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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So another busy week coming up.

Genealogy notes 23-28 Sep Business and trade union records

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

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

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

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

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

Genealogy notes 19-22 Sep 2011 Value of Blogging

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

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

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

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

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

Genealogy notes 15-18 September 2011 Red Herrings & Brickwalls

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

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

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

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

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

Genealogy notes 8-14 September 2011 Digitised journals & WDYTYA?

How did five days slip past? I'm on a mission to clean up my study which houses all of my family history material accumulated over the last 34 years. A good friend when she moved from Brisbane to Canberra a couple of years ago said be ruthless. I have moved four times in the last 12 years so I have tried to keep the clutter down but we are facing yet another move and the time to be ruthless is upon me.

One easy win is that many things I printed out or photocopied years ago are now freely available online so I have made the decision to not keep the paper copies - amazing how much paper weighs. Mostly this is BDM indexes, IGI printouts, electoral rolls and so on. The family information is of course already captured in my Legacy Family Tree database.

Another easy win has been giving away my genealogy journals from the two Brisbane based societies. Both the Genealogy Society of Queensland and the Queensland Family History Society have digitised back issues of their journals, respectively Generation (1979-2008) and Queensland Family Historian (1979-2010). I came home from my recent trip to Brisbane with a copy of both and it is a much easier way to search through old journal issues. The only other Australian society that I am aware of which has done this with their journal Descent (1933-2008) is the Society of Australian Genealogists based in Sydney.

However I still can't resist flicking through everything and that is what is taking the time. I also made the mistake of looking at all my boxes of family photographs and after many trips down memory lane, I put all the boxes back in the cupboard or I was never going to get anything done. I have been scanning my photos as well but that also takes time. Don't worry, I won't be getting rid of original copies but it will be good to have backup copies.

I have two more talks in September so I spent some time updating Archives You May Not Know But Should for the Genealogical Society of Victoria and I am also giving that talk to the Australian Institute of Genealogical Studies together with It's Not All Online: Where Else Can I Look? To see what else I am doing Oct-Dec 2011 see the Events page on my website.

Some of my online reading so far has included September issues for Genes Reunited, Ancestry.com, Public Record Office Despatch (Victoria), Lost Cousins and my daily doses of Dick Eastman. It is good to see Channel 9 showing the US series of Who Do You Think You Are? on Wednesdays at 10pm (starting tonight so don't miss it). However I do wish it was on a bit earlier - I'm not a tape and watch later person so a late night for me!

Now back to my clean up!

Genealogy notes 5-7 September 2011 A Bit of Everything

Time flies when you are having fun and it is certainly flying at the moment. I seem to have a small mountain of reading to do - and that's only the paper based reading. This week I have received my quarterly magazines from the Genealogical Society of Victoria and the Australian Institute of Genealogical Studies, the September issues of Australian Family Tree Connections (AFTC) and Victorian GUM News (there is a handy index to past newsletters on their website) and Issue 6 of Inside History. All now piled up on top of the 'waiting to read' pile.

One thing I forgot to mention earlier was that I received a complimentary copy of State Records NSW 1788-2011 by Peter J Tyler which was written to celebrate the 50th anniversary of State Records Authority of NSW. This history is also available online free and it is great to see a history of the archives which also  incorporates the time before the Authority was established in 1961. It should be an interesting read.

I also received a copy of Goldie Alexander's Mentoring Your Memoir to review and this is a 'how to write and a personal memoir all in one' so I am looking forward to reading that. I'm still very conscious of the fact that one of my 2011genealogy aspirations for this year is to 'publish' one of my draft family histories. Basically the drafts need tidying up, add a few photos, pick a title (hardest part I think) and then decide on published format (probably a bit more involved than that but you know what I mean).

With all that reading temptation, I still had to write Part 11 of my mining ancestor series for AFTC, my guest blog on News from Australia  for MyHeritage and I accepted a commission to write for a UK magazine (with a short deadline) so the last few days have been busy writing and I even managed a research report for one of my long term clients.

I also accepted a blog challenge from Geniaus to do My 99 Things Genealogy Meme - Aussie Style which was a lot of fun and did make me think about all the things I have/have not done. Other Australian bloggers (11 when I looked) joined in and Geniaus has compiled all the responses into a single blog. I would also like to see Geniaus add her original post to this list too - then we could all be the Aussie Genealogy Dozen!

7 September saw my 11,000 tweet on Twitter which is amazing. I originally thought I wouldn't benefit from Twitter but now find it really good for up to date genealogy news. In fact I don't think I could manage without it as it also links me to many overseas genealogy friends that I would never have known otherwise.

Anyway if I am going to get any reading done today, I better stop writing now!

Genealogy notes 2-4 September 2011 The Geelong History & Genealogy Expo

Well the last two days went very quickly as I was at the Unlock the Past history and genealogy expo in Geelong, Victoria. I gave 3 talks, attended lots of other talks, browsed the 70+ exhibitors, caught up with friends and enjoyed myself a lot. My review of the whole expo is here for those who would like to know more.

Today I have been catching up with emails, tweets and blogs as I didn't take my laptop with me - I didn't want to be too distracted from the attractions of the expo and talking with real people in person.

It still surprises me how few Australian genealogists have embraced Twitter and blogs - I keep telling them how much they are missing out on. It will be interesting to see how many take up my invitation to look at my blogs over the next few days or even follow me on Twitter.

I also have to sort out all my notes from the lectures - lots of new ideas and URLs to follow up which might lead to some new family information. The big question is where to start as I want to do everything at once - and that's just what is online!!

Today is Father's Day and my partner and I have been remembering our fathers and sharing stories. It's funny some of the things you remember when prompted by other people's experiences. I hope everyone else is having a good day with their fathers or remembering them as we are. Until next time, happy researching.

Genealogy notes 30-31 Aug & 1 Sep 2011 expos & conferences

Not sure where time is going lately. Tuesday was a bit of a loss as we spent most of the day going to various medical appointments - nothing like waiting around and finding the same magazines everywhere. Must remember to take some family history journals next time but I always like to think they will be on time!

Wednesday was spent changing some of the slides in my three talks at the Unlock the Past history and genealogy Geelong expo on 2-3 September. Mostly updating website pages but Google has changed its home page quite a bit since I first did my Google tips talk, so I have reworked that. I also made the discovery that my website counter on a couple of my pages (including the Resources page that I refer everyone to) have not been working for some time. It's now all fixed but I have lost the statistics for those pages although I still have the overall stats via Google Analytics.

In the afternoon I had an exploratory look at the Find My Past Ireland website - I keep hoping that I will progress my Irish lines. I found looking at the Forums and the various questions people ask interesting. When I posted my Norwegian interests to a forum a few years ago I received amazing help so I will post my Irish interests next week when I have more time (she says).

