Genealogy notes 4-17 June Brisbane genealogy expo next!

Almost two weeks of being frantic - photos with the real estate agent, people walking through the house, just keeping the house neat and tidy while at the same time trying to finalise my talks for the Unlock the Past Queensland genealogy expo in Brisbane on 25-27 June, finishing some complex client reports, putting the finishing touches to a new research guide and my poor old laptop decides its had enough!

Just what I needed, a few days without my laptop but I've got it back but I also took the opportunity to get a new one which is a lot faster - maybe I'll work faster too! But there has been the added time to set up this new one and move my data across and all that goes with making new laptops look like your old one.

Other distractions were the arrival of my new Flip Pal mobile scanner from Gould Genealogy & History which is another thing I have to learn how to use effectively but I'm hoping for a few lessons from my friend Jill at the Brisbane expo. She will be talking about it and doing live demos so that should help. A more worrying distraction was that I realised that I hadn't received my latest issue of Inside History Magazine and on checking with them, I found it had been dispatched but not arrived. They said another copy would be in the mail but over a week later it's still not here. I know it's a good read but I hope it hasn't been waylaid again!

I've been trying to get my other half to go to Bali with me again for some time out and he keeps saying no we've been there and we don't have time etc etc. His son rings up and says 'Dad you want to go to Bali with me' and you guessed it, the other half said yes straightaway! While I think it will be good for the two of them to spend time together, it couldn't be at a worse time for me as it is during National Family History Week 2012 (NFHW) and I have so many events scheduled where the other half was going to be doing my book selling. It really is too hard to give talks, then take questions and try and sell books at the same time so I'm missing him already. Plus I will still be here in chilly Melbourne and he will be lazing on a Bali beach eating seafood.

Still I think NFHW this year is going to be fantastic - I've been asked to do the opening at the Victorian Archives Centre on 27 July where Hanifa Deen is talking about her new book. I'm also speaking at the State Library Victoria's annual Family History Feast (bookings open 18 June) plus Yarra Plenty Regional Library have got me giving presentations at five of their libraries. So that's a few more talks I've got to start thinking about!

I'm leaving for Brisbane on Thursday which is a few days before the Expo so that I can catch up with family and friends. Mum's looking forward to seeing us and I'm hoping to try out that Flip Pal scanner on some of her old photo albums which she doesn't want me to take away. I'm also staying a few days after the Expo but have to be back in Melbourne for the Audrey Collins Australian tour on 2 July.

The next few weeks are going to be full on genealogy (half of me is hoping the house won't sell just yet) and as usual, I will be blogging events and sharing the experience with readers who can't get to the talks themselves. I hope to meet a few people in Brisbane and catch up with other UTP speakers and as always feedback is appreciated. Enjoy your research time!

Genealogy notes 21 May - 3 June Moving & Genealogy Talking

Well it's amazing how much time it takes to get ready for a monster moving garage sale, then there were the two days (cold but not wet) that we lived in our garage watching other people snap up our preloved items, then the trip to the Salvos with what was left. We hadn't even had a chance to relax when the real estate agent said he wanted to show someone through and of course we have boxes of books and other 'clutter' all over the place. I still had to finalise my talks for the Yarrawonga GMAGs seminar and we were leaving on the Saturday.

Somehow we managed it all and the seminar went well. I gave four talks - Ancestors in Church, Australian Government Archives Online, Resources for Photographs, and PROV's Nooks and Crannies plus I staffed a small books sales table with Unlock the Past publications. Archival Access Victoria was the other speaker and Mark gave lots of examples of the types of records that can be found at PROV and the copy services they offer.

With approx 50 people I was kept busy selling and talking but still managed to eat some of the wonderful country cooking that is always on offer at these events. But that night I was more that a bit weary so it was just pizza with the chardy and an early night.

As usual people asked me to put the talks on my website so I still have to PDF the talks and place them on the Resources page under Presentations. I've allowed myself a few days to do it just in case it takes longer than I anticipate or I get distracted with other priorities!

It was great to see so many people from Deniliquin and I'm looking forward to their Deniliquin genealogy muster in October. It's a first for them so I'm hoping that it is going to attract lots of people from surrounding areas. We're taking the caravan up and will spend a few days exploring the area as usually we are just passing through on the way to someplace else.

There's no rest for the wicked and tonight I'm the guest speaker at the Yarrawonga Family History Group meeting doing a Q&A session. Some members have already sent their questions via email so I will spend today doing some preparation. From tomorrow I get to relax for a few days and hope to go on a cruise of Lake Mulwala in a paddle steamer. I have to be back in Melbourne by Friday as there is a meeting of the Victorian Association of Family History Organisations and I'm on the committee.

I have so many emails and enewsletters in my inbox I don't think I will ever catch up plus I have to check/amend the talks I'm giving at the Unlock the Past Queensland Expo in Brisbane in a few weeks. That will be a great event and a chance to catch up with some of my favourite speakers.

