talks I miss in person, I can still read the paper. Although often it's not quite the same but you can't be everywhere at once! And if I don't hurry up, I'll miss the opening. Stay tuned for congress updates and perhaps even breaking news!

Genealogy notes 9-21 March - getting ready for genealogy Congress

This Diary has been a bit quiet for a number of reasons. Our friends came for the Labour Day weekend so it was really good showing them around Melbourne and we had fish and chips down at Williamstown and explored all the old buildings. It's amazing that the main streetscape is very much as it was back in the 1800s. They ended up going home a bit earlier than planned as their first grandchild decided to arrive earlier and quicker thank everyone expected. So the champagne flowed and we shared in their excitement. But I still would have liked to take them to Werribee Open Range Zoo as I want to go back and see the silver back gorillas they have now.

The next week was quiet as I had a basal cell carcinoma (one of the better kind of skin cancers you can get) removed from the right side of my face, leaving a bit of a hole and ten rather ugly stitches. A few days later the doctor called to confirm that the biopsy showed that he had got it all and everything should be ok in the future. But I do need to look for any more that might pop up which is a legacy of growing up on the Gold Coast in the 1960s and 70s and slathering ourselves with coconut oil!

I did manage to finish sorting out my professional library and archive books and took three big boxes to one of the members of the local branch of the Australian Society of Archivists Religious Archives special interest group. Most of these people are part time or volunteers and don't always have access to professional libraries. I'm hoping that everyone will be able to select a book/s that will continue to help them with their work. I'd rather give my books to people I know who will use and appreciate them than sell them to a book dealer - it's like an ongoing legacy. I mentored many people during my career and it's one of the things I miss in retirement.

The other major thing I did was to finalise my two presentations for the 13th Australasian Congress on Genealogy & Heraldry and sent them to the conference organisers. It starts next Tuesday night with the welcome reception which is always a good opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues from other States and New Zealand.

I've also made arrangements to visit the Adelaide Migration Museum to visit their exhibition Who Are We Now - last year I was privileged to be asked to contribute one of my blogs - Letters Home - My Irish Families to the exhibition. Due to timing and distance I wasn't able to get to the exhibition opening so I'm going on Tuesday to have a look and also chat to the Curator and find out how the exhibition has been received. I hope some of the other Congress attendees also make it to the Migration Museum as it's is definitely worth a visit.

We are driving over to Adelaide and taking the caravan so we will be doing some sightseeing along the way - going via the Coorong (vast unspoiled ecosystem of freshwater lakes, wetlands, ocean and saltwater inlets) and returning via Berri on the Murray River (where Max grew up) and should be home for Easter. Where is this year going - seems even faster than last year but then I say that every year lately. I will be blogging and tweeting from the Congress so if you can't make it, you can at least follow what's happening as there will be a few of us trying to capture everything through our tweets and blogs. Stay tuned.

Genealogy notes 1-8 March 2012 - Kyabram seminar talks

What a hectic week starting with my partner's birthday on the 2nd. We went down to historic Queenscliff the day before and had a great time looking at some of the very grand hotels and homes as well as the Fort Queenscliff Museum. It's also a seafood haven and we had some great meals including local mussels and fish. Then it was back home to get ready for the Kyabram Regional Genealogy Society seminar where I was giving three talks as well as selling some Unlock the Past publications.

Given all the awful flooding in north east Victoria we weren't too sure if we would even get there but Kyabram was just outside the flooded areas although a number of people who had booked couldn't make it because they were either already flooded or were afraid they wouldn't make it back home. It was still a great afternoon and my talks on Google for Family History, It's Not All Online and Archives You Should Know left most of them a little bit overwhelmed but in those talks I'm aiming to broaden their view of family history beyond the usual suspects. It's meant to give them lots to think about and I do put copies of the slides on the Resources page of my website.

I haven't done an evaluation of my talks for a while so I asked everyone to complete an evaluation form which most did. Even though they are anonymous, people still feel strange/reluctant about providing written feedback. The verbal feedback was good and I was kept busy with questions right up until the organisers were showing us out the door! Written feedback was more on the venue, a big hall with no microphone so I encouraged people to move their chairs closer to me but that didn't really help with the 'echoing'. It didn't help that I left my remote and laser pointer at home so I had to stay close to the laptop to change slides.

One person thought the seats too hard - I have seen people bring their own cushions to events so obviously they have been caught out by hard seats before! Also there were some beginners so a few requests for more basic talks but it is always hard to know at what level to pitch those kinds of talks. Hopefully they will join/ask their local society for help too.

One person said my three talks was a marathon effort and it did feel that way towards the end and a number found the Google talk 'enlightening'. I think a lot of people don't realise how much more to Google there is than just a search engine. One person said it was 'well worth driving in the rain for' and as it was a three hour drive there and three hours back for us that made me feel that it was worth our effort in appalling weather. I will give the final comment to the person who said 'loved it all - just what I wanted and needed'.

After that I veged out for a few days and devoted time to continue to pack and sort out which books I will keep and which will go. I contacted the Religious Collections Special Interest Group of the Australian Society of Archivists (they've got a great new website) to see if some of their members would be interested in having my library and archives books. Most of them are volunteers or part time and don't have access to work libraries and they were most enthusiastic. So I will drop off three boxes of books and then they can work out who wants what and I will be happy knowing that my books are still being put to good use.

I treated myself to a visit to the State Library of Victoria and it really is a great genealogy resource and they weren't that many people in the Genealogy Centre that day. I was surprised when one of the librarians told me they hate cruise ships visiting Melbourne - apparently a lot of people make a beeline for the Library to do their genealogy while in port! And these aren't even genealogy cruises, just ordinary cruises but people still take their genealogy away with them. Not sure why I was surprised really, I do that kind of thing myself!!