Today I have worked on my guest blog for MyHeritage and realised I didn't include last week's in this Diary. Sometimes I do more than I think  I have - probably should make notes as I go! Anyway it comes out every Friday. One of the things I mentioned in it was the annual conference of the ACT & NSW Family History Societies Association in Inverell on 16-18 September. I usually try to go but as we have been away so much this year and it is a long drive, I'm going to miss catching up with all my old friends.

The next two days will be in Geelong and I will be blogging the expo as I usually do but that won't be out until Sunday. The Expo looks like it will be a big event with over 70 exhibitors so I may not mention them all. It will probably depend on how many are relevant to my own areas of research. I also hope to catch a few speakers that I haven't heard before so that will be good, and on topics I'm interested in. People are coming from all over Victoria so I will also catch up with friends as well. It will be genealogy heaven!

Genealogy notes 27-29 August 2011 Victorian Seminars & Fairs

It's been a hectic few days. As I indicated last time, on Saturday I attended the VAFHO AGM and Seminar at PROV and it was a great afternoon, but it was a shame that not more people attended as the talks were really good. The AGM was no surprise with the existing committee being voted back in for another year.

Charlie Farrugia's talk on Victorian Wards was really interesting and it is surprising just how much is available on these children who were 'convicted and neglected' to use Charlie's words. There is even an index (1864-1893) on microfiche published by the Australian Institute for Genealogical Studies which makes access easier, if you have access to the microfiche (amazing how we start to want to see everything online). There is also PROVguide 60 Adoption, Wardship and Related Records which gives a lot of information on the topic.

Ada Ackerly's talk highlighted all the fantastic information that might be held on individuals in departmental correspondence files, equity files, non probate files and so on. However most of these types of records have no overall index and you need to look at individual year indexes which is why the records are not used as much as they should be. Ada has done quite a lot of indexing on various series and these are available at PROV in the reading room.

Sunday we left home early to get to the Maryborough Family History Group Fair and we took the heritage route through old mining towns such as Creswick, Clunes and Talbot and all the wattle along the roadside looked fantastic. Although it might explain why I feel like I have a touch of hay fever today.

The Fair was good and there were numerous historical societies and other groups with their records all on hand to assist people with their family history queries. Three speakers, John Tully on Researching the Goldfields, myself on Archives You Probably Don't Know but Should and Anne Howlett from Creative Memories on Heritage Scrapbooking also provided attendees with lots of information and answered lots of questions. It was good to catch up with my many friends and colleagues in central Victoria.

Today has been spent catching up on emails, tweets and blogs and some of the enewsletters I have read today include Eneclann with the latest Irish history and genealogy news; several days worth of Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter; and I have been catching up on profiles on GeniMates, a blog series on 'genealogists from all over the place'.

The other major task for today was to finally finish my two Congress papers for the 13th Australasian genealogy and heraldry congress next March. I have made more changes again today and I am starting to seriously think I am procrastinating! Tomorrow is the deadline so it will definitely all be over then. The issue, I think, is that the paper is due now, six months before the Congress and as we all know, things change quite rapidly in the genealogy environment. There is scope to have a handout with any changes but the handout won't appear in the Congress proceedings. I'll have a final read tonight then hit the Send button!

Checking my diary reminds me that the Unlock the Past Victorian history and genealogy expo at Geelong is this coming Friday and Saturday so there goes another weekend devoted to genealogy, not that I mind! As usual I will try and tweet from the venue and do an overall blog of the event.

Now domestic duties call - I have to go and cook dinner!

Genealogy notes 24-26 August 2011 Non Stop Genealogy

Well I finally got to cross off a few things off my 'to do' list. I wrote my blog on Writing Family History and although it is a bit longer than I originally intended, it covers most of the points I made in my presentation on writing resource guides.

I also made substantial progress on catching up with my emails but there are still a lot of blogs in my Google Reader that I need to at least take a peek at. So many good genealogy bloggers out there! If your new to this take a look at the Unlock the Past list of genealogy blogs for Australia and New Zealand and if you want overseas try Geneabloggers for a mind blowing list of blogs from just about everywhere.

While on the subject of blogs, My Heritage have asked me to do a guest blog on Australian news so that took a bit of time yesterday and should appear on Friday 26 August. I should point out that there is no payment involved, just the opportunity to reach a different audience and to share my knowledge with others.

I have found family relatives through My Heritage as well as Genes Reunited and Ancestry. Advertising family lines online can be a good way to pick up near relatives as well as more distant lines so I have a few generations of my families on each of the three sites. It does cost to be on so many sites but I would have missed linking up with some families if I hadn't. I have opted for the free or least expensive options which still let me link up with others.

I have also been catching up with some of the enewsletters I receive. I always like the Professional Historians Association (PHA) (Qld Branch) enews as I catch up with news of my Queensland friends. When I arrived home earlier this week, in my snail mail there was a copy of Circa, which is the professional journal published by the PHA's (Vic Branch). There are some great articles in that so I am looking forward to curling up and reading it once I have some of the other things out of the way. For information on Professional Historians Associations in other States see the Australian Council of Professional Historians Associations.

qsa-bulletin is enews from the Queensland State Archives and it is great for finding out what new records are available, what has been digitised or indexed, what seminars are on and so on. State Records NSW and Public Record Office Victoria (PROV) also have enewsletters which I receive as my families tended to move around quite a bit.

Today I will be spending time preparing for the Victorian Association of Family History Organisations (VAFHO) AGM and seminar tomorrow at PROV - I am a committee member and have been asked to stand again for the coming year. The two speakers following the AGM are Charlie Farrugia from PROV and Ada Ackerley who is well known for her many indexes of PROV records so both talks should be really good.

I also have to get ready for the Maryborough Family History Group Fair on Sunday as I am giving a talk on Archives You Should Know But Don't and I will also have a display table for the various Unlock the Past publications. It's only a couple of hours drive from our place and is a really historic part of Victoria's mining past so I am looking forward to the trip.

Well my coming weekend is almost non stop genealogy so I hope your weekend is equally blessed with genealogy time and if you are at either PROV or Maryborough Fair do come up and say hello!

Genealogy notes 21-23 August 2011 Rubbish As Memories

Sunday saw our little family catchup where we shared memories of days gone by and discussed what we might do this coming Christmas, our next family catchup. Afterwards I took the rubbish down to the bins (Mum lives in a complex and the bins had already been taken down to the front for collection the next morning). By random chance I opened the first bin that had been placed on the kerb and it was full of videos. While rummaging through other peoples' bins is not something that I normally do, in this case I couldn't help myself.

One of the titles had caught my eye - 'Joan's 80th birthday'. Joan was my mother's neighbour and she was a very interesting person in her 90s who we had got to know over Christmas/New Year 2009 when I spent quite a few hours with Joan looking into her family history. It was an interesting and well known family so I was able to show Joan various websites and she was so enthusiastic. So why were her videos and other personal items in the rubbish bin?