If our house sells quickly and we become homeless (apart from the caravan) life will become really interesting. At least most of my family history is now on the laptop although I still have a lot of documents and photos to scan. I'm sure it will work out eventually. Until next time.

Genealogy notes 10-20 May 2012 - blogging challenges

Well another ten days have passed and our 'monster' garage sale is next weekend plus we have continued to give items away to our families and friends. This will be our fourth move since we met in 2001 so it's probably time that we combined our belongings and have only one of everything! Of course the danger is that when we finally arrive at our 'new home' we will probably want something we have given away thinking we would never have a need for it again. It's also amazing how much time can be taken up talking to banks, real estate agents, friends and family members who want us to move near them and people telling us where they would retire too. I think we really do need to 'do it now' as I don't think I could stand to have this hanging over my head for another year.

Anyway, in our rest breaks I continue to try and keep up with my emails, e-newsletters, Twitter, Facebook and bloggers I like to read but I am very aware of how much I am missing out on logging in sporadically. There are three blogging challenges this year I would have liked to participate in - 52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy (now into Week 19), Beyond the Internet (now into Week 18) and the Family History through the Alphabet (only up to B so maybe I can catch up) challenge. These are all weekly themes which in past years I would have contributed to but at the moment I'm flat out keeping this Diary going. I still like to try and read the various posts to these challenges as we can learn so much from what others write and share with us.

One thing that I have committed to is a National Institute of Genealogical Studies (NIGS) course on Google for the Wise Genealogist (I wonder which other Congress attendees are doing this in May or have already completed it). This is a free course that I signed up for when I visited the NIGS display stand at the AFFHO genealogy congress in Adelaide back in March. At the time I elected to do it in May as I had thought this month would be relatively free so I'm a bit behind with that and the next week's lectures and assignments are due to tomorrow. So I simply must catch up this afternoon.

The other exciting thing that happened in the last week was that I received an invitation to speak at and launch this year's National Family History Week from 27 July to 5 August. The launch will be at the Victorian Archives Centre in Melbourne on 27 July so I hope to see a few people there and I encourage all genealogy and family history groups to add their events to the 2012 calendar.

Plus I'm trying to finish a few genealogy reports for clients, do a new talk on resources for identifying photographs for the GMAGS Day on 3 June, revising my talks for the Queensland Genealogy Expo in Brisbane 25-27 June and finalise a couple of publications I have pending for Unlock the Past.

And it's my son's 25th birthday today so I'm a bit nostalgic and wondering where the last 25 years have gone! I still don't think I'm ageing as much as he has in the last  25 years. We will catch up and celebrate when I'm in Brisbane next month. My niece turned 18 last Friday and again I can't quite believe that.

Time to finish this Diary update and get back to crossing off at least some of those things on my to do list for this glorious autumn day in Melbourne! If it all gets too hard, I'm going out for a nice walk and soak up some Vitamin D which my doctor tells me I'm deficient in (last time he told me to stay out of the sun and I had skin cancer surgery on my face). I'm happy to say that scar is healing quite nicely and is mostly hidden by my hair. Until next time.

Genealogy notes 24 Apr - 9 May 2012 Top 50 genealogy blogs

Wow can't believe it's over two weeks since I sat down to write this Diary. Getting ready to move is taking up so much of our time - we've been gardening, painting, moving furniture, steam cleaning carpets, sorting items for our huge garage sale in a couple of weeks and so on. I've been squeezing in a bit of genealogy along the way and managed to get my ANZAC Day tribute on my SHHE Genie Rambles blog done on my Uncle Gordon, a Rat of Tobruk.

I've also accepted a number of opportunities to give genealogy talks for the Society of Australian Genealogists in Sydney, various talks for the Yarra Plenty Regional Library in Melbourne and another all day seminar for the Goulburn Murray Association of Local and Family History Groups. For dates, venues and presentation titles see my Services and Events page on my website. The second half of this year is starting to look quite busy but by then we should have got the house ready for sale (assuming we can never decide where we are going to move to)!

I have stacks of genealogy e-newsletters and blogs to catch up on but one that caught my eye on Twitter the other day had the hash tag #50bestblogs and I started getting mentions and congrats. So today I said to the other half I simply must sit down and have a read and write the next instalment of this Diary. I'm very pleased to see that I have been included in the Top 50 genealogy blogs penned by blogger friend Geniaus and published by Inside History magazine in their latest issue. I haven't got my paper copy yet and that's always an occasion to put the kettle on and sit down to have a good read. Perhaps I can send the other half out to Bunnings when it arrives! You wouldn't believe how many trips we've made to Bunnings over the last couple of weeks as we do little touch ups here and there, both inside and outside of the house.

