Genealogy notes 19-23 Sep 2013 Day One of NSW & ACT conference

The last three days have been genealogy packed as I attended the NSW & ACT Association of Family History Societies annual conference in Canberra - Limestone Plains to Marble Halls. My Friday started before sunrise as I got up early to make sure I had everything before the Forrest Airport Shuttle Transfers arrived at 5.55am. They had another pick up at Beachmere so I enjoyed the scenic drive till we picked up the other passenger then it was back to the highway and straight to the airport. A quick breakfast in the Qantas Lounge then onto the plane for Canberra. There were no delays this time and I arrived to a wet and chilly Canberra where I realised I'd forgotten to pack a jumper but I did have a shawl in my suitcase.

A quick taxi ride had me at my hotel the Quality Inn at Woden just a few minutes walk from the Hellenic Club where the conference was being held. It was too early to check in so I left my suitcase and headed to the free family history fair which was held in conjunction with the conference. There were free talks every half hour throughout the day from 10am to 3.30pm and I missed the first four as I didn't arrive until about 11.30am.

A full report on the fair and all of the exhibitors is on my website blog SHHE Genie Rambles.

After the fair finished I caught up with some genealogy friends at the Hellenic Club bar while we waited for the Meet and Greet which kicked off the conference. It was well attended and there was lots of finger food and buy your own drinks. Lots of talking and catching up with people.

I have to admit I slipped out about 8pm for a couple of reasons. It had been a long and tiring day plus it was a Friday night and I'm a Phryne Fisher fan. I simply love Kerry Greenwood's series on the female detective and usually I don't like TV or movie adaptations of my reading loves, but this TV series on Phryne Fisher is an exception. This episode was set in Queenscliff in Victoria, one of the places we liked to go when we lived down that way.

Then it was a good night's sleep as the next day was full on and the conference dinner in the evening. Stay tuned for more news.

Genealogy notes 12-18 Sep 2013 Victorian Resources Online & more

Another busy week and although I no longer live in Victoria, my thoughts have been all about Victorian family history research this week. Why? You may recall that I was doing a guest blog for Family Matters, the genealogy blog of the State Library of Victoria. Good news, Using the State Library of Victoria from Afar is now published. It's written for all those who can't personally visit the SLV and it highlights some of the great genealogy resources they have online for free. If you want still more Victorian links check out the very end of the Resources page on my website - it has a list of all my favourite Victorian websites for family history.

Still want more Victorian resources - Findmypast now has the index to Victorian passenger lists 1846-1899 online and I am always amazed at the variety of Australian and New Zealand records that is now searchable in their database - see latest list here. Public Record Office Victoria also has a lot of online indexes and digitised records including wills and probate records so another great free site to visit.

I've always been a fan of the One Place Studies website and now there is a society that you can join if you are researching a one place study. Family history and local history often intersect so check out if anyone is doing a study of one of your places of interest or if you have lots of information on a particular place, you might want to see what others are doing with their studies.

Online e-newsletters received during the week include Queensland State Archives' qsa bulletin highlighting some great new indexes and other news (latest issue here) and Lost Cousins another free online e-newsletters with a broad range of info on the UK and elsewhere (latest issue here). I also received my back issues of History Queensland magazine - somehow the renewal of my subscription went astray during the big move so I have four issues to catch up on with that!

It's probably obvious (in hindsight) that this Diary doesn't capture all the info links I share via Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus and I know that not everyone follows me in all those media so some people are not aware that I was nominated in the recent Rockstar Genealogists survey. This is organised by John D Reid through his Anglo-Celtic Connections blog.

Can't think why I didn't mention it in this Diary as I was quite excited at the time that someone had nominated me. Well I was even more excited this week to find out that I had won the Silver Medal in the Australia & New Zealand section with good friend Chris Paton picking up the Bronze Medal (even though he lives in Scotland). I was really delighted to see another good friend Jill Ball announced as the Gold Medal winner! I noticed that Chris picked up the Gold Medal for Canada as well (he does seem to get around)! Getting nominated is great recognition and picking up a medal is a true honour and I'd like to congratulate all the nominees, and medal winners in all the different countries and John for organising the poll and having a Downunder category.

Quite a few of those nominees and winners will be on the 4th Unlock the Past genealogy cruise next February so I think that's going to be a fantastic trip and I'm already excited at the thought of listening to great speakers and learning more about all kinds of genealogy and family history resources.

In two days I'm going to be at the NSW & ACT Family History Organisations annual conference, this year in Canberra with the theme Limestone Plains to Marble Halls. I will be posting on Twitter and Facebook while at the conference and when I get home I'll write up a report on the conference as usual. There is a family history fair on the Friday and my plane arrives early enough for me to spend the afternoon there so it will be interesting to see how many books I buy! One thing about travelling by plane, it does make you think about how you will get everything home.