We have friends coming for the Labour Day weekend - we met them on the last Unlock the Past genealogy cruise and in January we stayed with them near Paynesville in the Gippsland Lakes and now they are checking out western Melbourne and the Bellarine Peninsula with us. There will probably be lots of genealogy talk over the weekend while our partners discuss their boats and fishing!

Next week I'm heading to Public Record Office Victoria for their Women, Children and Welfare History in the Archives free seminar which should be good. I've also got to finish and send off my two presentations for the AFFHO genealogy congress in Adelaide at the end of the month. I always look forward to the congress (every three years) as it is a great opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues. The next one is in Canberra in 2015.

Don't forget St Patrick's day next week - I always do an Irish family blog and have had great success with finding relatives in previous years so fingers crossed! Until next time.

Genealogy notes 23 - 29 Feb 2012 - lots of blogging

We've been back from Darwin four days and most of that time has been spent trying to catch up with everything in between various medical appointments. I had to finalise the last of the daily blogs from the War Comes to Australia tour (appeared over six days in Diary of an Australian Genealogist) and then do an overview report on my website. The other Darwin blog I finished was a report was on the family history seminar held after the tour.

There was the usual pile of mail waiting for us and I was excited to see my prize for winning one of Inside History's Friday Facebook competitions. I'm looking forward to reading Lucy Frost's Abandoned Women: Scottish Convicts Exiled Beyond the Seas! Currently I'm about half way through Babette Smith's Australia's Birthstain: The Startling Legacy of the Convict Era so it looks like my convict reading theme will continue for a bit longer.

Another exciting piece of correspondence was to receive an invitation to speak at the Deniliquin Genealogy Society's annual expo in October. The last time we were in Deniliquin NSW was because our car broke down travelling back from Adelaide to our then home in Canberra. I'm sure this visit will leave much more pleasant memories.

I didn't think I would get to Sydney this year but the Royal Australian Historical Society have asked me to partner with Carol Baxter to present a full day workshop on researching your family and writing up the family history. I've worked with Carol in a writing seminar before and she is an inspirational speaker who really gets people enthused about writing up their family stories in an interesting way. The new RAHS Calendar of Events (for Apr-Jun) is not up yet but the dates will be 12 April and 19 April - it will run twice as they are expecting it to be popular.

It's my other half's birthday and every year I try to take him some place special that we haven't been before. As we have just got back from Darwin and are going to Adelaide in a few weeks, I didn't want to travel to far. One of the places that has been on my bucket list since arriving in Melbourne in 2003 is to stay at the Vue Grand in Queenscliff. We've done a few fishing charters out of Queenscliff and quite often go down to the Bellarine peninsula to get fresh mussels from Portarlington but we've never stayed at this historic hotel. By chance, I saw a special summer accommodation offer and although summer is now technically over, I was still able to book a night at the special rate for his birthday. I'm really looking forward to it as we haven't even been inside before.

We can't linger down at Queenscliff as I'm giving three talks at the Kyabram Regional Genealogy Society on Saturday and eight of my Deniliquin friends are going to make the trek over to Kyabram (VIC) as well. It should be a good day although after that many talks and lots of questions I often feel a little drained! Max is going along to to sell some of the Unlock the Past publications that I usually take along with me because people out in regional areas don't always get to look at books prior to buying. I know I always like to see before I buy!

There is a stack of unread blogs, e-newsletters and even emails still to catch up on so enough diary writing for now! Until next time. 

Genealogy notes 22 Feb 2012 - Final day of Darwin battlefield tour

The last week has gone very quickly although we have been kept very busy on the War Comes to Australia tour organised by Unlock the Past in collaboration with Mat McLachlan Battlefield Tours. This last day is basically breakfast and then transfers out to the airport although a number of people seem to be staying on to do other things in the Territory.

It was also a last chance to say goodbye to new friends and swap contact details. I was particularly looking forward to going down to breakfast as I had given Brad Manera my uncle's WW2 kidney dish to look at overnight. I wanted to know if this was a common item that every soldier brought back or something more unique. Mum had said that my uncle used it to eat out of but it didn't really seem big enough for that.

I was very excited when Brad confirmed it was uncommon and that it appeared to be either Italian or French in origin. As my uncle had engraved the various places he had been to in the war along with dates and various drawings and symbols this made it even more unique. I am now more than ever determined to research his war service and he will be my ANZAC day blog this year so I have a bit of time. Also when I go to Brisbane in June I will ask Mum about his photo albums as I remember seeing WW2 photos amongst Mum's albums. Brad and I will keep in touch about our findings.

I will be doing an overview blog which will appear on my website but just to wrap up this daily blog, I have found the tour really enjoyable and interesting. Not only that it has further awakened my academic interests which have been a bit dormant since I finished my Masters back in the late 90s. While on the UTP genealogy cruise last November a friend asked when was I going to do my PhD as it is on my list of things to do when retired. My response was I hadn't found a topic yet (you have to be pretty passionate about something for a PhD) and my interests have moved on since I did my Masters on Female Philanthropy in Colonial Queensland. I suspect that I really should do another degree or post graduate degree to get back into research before plunging into a PhD. I should probably move house too as that is disruptive and time consuming!

Would I do another battlefield tour? Without hesitation, especially if it had a personal connection to our own families. I'd like to thank again Unlock the Past and Mat McLachlan for giving me the opportunity to be part of the tour.

On Saturday there is the Unlock the Past Family History Seminar with the Genealogical Society of the Northern Territory and the Northern Territory Library (being held at the Library) so stay tuned for a report on that. Rosemary Kopittke and I are each giving three talks and it should be a great day.