Doing a bit of painting and minor repairs is really the easy part of moving. By far the hardest part is sorting out all our stuff. I live with a hoarder and I've always been a collector (more selective in my hoarding for those wanting to know the difference). I was a stamp collector as a child and since 1977 I've been actively collecting ancestors and their stories. What I hadn't realised is how collecting is a theme in almost everything I do. For example, my sock drawer was always just a sock drawer until last week when I put all my socks out on the bed with the aim to throw out the 'daggy' ones. My socks actually tell the story of my life and my travels with socks from Tasmania with their smiley Tasmanian tigers, my kiwi socks from New Zealand and my sheep socks from Hamilton in Victoria, the sheep capital of Australia. You get the picture.

My nightie drawer was not much different. There was the nightie I bought to go on a five week overseas trip to Europe in 2000, quite a few from the Victoria Markets here in Melbourne and then there was my fav nightie, but it's looking a bit the worse for wear. So much so my partner said why didn't I just chuck it out (after all this is what we are supposed to be doing, minimising what we are moving with). My response was that I could still  remember buying it as I was pregnant with my son at the time and I wanted something nice for the hospital. My son is turning 25 this month which means my fav nightie is older than my son! Perhaps it really should be 'retired'!

Do others find that basic clothing can generate memories and lifetime attachments? I can understand it with wedding dresses and perhaps more formal outfits but the humble sock and nightie?

Then there are all my travel souvenirs starting with the first turtle I ever bought in Fiji in 1975 on my first ever overseas trip - yes I collect turtles and have many in varying shapes, sizes and formats. Then there is my cat collection, and I have a fondness for camels especially one I picked up in Upper Mongolia back in 1996. Don't get me started on my fridge magnets which are all over the fridge, freezer, filing cabinets and other metal surfaces around the house. Somewhere deep inside me I know that they should go but each one has it's own memory and story to tell.

Well I have to get back to tidying up, as much as we can with all the boxes and stuff piled up everywhere as there is a real estate agent coming this afternoon to give us the latest on selling in this area. More than half a dozen houses have sold in our surrounding streets in the last month so it's not going to be hard to sell should we put it on the market. It's a high demand area but without somewhere to go to, we would be left with living in the caravan and we still have too much stuff for that! Wish me luck and I'm hoping for more genealogy time next week!

Genealogy Notes 17-23 April 2012 - Online or Offline

When you are travelling it's easy to lose track of the days and fall behind if you don't log on everyday. In my last Diary entry I was excited about going to the Society of Australian Genealogists' (SAG) library in Sydney and I did have a great day. What wasn't so much fun was the 'rain episode' Sydney had while I was there and I managed to get quite a bit damp as I walked to SAG and other places around the CBD over those few days.

I found the SAG library fascinating and managed to spend all day there, stopping for some lunch and a coffee with Heather. Like most older libraries SAG still has card indexes that have not yet been keyed into a database (although there are ongoing projects but it takes time and volunteers) so these indexes were a priority for me to check and I found some interesting references. I can't wait until they are all keyword searchable online as cards can only be filed in one place or only under a person's name and not by place or other identifier.

My next activity was to have a look at some of their books which I had previously looked up in the SAG online catalogue and again I made some interesting finds. You can save a lot of time by doing your catalogue searches at home before visiting a library, certainly beats the 'old days'. However for most of the morning I was the only one down that end of the room, everyone else was up the other end on the computers. Not everything is online but perhaps they had already looked at all the non online materials?

After lunch I could stand it no longer and I went down and took up a terminal, only to be surprised that there were over 1100 items to choose from! My purpose was to look at SAG's Australian Genealogical Computer Index (AGCI) four CD ROM's which have a wide variety of material on them but I could see others using FindMyPast, Ancestry, Origins and the older gentleman next to me was even using TROVE - I hadn't thought about those members who might not have a computer at home to do free web searches let alone access all the different subscription databases and material on CD ROMs. Fifteen minutes before closing I made a terrific find but of course there was no time to follow it through so I will need to access the AGCI CDs again either at the Genealogical Society of Victoria (GSV) or perhaps even the State Library of Victoria.

SAG's volunteers on duty were very helpful and as a new (rejoined) member they kept asking me if I was ok or if I needed any help which was great. It always mystifies me that more people don't join their local society as you can learn so much from the library volunteers not to mention all the great resources you can access in the society library. I'm currently a member of three societies, SAG, GSV and the Queensland Family History Society (QFHS) which somewhat reflects my own nomadic lifestyle but also that of my ancestors.

The following day there was even more rain so I bunkered down in the hotel room and consolidated my notes and did some online searching of digitised newspapers on TROVE. It's very easy to lose a few hours of time that way and even when I poked my head outside for lunch and a bit of a walk, my umbrella was not up to the winds whipping down Oxford Street!

