Genealogy notes 27 May - 8 Jun 2013 - discovering relatives & photos

Well our two weeks of travel went well but I was surprised to find that for most of the time I was without mobile phone access (thank goodness that contract is up in August) and even my wi fi struggled just outside of Bundaberg even though we were only a 5-10 minute drive from the CBD! As it was a family history trip I wasn't too concerned with online access as we were kept busy visiting places our ancestors lived and talking to relatives and looking through old photo albums. I've come home with some cute baby photos of Max, photos of his parents in their courting days not to mention their wedding photo and even some photos of his maternal grandparents. His maternal grandmother's photo album has ended up with his aunt's eldest daughter who lives in Kingaroy so there is another trip on the horizon as that is the album most likely to have photos of their Bribie Island home and holidays there.

My Flip Pal mobile scanner got a work out and the batteries went flat but having learnt from past mistakes I had another set of batteries on hand! Now of course I have to upload all the images to the laptop, tag and label them which all takes time. However the trip proved you really do need to track down all the oldest living relatives because you just don't know what they may have that relates to your own direct families.

The trip down the Mary River as part of the anniversary celebrations for the 140th anniversary of immigrant ships to Maryborough was great and it wasn't hard to imagine what my Norwegian ancestors thought as they sailed up the river so long ago. There is still not a lot of development along that stretch of the river and it was amazing to see the flood debris so high up in the trees courtesy of the dreadful floods earlier this year. What really brought home the extent of the floods to us was the sight of a wrecked yacht in the middle of a cane field. The Maryborough Family Heritage Research Institute has already started planning for next year's anniversary celebration and we may try to attend again just because we had so much fun this time.

Of course coming home meant that I had lots of emails to catch up on and I was pleased to see a few more events for National Family History Month. Some states have quite a few events now but others have yet to list any. It was great to see Australian Family Tree Connections feature the NFHM banner in their June issue and in Genealogy News there is a piece on NFHM and the suggestion that local genie societies have a display at their local newsagents who usually stock all kinds of genie magazines. It certainly sounds a good way to advertise your society and perhaps even gain a few new members.

I have to put a few things into place next week which I hope will also capture researchers and societies attention and get more people talking about what they are going to do this coming August! Stay tuned.

One of the exciting pieces of news for me was the announcement that Queensland now has cheaper certificates ($28) and historical images ($20) which can be downloaded direct from the website. I haven't had a chance to try out the new QLD BDM website yet but I've always been a fan of Victoria's BDM online access and the ability to instantly follow a lead without having to wait for a certificate to be posted. Although you have to be careful to not get too carried away!

As usual I have my e-newsletters  to catch up on and I only wish I had some way of retaining a lot of this information easily although I do save them for searching later, assuming I can remember what newsletter I read it in.Not to mention the time it takes to look at all the URLs mentioned and going off on tangents!

For those who like to follow my travels we spent two days at Mooloolaba (where we almost ended up buying) and visited Underwater World and did a cruise on the canals which was fascinating. It even goes near Jake and Elle's home (runner up in recent My Kitchen Rules) and it just goes to show that local tourism benefits from having celebrities in the area. From there we were heading up to Hervey Bay (where the MKR winners were from) but we decided to spend a night in Tin Can Bay and visit Rainbow Beach as well.

We are members of Top Tourist Parks so we booked into the Tin Can Bay Tourist Park for one night and ended up staying for three nights as there is more to do in Tin Can Bay then you initially think. Next time we visit we will have to take the boat so that we can explore the waterways more. The owners advised us that it is actually easier to get to Fraser Island from there than going up to Hervey Bay so we booked into a Fraser Island Adventure Tours day tour to Lake McKenzie. It is only an 8 minute barge trip from Inskip Point to Fraser Island so definitely a quicker trip but I still managed to spot two dolphin pods on the way over.

The 4WD trip up the beach was great but it got a little bumpier once we started heading inland. We had a great BBQ at the lake and even spotted a dingo walking around Central Station (another tourist and picnic area) and as we came back out onto the beach for the trip home there was another dingo eating a coconut (or at least that's what it looked like). It was a great day and the bird life was amazing and you do have to watch those kookaburras - the man next to us had his BBQ sausage taken off his plate while the guide was busy warning us to watch out for them!