For various reasons, Joan's family had recently decided that she could no longer live alone, taking care of herself and so she had to leave her townhouse. Unfortunately we never got to say goodbye and by the time we arrived the unit was being cleaned out, ready for lease to someone else. I'm not sure who cleaned the unit out, whether it was the family or someone they paid to come in and do it. Whoever it was simply put a lot of her possessions in the rubbish bin. As we gazed into the bin we could see various aspects of Joan's life and interests just waiting to be taken away. Perhaps the family already had copies of the more important videos and had taken the more significant family items away already. I certainly hope so.

It depressed me, and still does, to think that when we are gone, or no longer able to care for ourselves, that all we hold significant, might simply be thrown into a rubbish bin. It is one of the reasons I wrote Your Family History Archives: A Brief Introduction and why I give a talk based around the book at various genealogy events. It is to remind my fellow genealogists and family historians to think about the future and what will happen to their own research and records at the end of the day.

Monday saw us fly back home to Melbourne and I'm happy to say that the weather here has been really lovely with sunny, blue skies although a little colder than Brisbane. There was a small mountain of mail which we are slowly working our way through, after dealing with all the bills first!

Tuesday was also a catch up day on various domestic chores, including a visit to the dentist and the builders were in. I have finally got around to putting doors on my study so that everyone will no longer see how much 'stuff' I have in there. Having been away for quite a bit since last April, the study needs a big clean up!

The one thing that I did achieve today was to finalise an update to my talk on Archives You May Not Know But Should which I am giving at the Maryborough (Victoria) Family History Fair on Sunday 28 August 2011.

Tomorrow I am going to write my 'writing family history' blog and start to catch up on emails, blogs and tweets I have put on hold over the last few months. I wonder if my life will ever really be 'normal'?

Genealogy notes 18-20 August 2011

Well the Ekka certainly brought back memories on Thursday - going with my parents as a child and also taking my son when he was little. There are a few changes (Sideshow Alley rides certainly look more scary) but mostly it was the Show as I remembered it. We ended up spending about 8 hours there and saw just about everything. A great day and after a little rain/cloud in the morning it turned into a wonderful winter's day.

Friday I went and collected my grandfathers' replica military medals from National Medals and I am so pleased that I have finally done this. Now I want to write up their stories - Henry Price in WW1 and John Martin Gunderson in WW2. Perhaps that should be a Remembrance Day target as it is closer to November than next April for ANZAC Day.

On Saturday I was pleased to hear from Hazel Edwards who I had heard speak at the Family History Feast at State Library of Victoria in early August. Firstly she advised me that emails were bouncing from my website (Shauna Hicks History Enterprises)which was good to know and is now fixed - but I do wonder what I missed out on for the almost four weeks that I was unaware of the problem. At least in the old days of snail mail, the letterbox managed to hold all your mail even if it did get damp when it rained.

Secondly Hazel informed me of the increased traffic to her website (Hazel Edwards An Australian Author) following my review of Family History Feast and I also mentioned her book How to Write a Non Boring Family History during my Toowoomba talks recently. It is always good to get feedback and to know that people read my blogs and follow up on links from both my blogs and talks. It makes all the hard work of writing blogs and preparing talks all the more worthwhile.

Thirdly it reminded me that I had said in my Researching & Writing History blog that I would blog my 'how to write' talk following the Unlock the Past Researching & Writing History two day seminar in Adelaide back in May. It's now back on my 'to do' list and hopefully in the coming week I will be able to cross it off the list.

As we are heading back to Melbourne on Monday we have been doing some sightseeing around Brisbane and to be honest, the weather has been so great it is a shame to be indoors. Plus the internet connection at Mum's is not the best and it takes so long to do anything!

Today we are having another family gathering as it will probably be Christmas before we are up this way again. Having said that, where did this year go?

I have some exciting talks/events coming up in September and it will be much easier to maintain this Diary once I am back home and no longer in tourist mode. Most events I am speaking at are day trips or only one night away so it will be good to have all my usual research resources around me. It's definitely not all online!

Genealogy notes 14-17 August 2011 Brisbane talks

Still in Brisbane and catching up with friends and relatives - it's amazing how much time that can take up. Sunday we had a leisurely lunch with my partner's cousin at Redcliffe and it was a beautiful day. Great to see all the boats out sailing and fishing and I can't believe all the development that is happening out that way.

Monday I did something I have always wanted to do - order replica medals of my grandfathers' military service. Mum's father (Henry Price) was in WW1 and Dad's father (John Martin Gunderson) was in WW2 which highlights a generation discrepancy that most people don't have. Mum was the last of ten children where as Dad was an only child. Anyway every ANZAC Day I say I wish I had some family medals to wear and talk about to family and friends as an ongoing reminder of their military service. I collect the replica medals on Friday from National Medals.

Monday night was my talk on Researching Mining Ancestors at Southern Suburbs Branch of the Genealogical Society of Queensland. It was their AGM and a cold night (for Brisbane) so it was a relatively small audience but still keen to research their mining ancestors. It was also good to catch up with old friends.

Tuesday I should have written this blog but I was determined to write my two papers for the 2012 Australasian genealogy congress in Adelaide. That was my focus and I knew that if I started looking at emails and blogs I would be distracted. I'm happy to say that I have reasonable drafts for both papers which I will fine tune before submission next week. It looks like a great congress with some interesting speakers and papers so I can't wait!

Wednesday I indulged myself with some research on my partner's family. His mother (Elma Eldridge) was a Queenslander and there are others researching the family and while I have been given the basics of the family tree, some of the detail is missing. So I worked on his mother's direct family as the others are from sibling lines.

Wednesday night I gave my talk to the Queensland Family History Society and an almost full house listened to my suggestions for researching Victorian ancestors. As I am a Foundation member of QFHS it is always good to see other Foundation members at meetings and remember how we all met back in 1979 to establish the Society. I only start to feel old (older) when I see other people and how they have changed over the years and I know that I have also changed but internally I don't think I have.

Tomorrow I am going to the Ekka (Brisbane Exhibition/Royal Queensland Show) and that will definitely bring back memories as I haven't been in decades. I hope the weather holds and the crowds/queues aren't too big - I'm not as young as I used to be!!

Genealogy notes 10-13 August 2011 Toowoomba seminar

When I started this blog back in July, I should have probably called it a travel and genealogy diary as I seem to have done nothing but travel since then. It's been hectic over the last few days with 10-11 August spent up at Coolum Beach on the Sunshine Coast catching up with friends. The weather has been absolutely wonderful, blue skies and very warm for winter and it is easy to see why Queensland is the Sunshine State.