Thursday was my flight home to Melbourne and Friday was a catch up with the housework, shopping and washing and all the mail, including a large envelope from London. Rosemary Morgan of London Roots Research has been doing some research for me and she found the death of someone whose death had been eluding me. His wife was called a widow in the 1851 census but not the 1841 census so I had assumed (that often fatal word) that he had died between 1841 and 1851 but without finding him. Rosemary took it back to the birth of his last child and it turned out he died in 1832! Some times it pays to get professional assistance with brickwalls, especially when you have looked at everything you can think off. Someone else's view and approach may be quite different from our own.

The weekend was wet here in Melbourne so I tackled some more decluttering and identifying items for our garage sale at the end of May. We have so much 'stuff' piled up everywhere it will be good to see it go, either at the garage sale or to a charity afterwards. We've also given away a lot to our children, friends and neighbours and also to some charities. Yet there still seems like a lot of 'stuff' left.Wherever we end up moving to, we have to make certain that we don't end up rebuying all this 'stuff'!

Over the last week I've been in discussion with a couple of people about doing talks later in the year so once details are finalised I'll be able to put those up on my Events calendar. I'm also putting some finishing touches to some new research guides for Unlock the Past - I have a tendency to want to include everything but that's not always possible so completing a guide is always hard for me. My ANZAC Day blog this year will be on my mother's eldest brother who was a Rat of Tobruk and he also served in New Guinea as well as the Middle East. Time to get back to work!

Genealogy notes 14-16 April 2012 - Researching in Sydney

It's a very wet start to the day in Sydney so I'm catching up with the Diary while I hope the rain stops soon. The Australian Society of Archivists meeting on Saturday didn't quite go to schedule and I ended up missing my visit to Richmond Villa the home of the Society of Australian Genealogists. However it was good to catch up with many long time archival colleagues at the meeting and during the lunch break, there was an opportunity to dash out and see some of The Rocks famous weekend market.

Afterwards quite a few of us went to the Fortune of War hotel  which was established in 1828 and is reputedly Sydney's oldest pub. It's also where a former NSW State Archivist gave me my first ever glass of Guinness and I've never looked back! Sydney has some fantastic old pubs and on a former visit we did an historic pub crawl which was fascinating and we've also done the ghost tour!

Then I had dinner at Circular Quay with my bridesmaid from 1983 and amazingly we both recognised each other and had a great night catching up with all the news as we haven't seen each other in over ten years. It was so much fun we will be having dinner again tonight.

Sunday was a slow day, a leisurely walk around the city streets near my hotel, reading the Sunday newspaper in Hyde Park and then I spent the afternoon doing some TROVE digitised newspaper searching and preparing myself for the big research trip to the Mitchell Library and the genealogy section of the State Library NSW. When I walked out of the hotel Monday morning I couldn't believe the traffic noise and I thought Melbourne was bad but then I don't go into the city often these days. Perhaps after the quiet of the weekend it just seemed louder!

Anyway to get to the Library I had to walk through both sections of Hyde Park and it was unbelievable how the trees manage to cut down on the traffic noise. Also explains why so many people walk through there on their way to work plus you don't have the car fumes so full on. The tricky bit for me was that this space is also shared with cyclists who do ring their bells but for people who don't hear to well and aren't watching out for cyclists on footpaths, it makes for an interesting time at intersections.

I haven't been to the Mitchell Library (the Australiana section of the State Library NSW) since the early 1990s when I was doing my Society of Australian Genealogists Diploma. It has to be one of Australia's most beautiful libraries and the atmosphere almost makes you feel scholarly. The catalogue is online but only for items since 1992 so there are lots of card drawers with interesting indexes and these were what I mainly wanted to look through for my early research on Sydney. I was pleased to see old genealogy friend Aileen there and in the cafeteria at lunch time with Perry, I ran into my old archival colleague Paul.

I also spent time in the genealogy section of the State Library NSW finally looking at some microfilms I've been wanting to look at. It's not that they aren't in Melbourne, it's more the fact that I never seemed to find time to do it in Melbourne (or perhaps I don't stay there often enough?). I hadn't realised they had an online guide to convicts which is another reason why we should look closely at websites before we do our genealogy research trips. One of my other joys is browsing the shelf as you never know what you will find and I had some success just pulling out books and looking up the indexes. That's something we miss when we only do research online.

The walk back through Hyde Park was equally good and as I had been sitting for most of the day, I kept walking up Oxford Street for a while before returning to the hotel for the evening. The evening weather was all about how wet Sydney was going to be for the next few days and sure enough, I woke up this morning to the sound of heavy rain on the skylights. Walking over to the Kent Street library of the Society of Australian Genealogists is going to be interesting but I have an umbrella and perhaps later this morning the rain won't be quite so heavy. I haven't been to the 'new' library and it should be good. Stay tuned.