From our caravan park it was an easy walk to the foreshore and again the bird life was amazing and a guided walking trail helps you to know what the local trees are as well as some of the history. We also went down to the wild dolphin feeding at the Barnacles Dolphin Centre and this is a real draw card for tourism to Tin Can Bay. I hadn't realised they even did it there as I usually think of Monkey Mia in WA and Tangalooma here in QLD. It was a big crowd on Saturday morning and from there we headed up to Maryborough in time for the anniversary celebrations. Then we had a few days in Bundaberg before heading home.

It's great being able to travel and do genealogy things together but now that I'm home it's time to knuckle down as I have a talk on immigration records coming up at the end of the month for the Genealogical Society of Queensland and then two weeks later it is out to Chinchilla for two talks on Trove and Google. See my website Events page for details. They are predicting rain all next week so that is perfect weather to do some family history research and writing. I hope you find the time too!

Genealogy notes 16-26 May 2013 anniversaries & family visits

Well the other half's trip to his brother fell through so there was no 4-5 days of pure genealogy bliss by myself but I've managed to get a few things done. I'm off this week to Maryborough for the 140th & 150th anniversary of immigrant ships into Maryborough, Queensland. My Gundersen ancestors arrived on the Humboldt in 1873 so I'm participating in a cruise down the Mary River to Hervey Bay (the trip in reverse). The anniversary celebrations have been organised by the Maryborough Family Heritage Research Centre and the cruise leaves on Saturday there will be displays of family tree charts and other memorabilia associated with the various voyages.

I've also spent a bit of time (well ok a lot of time) on Trove looking up reports on the arrival of the Humboldt. I did look at newspapers back in the old microfilm days but it's obvious that I didn't pick up everything! It is so much easier now just putting in a keyword, a date or even the name of the newspaper. I'm really looking forward to the trip and the anniversary celebrations.

From Maryborough it's on to Bundaberg to visit Max's 92 year old aunt and hear her stories of the Burstow family on Bribie Island. I've dragged out the Flip Pal mobile scanner just in case she has any photos or documents. It's funny if I don't use something regularly I forget how to use it! Still the scanner is easy to use and it's just a matter of getting back into the swing of scanning. Something I should seriously do when we get back.

Max's brother is bringing their father's WW2 photo albums up with him when he visits in June so I'll definitely have to do those. That also reminds me that I still have to get my Uncle Gordon's WW2 albums from Mum to scan. I'm starting to hope that Bribie Island does have a winter so that I can stay indoors and do some of these tasks but so far the weather has been absolutely perfect and we are still in shorts and t shirts and I even went swimming a day or so ago.

I'm still rolling out National Family History Month but there is still only a trickle of events coming in even though I know of societies who have already organised NFHM events - but they haven't added them to the calendar yet. I'm hoping a full page advert in the next Australian Family Tree Connections will get people started to talk about it more (thanks to AFTC for their sponsorship) and I know that other sponsors Ancestry.com.au and findmypast.com.au are both featuring NFHM in email newsletters to their subscribers.

I've been spending some time working on new research guides but you can spend a lot of time thinking and writing and still have little to show for it at the end of the day. Then when I think I have all my URLs up to date I find something has changed - still I would never want to go back to researching pre internet!

The events section of my website has been updated to show what talks I have coming up June to December 2013 and it's a bit quieter than usual for this time of year but then people don't know me as much up this way! I'm happy to have two talks in NFHM - in Canberra with the Heraldry & Genealogy Society of Canberra and also here on Bribie Island at the Bongaree Library. The thought of Canberra in winter brings back some chilly memories for me but it also coincides with a WW1 advisory committee meeting at the National Archives of Australia. It will be a great opportunity to catch up with old friends and colleagues. And of course there is the launch of NFHM in Brisbane so August will definitely be a travel month.

I've just downloaded our photos from the cameras and put them on the chargers and am now about to back up the laptops in preparation for the trip. I've got a small pile of genealogy journals and magazines that I wanted to catch up on not to mention all the e-copies on my laptop and tablet! It's only a short but busy trip but I'm still hoping for a few hours of quiet time. Housework in a caravan doesn't take as long as at home!