Perhaps the highlight was the sunset cruise on the Noosa River on board the Noosa Queen where they take you up river to the mouth of Lake Cooroibah and you arrive just as the sun sets in a fiery red ball on the other side of the lake. A must see event and our photos don't do it justice, although the one on their website is pretty close to what we saw. The bird life is also amazing and it is all so quiet with just a few fishermen here and there and a houseboat or two. You arrive back at Noosa Marina just in time to see thousands and thousands of flying foxes (bats) fly out of the trees and head inland for a night of feasting. Another amazing sight and there was almost a full moon which added a touch of spookiness.

After our relaxing two days at Coolum we had to head over to Toowoomba and rather than take the highways, we went via Kilcoy, Esk and Crow's Nest, all haunts of mine during the 70s. It was nice to see that not a lot of change has occurred and driving past Ravensbourne National Park brought back many memories of a time before family history.

Toowoomba was still largely as I remember it, Picnic Point is still there and the main streets in the CBD are all the same but some of the roundabouts and one way streets tricked us up a bit. Roadworks and detours were another hazard. On the Friday night we did something I haven't done in over 30 years - we went to the incredible seafood buffet at Weis Restaurant at the Top of the Range.

Walking inside was a real trip back in time and it is better than ever I think. Our table was just near the fire in one of the main dining rooms and it was only a short walk to the next room where the buffet was set up. Nothing frozen there and everything we tried was delicious and the dessert table has to be seen to be believed. It is also as popular as ever as we were at the early sitting and most tables were occupied. I want to go back again!!

Saturday was the reason we were in Toowoomba in the first place. I was giving three talks and John Graham from the Ryerson Index was giving two talks in an all day family history seminar organised by the Toowoomba City Council Library. It attracted 76 people which is about the limit of the room but people didn't seem to mind the closeness. It was good to see the folks from the Toowoomba & Darling Downs Family History Society there and I hope they picked up a few new members.

My talks were all well received ( a beginner's talk, genealogy on the cheap and a brick walls talk) and I have put copies of the slides on the Resources page of my website as attendees were writing notes down furiously and finding it hard to keep up with all the new ideas and suggestions. I had heard John's basic talks before (one on the Ryerson index and the other on the value of country newspapers) but I am not sure if he has added new information or I just didn't take it in the first time. You can now link from the Ryerson website to digitised newspapers by going to the Request a Lookup link. Fantastic.

Copies of my books all sold well and we soon sold out as we could only carry so many up from Melbourne. They are available online from Gould Genealogy, look under the link for Unlock the Past publications. It's odd but they don't have an author search facility. I think the Library organisers were all pleased with the day and I suspect there will be many attendees online today trying out the new sites.

Three museums also worth a visit in Toowoomba are the Cobb & Co Museum, the Highfields Pioneer Village and the Southern Cross Museum which is part of your ticket to the Village. Just leave plenty of time to see everything.

On the way back to Brisbane we stopped at the Big Orange (another one of my favourite places from the past) and brought some really fresh and cheap fruit and vegetables). We are at Mum's for another week so have lots of time to eat everything we bought, although we may have been a bit over enthusiastic.

After a very big day I was in bed by 8.30pm on a Saturday night! There's a big genealogy week coming up so stay tuned.

Genealogy notes 8-9 August Australian Census Night

Last diary entry included reference to a family get together where we would be showing old videos of ourselves and our kids which we had recently converted to DVD so that we could share them with other family members. It's amazing how much we can all change even in just a few short years. There was lots of laughter as we looked back on how much we had changed and Christmas lunches we remembered but not the details of what we wore, what we ate and the gifts we received. It was a great afternoon and we will now make copies for everyone.

Today is the 2011 Australian census night and as we are currently staying at Mum's we will have to complete it here. I have been nominated the census 'person' so I will have the job of filling in the answers to the 60 questions, three times over.While I suspect I know most of the answers, I will still have to ask the others for some information. And yes, we will be saying Yes to Question 60 which is about keeping a cover of our return for future generations.

The other major genealogy task for today is to complete my talk on mining ancestors for the monthly meeting of the Southern Suburbs branch of the Genealogical Society of Queensland which is next Monday. On the following Wednesday I am giving another talk, this time on Victorian Resources for Family History to the Queensland Family History Society at their monthly meeting. I have already finalised that talk as it is based on an earlier talk I gave to the Society of Australian Genealogists in Sydney in May.

I am all organised for my three talks at the Toowoomba City Library on Saturday so that is good. I hate last minute panics and like to have all talks completed in advance so that I can just tweak them if necessary. It has been so warm here in Brisbane that I am almost looking forward to Toowoomba's cooler climate.

I'm starting to get requests for genealogy talks next year and can't believe how quickly this year has gone. I suspect this year I accepted too many requests as I seem to have hardly ever been home which is one reason why it has gone quickly. Next year should be a slower so that I can actually work on my own family history, but then I seem to say that every year!

Genealogy notes 5-7 August 2011 Everything Irish

The weather in Brisbane is absolutely perfect, you wouldn't even know it was winter. We haven't even put a cardigan on since we arrived and on our morning and afternoon walks along Enoggera Creek we even manage to work up a sweat! Going back to Melbourne is going to be hard.

Friday was a e-reading day (in between family interruptions) and I caught up with Dick Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter (mostly US), QFHS Snippets (Queensland Family History Society), Lost Cousins: Putting Relatives in Touch (mostly UK), Professional Historians Association Queensland, Proformat News (Adelaide Proformat, South Australia), newsletters from Ancestry.com.au, and Genes Reunited and I still have more catching up to do. Now that I have started to put all e-newsletters into a single folder for reading it is easier for me to see just how many I actually receive - it's a bit of an eye opener.

Saturday was the Genealogical Society of Queensland annual seminar Ireland: Unlocking the Mystery so it was an early start to get to the Queen Alexandra Home at Coorparoo. Amazingly I still remember the way from Mum's place. First speaker was an old friend from Canberra Cora Num talking on Irish Research on the Internet which is a talk she gave on the Unlock the Past genealogy cruise but I missed it as numbers were limited and I wasn't quick enough. As usual she has a handout on her website (click on the gopher) which is just as well as she mentioned lots of sites I was familiar with but also some I wasn't aware of. So lots of follow up research on my Irish families is now on the To Do List.

I was second speaker with my talk The Colonial Irish Loved a Beer or Two and Pauline Williams was next talking about Irish Resources at the GSQ. Lunch followed and I must say the catering was fantastic at both morning tea and lunch - I don't think anyone went hungry.

After lunch Richard Reid's talk was From the First Fleet to the Rose of Tralee - The National Museum of Australia's Irish in Australian exhibition. His talk provided some of the background to the Just Not Ned: A True History of the Irish in Australia exhibition which recently closed at the National Museum of Australia (lots of Irish family history tips on this site too). Richard's anecdotes about some of the Irish objects in the exhibition and some of the issues associated with curating an exhibition of that size made for a very interesting talk. Having seen the exhibition myself in Canberra it brought back memories or added a new dimension to what I had been lucky enough to see.