Genealogy notes 12-13 Apr 2012 - historical Sydney

My partner and I have a saying - 'we always end up where we were meant to be' and this usually runs true to where ever we are travelling to, eating out or stopping for the night or whatever as we usually free wheel with no fixed plans. Sometimes fixed plans, if we have them, do change and that happened to me this week and instead of running a genealogy workshop I ended up being able to attend one of the best family history talks I've been to in quite a while. I'm talking about Paul O'Keefe's talk on The Girl Who Loved Ned Kelly and as two of my Geneablogger friends have already written about it I will simply say I totally agree with both their blogs - Geniaus Spine Tingling Stuff and Sharn Exceptional Talk by Paul O'Keefe . Paul will be heading to Victoria later this year so I hope to catch one of his talks again.

I was also privileged to see behind the scenes of Inside History magazine and talk to Cassie and Ben and their other staff. The magazine always comes out on time and has great articles but sometimes we don't appreciate (or comprehend) all the hard work that actually goes into getting a magazine from raw material to glossy end product so it was great to have that insight. Their despatch area was even more tidy than my study at home so they are obviously very organised people (or I need to get more organised)!

Then it was back into the city for me and another walk around my hotel - I'm starting to get my bearings on this part of Sydney. I'm at what is now called the EconoLodge and also the Schwartz Brewery Hotel but was formerly the Macquarie Hotel and it is a really interesting old building and has been a hotel since at least 1888. It has some amazing stained glass windows and pressed lead (or tin) ceilings, not to mention wooden staircases with lots of steps (which I keep calling exercise) up to my room at the top. Amazingly I have three skylights so I can lie there and look up at the moon and the stars! The wooden floor boards creak alarmingly and I wonder if anyone below can hear me walking around but carpet would spoil the ambience of the room.

After an early night I was up bright and early as I wanted to get some more sight seeing in. First up I went to the ANZAC War Memorial in Hyde Park and after walking up all the steps to the top floor, I finally found the exhibition area on the ground floor. There's not a lot of signage and if you enter by the wrong entrance you go round in circles until you finally see the sign. It's not as big an area as I was expecting but it was interesting and there were two areas where you could watch old movie footage which I always find fascinating.

Then it was a walk through beautiful Hyde Park, I really love those trees and it is an eye catching fountain with lots of tourists posing for photos in front of it. My destination was the Hyde Park Convict Barracks Museum now a World Heritage site. Although I've been there many times it has been some years so I wasn't surprised to see a lot of change especially with new interactive displays in the Convict Sydney exhibition. These are designed to engage school children (although I found myself lifting up panels to see what was underneath too)!

I found the lower floor was the most changed from my previous visits. However, I still bravely climbed all the stairs up to the second and third floors, bearing in mind that it was the top floor where they housed the old and infirm women when the building was used as an asylum after its convict days. It must have been really hard for them, not to mention cold in winter. There was also an exhibition area on the Irish Orphan Girls which I found quite poignant and I always find the sight of the room full of hammocks where the convicts slept a sad experience as they really had no privacy or space of their own.

Another change for me was that some of the court buildings surrounding the barracks are now also open for inspection so I checked them out as well. It was such a beautiful autumn day that I couldn't resist having a latte and panini sitting out in the courtyard watching all the tourists visiting the Barracks. It's amazing how quickly a day can disappear but perhaps I shouldn't have had that second latte.

I wandered back to my hotel room and made a determined assault on all the genealogy e-newsletters I have not read over the last few months and as usual I created yet another long list of things I should do/look at. I also went over the e-newsletters from the Australian Society of Archivists as I'm going to the strategic planning meeting being held tomorrow at State Records NSW in the historic Rocks area. After the meeting I'm going up to the Society of Australian Genealogists premises at Richmond Villa to collect my new (again) membership package so that I can do some research at their main library in Kent Street next week.

Then it's a walk back through the Rocks area to Circular Quay where I am meeting and having dinner with my bridesmaid (from my second and only formal wedding) who I haven't seen in what must be over ten years. It seems like only yesterday (but it was 1983) that she helped me pick out a wedding dress and bridesmaid dress that we both felt we could live with. A lot of water has gone under our respective bridges but it will be good to catch up and I'm expecting a late night!

I've got nothing planned for Sunday so perhaps just another catch up on my emails and newsletters and planning my research objectives for next week. It's nice not to have deadlines for a change!

Genealogy notes 1-11 Apr 2012 - Researching in Sydney

I must have blogged myself out during the AFFHO12 genealogy congress as it is now 11 days later but admittedly some of that time was out in the wilds of outback South Australia and Victoria with no phone or internet connection. After leaving Adelaide on the Sunday we headed up to Morgan on the Murray River (mainly for sentimental value as my partner used to travel there from Berri to catch the train to go to Adelaide). Just like the might paddlewheelers, the train no longer runs either but we visited the museum and he was able to point out all the old places for me in their photographic collection. I was surprised by all the houseboats there but lots of places along the Murray in South Australia have houseboats. Brought back memories of our houseboat holidays on the Clyde River when we lived in Canberra!