As I walk in my ancestors footsteps this coming week, I hope you all find time for a little genealogy research too! Until next time wish me luck on finding some old family photos this trip.

Genealogy notes 3-15 May 2013 hooked on digitised newspapers

Well the last fortnight has made me realised what's wrong with living in paradise! Living on Bribie Island is like being on a permanent holiday - the weather has been fantastic so lots of swimming, fishing, walking, biking etc not to mention the pubs and clubs with their cheap meals and free entertainment. Not surprisingly we have had three lots of visitors in the last fortnight (funny no one ever visited us at Hoppers Crossing) so not much genealogy has been done!

As we are about to head off to Bundaberg to visit an elderly aunt to capture her memories of holidays to the family cottages here on Bribie Island in the 1920s and 30s, I have spent a bit of time on Trove looking for bits and pieces on the Burstow family to help stimulate her memory. Although on the phone she seems totally with it for someone who is approaching her 92nd birthday but then her sister is heading for 103 this year and she is an inspiration! Definitely good genes in that family.

But Trove, although wonderful, is a trap. I managed to spend the whole day looking for info on the ten Burstow children and their families and I found all kinds of information which then sparked searches in online BDMs for both Queensland and New South Wales, as well as online cemetery databases in Brisbane and Moreton, not to mention the Queensland State Archives and State Records NSW. In fact I had so many leads I then spent the next day doing more Trove searches and before I knew it, it was dark and I was fumbling around in the dark trying to remember where the light switches were. Two days gone!

If the other half hadn't out bike riding and fishing I probably wouldn't have spent so much time but now that more regional newspapers are online in Trove, I really need to do that kind of searching with all my families.

We went to the Bribie Island historical society meeting and I was fascinated to chat with someone who knew a lot about my Carnegie ancestors and what is in the Society's database on them. It seems they know info I don't and of course, I have info that they haven't but I have promised them copies. When I was doing this research back in the 1970s and 80s the Society didn't even exist and it wasn't established until 2008 which is quite late for a historical society. Most local areas have had a historical society for decades. Again this highlights that you do need to revisit your research as things change, especially over 35 years.

The other thing I realised after going through my paper files of documents on the Carnegie family is that I haven't put all the info into my family history program and I've forgotten a lot as well. There are lots of things I could follow up now that weren't easily searched way back then. So as I sort my info out for the historical society, I'm also going to input the data myself and follow up some of the new leads. If I do that for all my families, my son's and my partner's, I'm going to need more than another 35 years!!

But what has been really nice about this massive overdose of genealogy research over the last few days is that I'm still as passionate about it as I was when I started back in 1977. The only real difference is that now it is more instantaneous and you can follow that trail now instead of waiting for the mailman!

I still have some research enquiries, reviews and articles to do and I'm procrastinating there because I really like the research more than writing but I do need to keep this part time business moving along. Plus I'm partway through a couple of new books which I should finish but I seem to get to a certain point and then I start to procrastinate over the finish. I'm obviously not an athlete as I'd never get to the finish line!

The other half is planning a trip to see his brother and will be away for 4-5 days which will be the perfect opportunity for me to catch up on the business side of things or will I succumb to the lure of Trove and my own personal research?

On the reading side I simply loved the latest edition of Inside History magazine with its Irish theme. I only have two more parts to my Missing Irish Loved Ones Downunder for Irish Lives Remembered which is a bit sad as I've loved doing that series. I took out two books on medieval genealogy from the local library as I love that period of history and have a few Cornish lines that wander into that era. Research and reading - probably my two biggest time consumers!

Lastly just a quick mention of National Family History Month - I've finished the campaign letter and poster and sent it off to all key genealogy and family history umbrella groups for further dissemination but sadly no influx of events on the NFHM calendar yet. The campaign letter and poster will next be sent to key historical society bodies and archives and libraries as I'm hoping to raise the profile in a variety of sectors. So don't forget to make your local society aware of NFHM and ask them to do an event this year even if it is something as simple as calling the August monthly meeting 'NFHM meeting'!

Well that beautiful sunshine is calling me for an afternoon walk to the beach - it's either that or bring up Trove again and I really should get some sun and exercise after the last few rainy days. Until next time happy searching.