Final speaker of the day was Jennifer Harrison on Releasing Irish Convicts which was an overall view of a life of an Irish convict and at each stage (crime, arrest, gaol, transportation, etc) Jennifer gave examples of the types of records which might be available to provide more details. By constructing a timeline like this it is easy to see where the gaps are and then focus your research to close those gaps.

It was good to see Queensland State Archives represented there, although they were the only exhibitor apart from the GSQ.

The seminar was a good way for me to catch up with friends and even some relatives and the GSQ's book sales table seemed to do a roaring trade. I didn't win the raffle or the lucky door prizes but then I never do. Still you have to be in it to win it.

This morning I am catching up with my emails, tweets, and blog reading (see Unlock the Past's list of blogs in Australia and New Zealand for some interesting reading). This afternoon we are having a family gathering at my brother's place which will be good as I haven't seen his kids for a while and my son and his girlfriend will also be there. Almost like Christmas in August and there will be seafood too! Must remember to take the camera and unknown to everyone we have DVD copies of our old videos when everyone was so much younger. There will be a few laughs and it's good to be home.

Genealogy notes 2-4 August 2011 - Too Much To Read

My last entry was all about catching up with my genealogy reading but things didn't go quite to plan. I am now in Brisbane but at least with e-newsletters and e-books they can travel with me easily! So still planning to catch up with all that e-reading.

I'm speaking at four events while up in Queensland which is exciting as I will also get to see many old friends as well. The first event is on Saturday with the annual Genealogical Society of Queensland's seminar. The theme this year is Ireland: Unlocking the Mystery and it is fully booked. Lots of people have Irish ancestors so I'm not that surprised.

It should be a great day with speakers Cora Num with Irish Research on the Internet; myself with The Colonial Irish Loved a Beer or Two; Pauline Williams on Irish Resources at GSQ; Richard Reid curator of the Not Just Ned: A True History of the Irish in Australia exhibition at the National Museum of Australia (topic not defined) and Jennifer Harrison on Irish Convicts.

I will write more about the other events in future diary entries but you can see the list of events on my website.

Last night some of my Twitter friends and I were tweeting about 'the reading pile' beside the bed, or is that more than one pile which then seemed to turn into a bookcase, again with a 'to read' tag. I must say I identified with the issue as I often buy magazines or books at genealogy events and then don't get the chance to read them before I buy even more. And that's not counting the e-newsletters and e-books I have waiting to read on the laptop! Does every genealogist have this problem of too much to read or is it just us??

Genealogy notes 30 July - 1 August

It's amazing how fast time goes when you are busy and travelling around. Saturday was the Irish seminar organised by the Wodonga Family History Society. My talk on the Colonial Irish Liked a Beer or Two was well received and I managed to sell a few of my books too. Jeff Brownrigg's two talks on Australian Irish Lives was also good and he accompanied his presentation with music and songs and even had the audience singing along. Both Jeff and I were presented with a local produce goodies bag which was nice.

Sunday was spent travelling back to Melbourne and catching up with domestic chores - friends came over to dinner that night (impromptu) but it meant no time for logging on and catching up with emails and tweets.

Monday I left home early so that I could go to the State Library of Victoria for Family History Feast 2011- an annual event during National Family History Week. It was a great day of genealogy talks and catching up with friends - my review gives details of the various presentations.

I'm hoping the next few days will let me catch up with all my genealogy reading - I now have quite a few e-newsletters waiting as well as blogs I like to follow. The other thing I must do tomorrow is my next instalment on mining ancestors for Australian Family Tree Connections. Another busy genealogy day ahead!

Genealogy notes 27-29 July 2011

We're still travelling and after Canberra we went to our friend's farm in Yarrawonga in northern Victoria where we have been lucky to see the births of some of their new lambs. Also amazing just how many white cockatoos are now in the area along with a few pink galahs.

The head cold I developed in Mount Gambier went to my chest so the last couple of days I haven't even felt like reading my emails or tweeting so I have quite a bit of catching up to do. But our friends have also been taking us round the tourist places and how could I say no to a visit to Rutherglen and some of the old, famous wineries in this area, not to mention the cheese tasting place at All Saints Winery. Today we are off to the Corowa chocolate factory and maybe another winery or two. It's a great gourmet area and I have bought olives, cheeses, spices, sauces etc.

My friend is an avid genealogist too so we have been having some great conversations and I had the chance to see the book she put together after a recent family reunion. I really must finish all my family history 'drafts' - there can always be a second edition!

We have even done a draft strategic plan for discussion at the VAFHO committee meeting next week. I will miss it unfortunately as by then I will be in Brisbane.

But for now I am getting reading for the Irish seminar tomorrow organised by the Wodonga Family History Society. My talk is The Colonial Irish Loved a Beer or Two and the other speaker Professor Geoff Brownrigg is giving two talks on Australian Irish Lives. It should be a great day and Wodonga is always a great audience.

Tomorrow will be a big genealogy day and I am hoping to learn lots to assist researching my own Irish ancestors - I have four great great grandparents who came out to Queensland in the 1860s and 1870s. Stay tuned.

Genealogy notes 24-26 July 2011 Not Just Ned & Tobruk 1941

We've done a lot of driving over the last few days - after the Unlock the Past history and genealogy expo in Mount Gambier we drove back to Melbourne on the Sunday for a quick change of clothes etc. I managed to finish my review of the expo and then on the Monday we drove up to Canberra. Why a visit to Canberra?

Well this is the last week of the Not Just Ned: A True History of the Irish in Australia exhibition and I have been wanting to see it but we just haven't been able to get to Canberra. Also on at the moment is the Rats of Tobruk 1941 exhibition at the Australian War Memorial, another Canberra exhibition we wanted to see.

We are both nursing head colds from Mount Gambier, so after an early night we were keen to get to the exhibitions but the day started badly. I discovered that somehow I had chipped my front tooth and despite my partner telling me no one would notice, we both knew they would. Fixing it will have to wait until we return to Melbourne.

Our second bit of bad news was a phone call telling us our beloved pet had died unexpectedly in the night and despite wanting to rush home, we knew that would not change anything. So after much tears, we went to the Irish exhibition late morning although I didn't phone my friends at the Museum as I felt I just couldn't talk to anyone at present. We will make another longer visit to Canberra and catch up with friends then.

Anyway the Not Just Ned exhibition at the National Museum of Australia is really spectacular and it is amazing to see what they have brought together for the exhibition which takes at least two hours to walk around. At the end there is a room where you can look at books and computers to trace your own Irish ancestry. Members of the Heraldry & Genealogy Society of Canberra volunteer there on Friday afternoons. I bought the catalogue so I could read more at leisure. Finally there are very useful Irish family history tips on the NMA website.