Another surprise was all the carp in the Murray and we did our bit to get rid of quite a few. In some places baby carp are so think you can just scoop them up in a net! I do like sitting on the river bank, fishing rod in hand watching all the bird life and the peace and quiet is amazing - not like living in Melbourne. From Morgan we went on up through Berri and had a look at Martin's Bend which is another idyllic spot on the Murray. Then we thought we should head for home and travelled down the Calder, stopping at Ouyen the home of Australia's best vanilla slice. Obviously with a title like that, we had to stop at the Mallee Bakery and test it out. It was good but next time we will only get one between us, I think we overdosed on vanilla slice!

The next day we were travelling through Bendigo and decided we didn't really want to go home (grey nomads can do that sort of thing) so we rang friends in Yarrawonga and of course, they said come on over! So we again headed north to the Murray and spent a couple of days with them before going home to spend a quiet Easter. I had a lovely time doing some research and catching up on emails and blogs.

I even managed to do my Overview of AFFHO12 heraldry and genealogy congress which summarised the whole event and supplemented my daily blogs in this Diary. I was only home four days and then  I was heading out to the airport to go to Sydney. Originally I was going to be giving a family history workshop for the Royal Australian Historical Society but it was too close to Easter I suspect, and with poor numbers they cancelled it. But I have lots of friends in Sydney and I've always wanted to just spend a week here doing genealogy research so that's what I'm doing.

I've got visits lined up for the State Library of NSW and the Mitchell Library and of course a visit to the Society of Australian Genealogists is also a must. I'm also able to attend a strategic planning meeting of the Australian Society of Archivists which will be great as I haven't seen a lot of my archival colleagues since I retired in 2009. But tomorrow I'm excited to be going to Randwick Library to hear Paul O'Keefe talk about The Girl Who Loved Ned Kelly. I've spoken to Paul on the phone but haven't met him before so it's a great opportunity. Cassie from Inside History magazine is also meeting me tomorrow for coffee, so a big day out!

I'm also hoping to use this week in Sydney to totally catch up on all my emails and blogs as I seem to have been travelling since last October and there are lots of e-newsletters I've stockpiled. With no family here to distract me it should almost be like genealogy heaven. I'm looking forward to it!

Genealogy notes 31 March 2012 - Day 4 of AFFHO Congress

The 2012 AFFHO Congress is over and the last four days have gone incredibly quick. An update on yesterday's blog - I forgot to mention that the conference dinner was sponsored by NSW BDMs although they didn't present any papers at the Congress. A representative whose name escapes me now did do a very short speech which prompted a few tweets to 'bring back the wildcard'. Other sponsors I've chatted to over the last few days not previously mentioned include Ancestry, Openbook Howden Design and Print, Abbott Printers and Stationers, State Records South Australia, State Library South Australia and the Adelaide office of the National Archives of Australia. A full list of Congress sponsors is here.

I collected my very weighty conference proceedings first up and I hate to think how many trees were cut down! It's good to get the other papers as with four concurrent sessions you miss so much. I haven't had a chance to look through it yet but the weight was noticeable in my handbag all day!

Now to the last day's sessions. As usual the day started with a plenary session - Stephen Young on Descendancy Research - When You Can't Climb Up Your Family Tree, Branch Out. Stephen is a good speaker and I enjoyed the talk which was well illustrated with his own family history examples. But his message could have been delivered in five minutes and is really something that most of us do anyway, although I know I'm not as lucky in contacting distant family members and finding treasure troves of photos and documents. I guess what I'm coming to is that this shouldn't have been a plenary session and that seemed to be the general feeling of those I talked to at morning tea time.

The next session I went to was Mike Murray's Ten Top Tips for Finding Your 'hard to find' UK ancestors on the Internet and while I already do a lot of the things Mike mentioned, I still managed to pick up a few tips on using the big subscription databases such as Ancestry and FindMyPast. Mike is a good speaker and his ten points were covered well in the time period.

Then it was the trek back to the exhibition area for morning tea and the trek back afterwards - I found this good because at some conferences if everything is close together you can find yourself sitting for most of the day without a chance to walk and stretch out. Almost like enforced exercise to walk off those delicious chocolate cookies!

This next session I was really torn between Roger Kershaw talking about the National Archives UK and David Holman's Source for Mr Goose and Mrs Gander: Overview of UK Repositories (and I wondered if David's should have been a plenary session as others had the same dilemma). Anyway I ended up at Roger's session where he took us through the website explaining various features and outlining changes and future plans. It was most useful as I often get a bit lost on the site but his delivery style is very dry and a few more jokes/humour wouldn't go astray.

At 1.00pm Geniaus organised  a photo session for all Congress geneabloggers so you can see what A Social Media Mob looks like with our beads and put faces to names. Over the next few days/weeks we should get lots of blog reports to read as most haven't had the time to do it during the Congress and Geniaus is coordinating this. Stay tuned!