I've another great weekend of genealogy ahead of me so now for a spot of grocery shopping and housework so that the family doesn't miss me too much while I'm gone! Until next time happy researching.

Genealogy notes 4-11 Sep 2013 - news from genealogy journals

Amazing another week gone and I'm happy to say I've been catching up on my genealogy magazine reading, in print and online! I tried to make a resolution that I would read everything the day it arrived, no more stockpiling but of course that isn't realistic. Some days I don't log online and I only collect the mail once a week from the post office so already I have mini stockpiles! Still I've tried to read everything that has come in this past week, or at least flicked through it before adding to the reading pile.

September is probably a bad month to start this new resolution as that's when my quarterly journals arrive - so I have the latest issues of Generation from the Genealogical Society of Queensland, the Queensland Family Historian from the Queensland Family History Society, Ancestor from the Genealogical Society of Victoria, the September issue of Australian Family Tree Connections and the Sep/Oct issue of Inside History Magazine. That's a lot of reading and a lot of new things to look at online as well if you follow up the tips you find reading these types of journals.

There were two things that struck me flicking through Ancestor - one is that they have a new CD which is a digitised version of all their newsletters and journals since 1948 to 2011. I love these digitised compilations as you can still have all the issues (without them occupying heaps of space) and it is all easily searchable. I already have copies of both GSQ (30 years of Generation) and QFHS (1979-2010 compendium) journals on CD which is great as every time I moved over the last two decades I've given away my print journals. I'm now thinking of buying the GSV Ancestor journals on CD, although I don't have too many print copies with me as I only moved twelve months ago. I only kept the last few years.

The second thing I noticed was that GSV now have a membership category for young members (18-25 years of age) and they are referring to them as Next Generation Genies. I think this is a great idea and I don't know if any other Australian societies have done the same. Anyone know? I've been saying for ages that societies need to look at attracting more younger members and to start using social media as that is where you find them. This was something that really struck me during National Family History Month and the lead up to it. There are some interesting young people out there reporting on their genealogy research via social media. One person I was pleased to finally meet up with was Caitie who uses Tumblr to record her research, has a Facebook page, uses Twitter and even records genealogy research videos on You Tube. Find her on Twitter here.

Inside History Magazine isn't something you flick through so I've saved that for a quiet time (ie no one else around) so I can curl up on the lounge with a cup of tea and my mag!  Of course I can't do that (at least not easily) with my online magazines as I usually read on my laptop, although sometimes I'll use my IPad. The free September issue of Irish Lives Remembered focus is on Cavan where one of my Irish ancestors came from so that was a must read. This issue also has the start of my new series on Finding the Irish Downunder and the first part is on Queensland. I also caught up with my news from Ancestry and Findmypast and Dick Eastman's blog gives me a daily update - there is just so much new information coming out all the time.

I wrote a guest blog for Family Matters, the genealogy blog from the State Library of Victoria so that should be coming out soon. I was contacted by some distant relatives because they are finding me through my blog writing - my Finding My Long Lost Jeffers Cousins Online just keeps on giving me new relatives despite the fact I wrote it in Feb 2010! I did a follow up titled Letters Home My Irish Families and that put me into contact with even more relatives. The other contact was related to Max via his Barwick grandmother and she actually writes a family genealogy newsletter so she sent some samples and they are fascinating and full of information on the family. So we are signing up for a subscription. More to read!

I also finalised the evaluation report for AFFHO on National Family History Month and included a number of suggestions and recommendations for NFHM 2014. It will be interesting to see what they think of my report and my plan for a 12 month approach to planning NFHM in future. Looking at my diary I realised that next week is the NSW & ACT family history associations conference Limestone Hills to Marble Halls in Canberra. I'm already registered with accommodation close by so that I can easily walk to the venue each day. It will be great to catch up with all my old friends and colleagues as I missed last year's due to our big move.

Last night was the Bribie Island Historical Society meeting which was interesting as usual and we have the Bribie Festival coming up in October along with the 50th anniversary of the Bribie Bridge. We're going to the 60s cocktail party which should be a buzz, pity I didn't keep any of those memorable clothes! I'm off now to the Bribie Island Family History Group meeting where Dawn Montgomery from the Queensland Family History Society is going to be talking about one of my favourite indexes - the Ryerson Index (death notices and obituaries in Australian newspapers). Tomorrow we have a heritage walk at Godwin Beach which will be interesting - there really is a lot to do if you are interested in history, genealogy and heritage.

I hope everyone is finding some time for their own research and until next time, keep on top of that reading!