After that we drove over to the Australian War Memorial and visited the Rats of Tobruk 1941 exhibition, another very worth while exhibition. My uncle was at Tobruk and my partner's father was too so there was a personal interest for both of us. After that we toured the WW2 area of the AWM and managed to also see the light and sound show Striking in the Dark, based around the bombing of Berlin. There are excellent family history resources on the AWM's website and I couldn't resist temptation in the AWM Shop buying Peter Fitzsimon's book Tobruk.

Having seen both exhibitions I now have a list of things I want to follow up on my own Irish and military ancestors - genealogy really is a never ending story!

Genealogy notes 23 July 2011 genealogy expos continued

Today was Day 2 of the Unlock the Past history and genealogy expo in Mount Gambier and it was a very cold and wet day. However, there were still enthusiastic attendees arriving as the doors opened and most stayed until the end lecture. I heard lots of positive comments and perhaps the most  negative comment over the length of the expo was the cold!

I attended a number of talks and also gave two presentations - my tribute to TROVE and It's Not All Online, the title of one of my books. I was really pleased with the feedback and one lady said that she was amazed at all the things I had suggested for broadening out family history research and thinking laterally. Which is of course, the whole point of all my talks.

As I mentioned yesterday, I am doing a review of the Expo on my own website so will go into more detail in that. With luck and some hard work, it should be finished either later today or tomorrow. I have returned home with a rather severe head cold which makes thinking harder than usual!!

At the end of the day, my cold was really starting to take hold so we declined offers of dinner with other UTP speakers, settled back with a pizza and were in bed by 8pm. So much for the high life on tour with a genealogy expo. Watch out for the Expo blog due soon.

Genealogy notes 22 July 2011 - genealogy expos

Yesterday was Day One of the Unlock the Past South Australian and Victorian Border history and genealogy Mount Gambier expo so it was a very big genealogy day. I will be writing up a review of the Expo at the end of Day 2 so I won't go into too much detail now. It will appear on my SHHE Genie Rambles blog.

The venue is a very large school basketball centre which is ideal as all the exhibitors have lots of room and there are even breakout tables on the side. So my first duty was to wander around all the exhibitors  and it is a great mix of history, heritage and genealogy with lots of old photos, memorabilia and records and publications to search. The show bag has brochures from most of the exhibitors.

I had two talks during the day - first was my Asylums talk and second was my Google talk - both were well attended and I had lots of questions afterwards. I have another two talks on Day Two.

While I was doing a bit of Tweeting, I was given a handwriting query to solve. It was an entry in the NSW Coroner's Records available on Ancestry.com.au. I couldn't make it out from the photocopy the researcher had but as I have a personal subscription to Ancestry I logged on to see the original entry. It was a long entry of death and the words were all run together - I made out a few more of the words but one word was still elusive.

I asked a few of the other Unlock the Past team but we were all stumped. I then saved the image as a photo and increased the magnification beyond the 200% in Ancestry and that allowed me to easily see what the last word was. It is so easy once you know - the last phrase was 'severe temporary mental aberration' and it was 'temporary' which was the hardest part to decipher. It's always a buzz when you can help someone out.

I attended a few other talks and also did an interview with the local television but I don't think we made the 6pm news. At the end of the day there was a group dinner and an evening musical show with Brenton Manser and the Vanguard. As we didn't get back to the motel until late I didn't have time to write my usual daily blog of an expo. For Mount Gambier it will be a single blog completed after Day Two.

It is now Day Two and I am a little cold here trying to type this blog as the stadium has not yet warmed up. I'm sure today is going to be as good as yesterday. Stay tuned.

Genealogy notes 18 July 2011 Brick wall research

Thank goodness young ones like afternoon naps - so hard to do anything on a laptop when you are playing games, chasing rabbits round the yard or out shopping! Still it is an experience you wouldn't trade for anything.

In my down time I continued having a look at our friend's brick wall that I wrote about the other day. I wasn't sure what the New Zealand connection was but decided to try Papers Past as both the married name and the maiden name are relatively uncommon. Interestingly I picked up some references to her athletic achievements that were reprinted from Sydney papers. The surprise was one of the articles talking about her fiancée and how they were going to be married the following year. The article was from 1919 but she obviously didn't end up marrying him. I wonder why not? Instead she married a man 13 years older than her in 1923, the same year she had their only child.

I then tried TROVE for Australian newspapers but the only additional information came from a funeral notice for her brother who died in 1949 - she is listed as one of the mourners in the family notice. This is long after she is thought to have died - did her brothers and sisters just list her because they weren't sure where she was or did they know she was still alive but not with her husband and child?

I also had some success in both Ancestry and FindMyPast in that I found the young family leaving Australia in 1924 for London (her husband was born in Devon) and then I found them coming back in 1927 - without these indexes and digitised images online it wouldn't be possible to do searches like this. So now I know that they were still together in 1927 and in Australia.

I tried to find out a bit more about the husband and noted that he had enlisted for war service in 1939 although he was 53 and from the immigration records I knew he had been in the British Navy possibly during WWI but that needs more looking into. The National Archives of Australia has digitised the series Service Cards for Petty Officers and Men 1911-1970 and I was able to look at the record myself. He listed as his next of kin his wife and an address for her as well as another woman (a friend) and address for her. Did he know where his wife was or was that just a last known address for her? Was there no divorce? Lots of questions which I will have to talk over with our friends when we get back to Melbourne.

With brick walls it really is a matter of just trying to fill in the missing bits and pieces of information. I find that doing timelines for people can be useful as it readily shows all the available facts not only about the person you are looking for but also those around them. Sometimes if you investigate other family members you will find that elusive bit of information on the one you really seek.

Tomorrow is a kindy day so hoping for a bit more genealogy time but then it would also be good to get out and see some of Adelaide as well. It's hard being a tourist too, so many things I want to do and see!

Genealogy notes 17 July 2011

Sunday was a family day and we don't get many of them as we live away from all our families. However, as we are visiting Adelaide we managed to have brunch with one son and then the rest of the day with another son and his family. Grandchildren seem to grow up very quickly even though we were only here last May!

However eventually they go to bed and I managed to check emails, tweets and Google+ before heading to bed myself. Some of my favourite e-newsletters arrived including UK Lost Cousins, Queensland Family History Society's Snippets and National Archives of Australia's Your Memento.

It was good to see a comment on my Summer blog post for 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy and History but I also saw that there were two posts on it in Google+ because I also posted notice of the blog there. I'm not sure that, from a recordkeeping perspective, that it is good to have comments on a blog separated - my archival instincts say that all comments should be together so that in the future you can see what the response was. But now that I am thinking about it, people often comment via Twitter and Facebook so perhaps it is a bit muddled anyway. Need to think about that a bit more.

Not sure how much genealogy I'll get to do over the next few days while staying with family - probably more taking photos and videos to capture living family members I suspect, but then that all becomes part of the family history too!