After lunch there was the final plenary and this was Dan Poffenberger talking about FamilySearch 2012 and Beyond and again this plenary fell into my category of product promotion by a sponsor (and why FamilySearch had more plenary sessions than the principal sponsor FindMyPast made me ponder). Dan is an entertaining speaker and his walk through the FamilySearch website was informative but I would have liked to see more time spent on some of the features like the Learning resources and the wiki.

For the very last session of the Congress I took the final opportunity to listen to Colleen Fitzpatrick talk about another one of her cases - The Curious Case of James/Jake/Smithers/Gray and I will never think of my family history as complicated again. My problems are simple compared to others! As usual Colleen was entertaining and it would be great to work on cases like that.

Then it was raffle draw time and there were some very excited winners. Kerry Farmer from the National Institute for Genealogical Studies gave a brief blurb on NIGS which is more in keeping with my idea of sponsorship promotions at conferences (also similar to the brief speech from NSW BDMs at the congress dinner). Although I guess it depends on what organisers offer to potential sponsors in the congress sponsorship package and it is always a vexed question at archive and library conferences I've attended over the years.

David Holman as Chair of the Federation of Family History Societies had one more role to play and that was to hand out the annual awards to Australasian winners. In the Best Websites Awards the overall winner was the New Zealand Society of Genealogists, with NZSG taking out first, and the Genealogical Society of Queensland second and Genealogical Society of Victoria third in the Overseas websites category. The overall winner of the Elizabeth Simpson Award for best family history journal went to Ancestor and the Genealogical Society of Victoria. Very exciting that New Zealand and Victoria took out the overall winners awards and well done to all the others.

Thanking the Adelaide organising committee was next and I think they did a very good job of organising a smoothly run congress with very few hiccups that I could see. As usual I will do a conference overview blog and my overall thoughts will be in that after I've done some more pondering.

The final task was the handover to the Canberra 2015 Congress and the Convenor gave a few highlights on the venues which include the National Convention Centre, the Australian War Memorial and Parliament House, all former haunts of mine so I've definitely put it into the calendar.

Now it's time for me to pack up here at the hotel, move back into the caravan and head off to Berri, South Australia Max's home town (although he was born in Port Lincoln). From there we will travel back along the Murray River and should be home in time for Easter. It's been a great few days and I will be sad not to see all my congress friends today. Safe travels home everyone!

Genealogy notes 30 Mar 2012 - Day 3 of the AFFHO Congress

Surprisingly after a great night, I'm up bright (not quite) and early and writing this at 5.15am with a strong cup of tea beside me. As I said yesterday it is so full on I haven't been keeping up with my emails or Twitter/Facebook messages nor have I had time to find/read any blogs written by other attendees. We have a group photo at 1.00pm today so I'll be able to write down names and then follow them up as I do like reading what others say about conferences.

Now for a round up of Day 3. The two plenary sessions today were both by AFFHO 2012 congress sponsors and I wrote about my thoughts on this in Day 1 and from discussions with various people yesterday and last night, I am not alone. First up was John Kitzmiller on FamilySearch Content Strategy and this was disappointing on a number of fronts. He finished his presentation twenty minutes early (almost unheard of for a keynote presentation) and then stood there chatting to fill in the time. Personally I think we should have all just had a longer morning tea.

There was no reason for the presentation to be so short - although he was giving this talk in Australia, there was no mention of what FamilySearch has done, is doing or will do in Australasia which is a real shame as there is some great material on the horizon. The other disappointing area for me was in his final slide he mentioned a number of terrific things and managed to do so in under thirty seconds. He should have given more information and he would have left the audience revved up instead of incredibly flat. I have read articles on their mass digitisation of microfilm program and the statistics are simply mind boggling but this wasn't shared nor was information on their DCAMX system which delivers new field capture images immediately to the web. Again amazing stuff, but sadly John did not achieve his keynote message and only reinforced the belief that sponsors should not give keynote presentations.

My next session was Colleen Fitzpatrick with more forensic genealogy CSI meets Roots and I was so rapt in the presentation I went out and bought the book The Dead Horse Investigation: Forensic Photo Analysis for Everyone. Colleen is a great speaker, adds humour and engages the audience and I know I'll be going home to relook at all my photos to see what I've been missing.

After morning tea, I went to Roger Kershaw's talk on Tracing Criminals Transported to Australia. Roger is from the National Archives UK so he was using UK records to illustrate his talk to start with and Australian records towards the end as he traced the life of a convict. I would have liked to see him cite the sources he was using on his slides and this might have prevented some questions/comments from the audience during the presentation. It's an area that I give talks on myself so there wasn't anything new for me but I did like some of his illustrations as a picture conveys so much more than just a few words can.