Genealogy notes 14 July 2011

Yesterday was a strange sort of day, did a bit of searching on our friend's brick wall that I mentioned last time - mostly rechecking sources that they have already covered. But sometimes a second pair of eyes helps or you use a different search strategy or different spelling variations. Some of the sources I covered included:
Ancestry.com.au trying to pick up a date of death, or mention on an electoral roll
FindMyPast.com.au again looking for electoral rolls
Victorian BDM's - I always check the individual State indexes as well as the Ancestry version - with the online indexes you have to pay unless you have access to the indexes on CD
TROVE - Australian newspaper searching on both married and maiden names, of course if she entered into a de facto relationship or simply changed her name we will never find her!
PapersPast - another newspaper search but this time in New Zealand in case the earthquake story is correct
Rootsweb mailing list archives - I always like to see if anyone else has posted a 'missing person' notice and this did turn up emails from the family but with no success in finding her.

While I was finding references to the family, there was nothing pointing me to where she had gone or when she had died. I decided to park the problem and let ideas come to me. It was about then that the postman arrived bearing the 5th issue of Inside History, a relatively new Australian genealogy magazine. So I decided to break for a cup of tea but that stretched into lunch as I settled down for a good read.

After lunch it was a nice walk down to the library in the 'rare' sunshine and then packing up my talks and bits and pieces for the Unlock the Past South Australian and Victorian Border Expo 22-23 July. We are having a few days in Adelaide before heading back to Mount Gambier for the expo - it's a chance to see the family while we are relatively close or closer!

I'm finding that I'm spending even more time on emails and social media with the advent of Google+ as I get notifications on new connections, when I start looking at the genealogy stream (or other streams) I get sidetracked, much like Twitter sidetracks me with interesting new links and genealogy news. I'm starting to think it is all like television, it it's on, I watch it and don't do anything I should be doing. Might start up a time log but then I will worry about what I might be missing!

Genealogy notes 13 July 2011 National Family History Week 2011

As I've mentioned over the last few days I am busy updating existing talks and doing new talks - in fact I am giving 11 talks over the next six weeks! See my schedule for more details.

Why so much happening around this particular time? Well it is winter in Australia and if we didn't have genealogy events to go to, we probably wouldn't venture out of our homes - not that winter here is anything like it is overseas. But more importantly, winter is the time when we have our National Family History Week - to be more exact it's 29 July to 8 August.

This is an initiative of the Australasian Federation of Family History Organisations (AFFHO) and their other big initiative every three years is a genealogy congress and the next one is 28-31 March 2012 in Adelaide with a theme of  Your Ancestors in Their Social Context. There is a great line up of speakers and talks so it is definitely not one to miss.

But back to National Family History Week - anyone can add an event but unfortunately not everyone lists their events here. Still, depending on what State or Territory you live in, you can easily find events of interest. Here in Victoria one event I have attended every year is Family History Feast at the State Library of Victoria. Scrolling through the list of events in Victoria shows that there is a great variety of talks and not just in Melbourne which is great.

So check out your State and see what you can attend for National Family History Week and if your organisation is having an event and it's not listed, encourage them to add it. All too often I hear people say they would have attended something if only they had known about it. So let's all publicise National Family History Week in 2011.

Yesterday my other half came home after visiting friends with a rather detailed family history chart in his hands. His friends have a genealogy brickwall and he assured them that I might be able to help solve it. He has great faith in my abilities and I must admit I do like a challenge - however this one is where the wife leaves the family, never to be seen again. Already my mind is thinking of all the possibilities and to complicate it further it has both Australia and New Zealand links. Wish me luck!

Genealogy notes 12 July 2011 DNA genealogy

Another day working on talks for my Brisbane/Toowoomba trip in August. I'm happy to say that all talks are drafted and I'm now in the review stage to make sure they run to time, make sense and give attendees information to further their own research. Without knowing an audience, you have to try and cater for everyone from basic beginners to those who may have considerable experience.

Amongst my emails yesterday was an updated report from 23andMe which is a DNA company which specialises in genetic testing for health and provides an insight into various health risks through maternal DNA.  I have also had people contact me to see if we are related because of DNA strands matching up, although this is more 4th or 5th cousin relationships. So far there have been no definite connections. This is an area that I have been exploring more this year and I will probably do a DNA test with one of the companies that is more into family history rather than health issues.

I also need to read more about the subject as well and recently purchased a book DNA For Genealogists by Kerry Farmer to help me understand more. I have heard Kerry's talk on DNA at an Unlock the Past history and genealogy expo but it is a lot to take in so the book will build on that (I hope). Science was never one of my strong subjects at school.

Another interesting email was from Unlock the Past and a draft brochure for their War Comes To Australia: WWII 70th anniversary tour to commemorate the bombing of Darwin in 1942. I have been asked to give a talk on Tracing Military Ancestors as part of the tour which is 17-22 Feb 2012. There will be two seminars as part of the tour and other speakers are Brad Manera and Dr Tom Lewis OAM. It should be an exciting time to be in Darwin next year.

I still receive mail from the postman and while not as much as via email, it is still exciting to open up the mailbox and see letters and journals. Yesterday I received my latest copy of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria's journal and newsletter. You can also see the latter on their website, even if you aren't a member and it is a good read with lots of information on research in Victoria and what is happening with affiliated historical societies. The Society has a lot of information, indexes and databases online and anyone with Victorian ancestors may find it worthwhile to search for their names and places.

We are leaving for Adelaide on Saturday and I have so many things I want to do before then. To do lists are something that I'm good at but they do have a problem of growing faster than I can tick them off. The next six weeks are incredibly busy and I'm looking forward to some down time in September. Fingers crossed!

Genealogy notes 11 July 2011

Monday was mostly taken up with finalising my talks for Brisbane and Toowoomba in August. Whenever I visit Brisbane to see family, the local genealogy societies often ask me to give talks at their monthly meetings. This is always a good opportunity to catch up with old friends so if I can fit these meetings in, I do.

On Monday 15 August 2011 I will be speaking at the Southern Suburbs branch of the Genealogical Society of Queensland and I have known some of them for over 30 years which is quite amazing. The talk is on mining ancestors and most people in Queensland usually have one or more mining ancestors. As this is such a huge topic, the hardest part of doing this talk is keeping it to 45 minutes!

Since December 2010 I have been writing a monthly article on mining ancestors for Australian Family Tree Connections and the feedback has been really good. As well as helping people with their own research, the mining series has also put me in touch with a few of my own long lost cousins who have recognised photographs I used to illustrate the articles. Also one gentleman in a mining area where my great grandfather died even went to the remote cemetery and took photos for me. So it really does pay to advertise your family research.

The other talk I worked on was a revision of my Victorian ancestors talk which I last gave in May in Sydney for the Society of Australian Genealogists. The weekend I gave the talk was also the weekend that Public Record Office Victoria (PROV) changed its website but I still had to go with my existing slides as I had no idea what the new site looked like until the following Monday.

As well as updating the PROV slides, I also had to update the home pages of a few other sites to make them current again. It is amazing how often home pages change with new content or new looks or whatever. The Victorian talk is being given to the Queensland Family History Society at their Wednesday meeting on 17 August 2011. I am a founding member of that society (1979) so again I know quite a few of them although more recent members only know me from my periodic visits.

Preparing talks takes longer than people suspect (I think) so I didn't do too much more than check for any urgent or exciting emails and to check Twitter and Facebook similarly. I did look at all my Google+ invitations and realised that there was more than one person per invitation email so I ended up adding dozens of people to my circles, mostly other genealogists. I really need to get my head around using this for genealogy at least.

Tomorrow I hope to finalise my last Toowoomba talk and then it will be a review of all talks, print paper copies just in case something goes totally wrong with the technology and to back them up on two USB sticks.  I try to be prepared for everything but there is always Murphy's Law!

I'm starting to get excited about all the talks and events in the remainder of July and August so check the list of events on my website and see if I will be visiting a place near you soon.

Genealogy notes 9-10 July 2011 Royal Australian Armoured Corps Tank Museum

It was as I expected - a weekend with no genealogy as we were visiting a friend's farm and staying overnight.  In some ways a technology free weekend is quite nice and it is good to know I can go 48 hours without turning the laptop on. However, I am now wading my way through various emails, tweets, Facebook and Google+ invitations.

But there is one thing that I do want to report on. We finally managed a visit to the  Royal Australian Armoured Corps Tank Museum at Puckapunyal on the way home. We had gone there previously on the spur of the moment when passing, but it is not open every weekend and we hadn't picked an open weekend. This time, as it was school holidays, it was open.

Museums don't always reflect what the name suggests and this is no exception. Of course there are many, many tanks (over 70 of them) to wander around and look at. In fact, I hadn't realised just how many different kinds there were or the differences between British, German, Japanese and American tanks until you see them all lined up. Each tank had it's history and statistics on a display board which was good for people like me who know nothing about tanks. There was an icy wind blowing and rain threatening so we didn't spend all that long wandering around the huge, open sheds which give some cover to the tanks.

I found it more interesting in the interior museum which paid tribute to every war since the Boer War. There were lots of photos, medals, uniforms, weapons, with various stories and tributes in display cases. I took some photos but the museum's website has a very good 3D map which allows you to do almost a virtual tour.

Visiting these kinds of museums can help us to understand our own military research better. For example, my ancestors fought it the Boer War in Light Horse Regiments and while I knew that meant they rode horses, I had not consciously thought how they transported the horses. There is a Light Horse memorial at the Museum which is a railway carriage and when you go up to have a look inside there is a fake horse inside a horse stall. It's obvious when you think about it, but it wasn't till I explored that Light Horse memorial that I realised exactly what it meant for soldiers to not only have to transport themselves and their gear but they also had to look after their horses.

It's a great place to visit and if you don't live in Victoria, do the website tour and look for other military museums - who knows what you will learn and perhaps even better, it will be of interest to your own family history.

Genealogy notes 8 July 2011

Amazing how fast Fridays seem to come around. On Fridays I like to write my contribution to the Geneabloggers blogging theme 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy and History and this weeks topic was Vacations. Questions to spur memories included where did you go, favourite places, are they still there and if not, how have things changed. My reminiscences were all around the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast as we lived in Brisbane when I was growing up.

There are always great conferences going on but sometimes the fees are on the high side (now that I'm semi-retired), especially if there are only a few sessions that you are interested in. This is particularly true in sister professions. For example, I have been looking at the Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers (ANZSI) conference program - it will be held in Brighton, Victoria 12-14 September 2011. I'm not an indexer but have an interest in indexing and in the past I have given papers at their conferences. It's over three days and of course, all the sessions I want to see or participate in are over all three days otherwise a one day registration would be the way to go. The other problem is that two of the sessions that most interest me are on at the same time. Decisions!

I always enjoy reading Heritage Tasmania e-news, and the June issue has a range of interesting stories. Also caught up with the June issue of the qsa-bulletin from the Queensland State Archives. I like to sign up for the free e-newsletters as they keep me up to date with new indexes, new records, seminars and so on. Back issues are also online. I have subscriptions for quite a few of the archives where I have family interests.

My weekend diary may be a combined effort as we will be travelling. My partner says I can't do genealogy 24/7 but I think he might be wrong! I suspect I could or at least give it a real good try.

Genealogy notes 7 July 2011

Freezing cold day in Melbourne today and unfortunately I had to be out and about so limited genealogy time. Received an email a few days ago from the Toowoomba Regional Council Libraries about a seminar they are hosting on 13 August. I am giving three talks and John Graham will be giving two talks on Country Newspapers and The Ryerson Index to contemporary death notices and obituaries in Australian newspapers. John is a fellow Unlock the Past team presenter and I always enjoy his talks.

The Library has done a great poster and information flyer to promote the seminar and it was a timely reminder to me to revisit the talks they had requested. When I looked at my talk Brief Introduction to Family History I found it was last given in 2009 so I had a lot of updating to do today. It is always hard when doing these introductory talks to know what level to pitch the talk at - there will obviously be some really new people but also likely to have some experienced people too.

The other two talks I am giving are Family History on the Cheap and this is a talk I keep up to date all the time as it is so popular (and it is the title of one of my books available from Gould Genealogy & History) and Warning Warning: Tips & Tricks to Avoid Common Family History Mistakes which is based on some of my own learnings over the years.

As always I check my various emails, Facebook and Twitter accounts and answer any personal queries and try to add my own views where applicable. On the days when I don't get a lot of time to check Tweets or Facebook I often feel that I have missed heaps of you beaut things but you can't be on it 24/7. Do others feel like that if they don't check Twitter or Facebook on a reasonably regular basis?

More people have added me to their Google+ circles but I really haven't had time to do much more than skim some of the comments people have made. It's on the to do list.

A new website (for me) that I came across today was The Workhouse: The Story of an Institution and it is a very detailed look at every aspect associated with workhouses. I am sure that at least one of my ancestors were in a workhouse at some point in time although I have never found any there during a census. I loved the recipe for the workhouse Christmas pudding for 300 - it used 144 eggs along with other usual ingredients but I'm not too sure about the 13 lbs of carrots (seems an odd ingredient in a pudding). There are some really great photographs and the detailed text means that you should give yourself some time to fully explore this interesting site.

The rest of the family have gone to bed and if I don't follow soon, I will freeze (we turn the heating off at night) - went down to 4 degrees here last night and more of the same is expected tonight. Can't wait to go home to Queensland in August, if only for 3 weeks!