At lunch time I had to quickly eat a few sandwiches and then pop out to the shops as I realised that morning I had forgotten to bring anything to wear for the conference dinner. As I usually only wear black pants and different tops all I needed to find was a nice top quickly and as someone who hates shopping, that's not always easy. In the end I bought three because I couldn't decide but I will be able to wear the others in Sydney next month when I give family history workshops at the Royal Australian Historical Society.

Just as I was about to dash out, I met up with Aimee and  her new young one who didn't look at all happy to be attending his first genealogy conference and also Sharon, a Twitter/Facebook friend and fellow Unlock the Past cruiser. We had a few quick minutes to catch up on news and then I was out into the Adelaide heat (even though it is autumn) to shop. I managed to get back just in time for the after lunch plenary session on  FindMyPast presented by Vicki Eldridge a well known Sydney genealogist.

As the session was being filmed, there was additional pressure on Vicki as well as trying to talk about all the great things available on the three FMP sites - UK, Ireland and Australasia (they call it Australia but as it also has New Zealand and the Pacific I like the broader name, I'm guessing that one day there will be a FMP NZ) and the new British Newspaper Archive. I've been fortunate to hear many talks on FMP from a variety of speakers and one of the things that always stands out for me is how much new material is going online all the time. It's almost impossible to keep up!

As principal sponsor, FMP had a big exhibit area with three staff all busy most of the time doing free searches of the various databases and explaining the features of each. For the congress there were also special subscription deals which is a great opportunity for those wanting a personal subscription they can access at home any time. For those who don't need that much access, FMP is also freely available at libraries, genealogical societies and state/national libraries. As a keynote presentation Vicki gave a thorough and professional overview of FMP which gave the audience a detailed knowledge of what is on offer. I'm looking forward to 17 April when the new website for FMP AU is launched so mark that date in your calendars!

My next session was Stephen Young on Power Point Your Family History and I found this an interesting way to present a family history or a slice of history at birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and of course funerals. My Mum's 78th is coming up and I thought I might try and put something together to show the family when I'm up in Brisbane in June. Although I'm not across all the whiz bang features that Stephen used in his demonstration, I'm willing to try and learn a few new tricks. What I would have liked is for him to mention some of the other free software eg Google Docs that is similar to PowerPoint as not everyone has it and may not want to buy it just for the odd presentation.

At afternoon tea time, I finally managed to catch up with Stephanie from State Library of Queensland who I had seen from a distance at various times. After a soothing Earl Grey tea and some tasty biscotti, I went to the session on Juvenile Emigration with Elspeth Grant previously at the Migration Museum in Adelaide. I had met Elspeth the night before at the Lord Mayor's reception. Had she warned me it was going to be such an emotional session, I might not have gone. As well as giving us the history of the various 'juvenile' schemes, Elspeth also had two people come along to tell their own personal stories. By the end of Bill and Pat's stories there wasn't a dry eye in the room and a few people were reaching for tissues. It was a great way to highlight how some of these schemes broke up families and how people have since tried to refind their families with all the emotion that brings. It was certainly a different way of looking at genealogy and family history research.

Not surprisingly that session went a bit over time so I raced back to the hotel as I wanted to get Day 2 blog out before I went to the conference dinner. Thankfully I did, managed to tweet and Facebook it for those reading about our daily adventures and then it was pre dinner drinks with Helen and Seonaid before going back to the Convention Centre for dinner. I'm not sure if it was by luck or design but most of the dinner tweeters were on my table with the exception of Liz (aka Infolass) and we managed to tweet for most of the evening.

As I seem to have a reputation for my culinary wining and dining, I should make some comment on the dinner which was a self serve at table mixed breads and continental antipasto platter. We only discovered the olive oil after we had demolished the entree. The main was a herb crust chicken roulade with fresh (overcooked) asparagus, saffron cream sauce and no potato (which was the comment I heard from most people). We must all like our spuds with dinner! Dessert was another self serve at table variety of sweets including fresh fruit tarts, strawberry pavlova, apple and almond slice and hazelnut pannacotta. There was also coffee and chocolates and without thinking I had the coffee but thankfully it didn't keep me awake. Sometimes if I have coffee that late I'm up half the night!

June Penny was the recipient of the AFFHO award for meritorious service to family history and I've known June for many years. She was an inspiration to me when I moved to Canberra and joined the HAGSOC committee and I always admired her meeting style. I hope the citation goes on the AFFHO website as it would take to long to outline all the many things June has done over the years. Well done June. A list of former recipients is here.

There was some bush dancing and music and a few congress delegates joined in including our table member Seonaid from New Zealand. Then Dan Poffenberger was the after dinner speaker and I forgot to write down the name of his talk! But it was a very funny look at odd entries from parish registers and other documents and a great way to end the evening. Then it was time to say good night and totter back across the road to the hotel.

It's hard to believe that today is Day 4 and it will all be over for another three years. I'm already looking forward to Canberra in 2015. Time to get ready and across the road for the last day of talks and to look round the exhibits (and maybe spend money)!

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.