Online seminars & New Resources - Genealogy Notes 18 - 27 Oct 2015

This last week has been interesting thanks to a fishing competition which meant I was home alone for 5 whole days and 7 nights. Yes I could have done some spring cleaning, some gardening and other domestic goddess stuff but I decided, with a birthday looming, that I would spoil myself. I started out data entering all my new data and filing things I had discovered while I was incapacitated with my broken elbow.

Relooking at these finds sent me in search of other discoveries and even in the last couple of months new resources have gone online and I found even more to get excited about. In Findmypast I think I have found a death notice in the Irish newspapers for my GGG grandfather Robert Fagan in Wicklow, Ireland - the name, age (80 years) and place (Glasnarget) are all spot on but no one else is mentioned in the notice. It is not a common name in the area but I would like to find more confirmation.

An intriguing sentence at the end is - American papers please copy. Does this mean that while his daughter Sarah Fegan came to Queensland, did some of her siblings or Robert's siblings or other relatives go to America? Something else to follow up!

But the point is that the last time I looked in the Irish newspapers there was no result for him at all so you really do need to go back and look regularly. I have particularly noticed this with Trove and since they have added the Brisbane Telegraph and the Daily Standard I have found lots more references to my families than I ever did in the Courier Mail. You have to check every newspaper as it may be totally new information or perhaps just slightly different.

While I made some really interesting discoveries in all those digitised newspapers, it did seem to soak up the hours or else it got dark early that day!

On Facebook I noticed that Kerry Farmer from the National Institute for Genealogical Studies was giving a free webinar on local history for genealogy and fresh from the History Queensland family and local history conference (see my review) I decided to listen in. Only a small group attended which surprised me, but Kerry squeezed an amazing amount of information and sources into that hour.

While I was familiar with most of the sources some of the NSW examples were new to me. I hadn't realised that you could get all those exciting parish maps online free. I was madly trying to write down URLs while Kerry kept talking so that I could follow up later. She also reminded me about QueryPic which I used to use a lot when I lived down south but since coming north it seems to have slipped out of my mind. I could have really used it in my keynote talk at the History Queensland conference but QueryPic is now back in the forefront of my search strategies again. So a great hour of reminders and new things and all for free. Thanks Kerry.

Sketch of my GG grandfather John Finn
 in the Brisbane Truth 

Week 42 Gaol and Prison Records in my personal genealogy blog challenge 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2015 had me delving into Trove again and yes more references to all my criminal ancestors. It is a rainy afternoon as I write this and I am so tempted to open up Trove and just have a little browse. Yesterday was Trove Tuesday (actually every Tuesday is Trove Tuesday) and many of my Geneablogger friends do a Trove Tuesday post. It is really interesting to see what others find on their ancestors. Another great way to spend some time!

Genealogy Sunshine Coast have asked me to do an all day seminar as a grand finale for National Family History Month 2016 which sounds a great way to end a genealogy and family history month. I haven't quite got around to thinking about NFHM 2016 just yet but I will have to start thinking about sponsors and planning soon as August has a way of catching up to me. Sponsors and ideas are always welcome and as 2016 will be the 11th year I am hoping for a new look.

In a week or so I will be in Rockhampton presenting 3 talks to the Central Queensland Family History Association so that will be exciting. The talks are all done and I will have some of the Unlock the Past research guides for sale too including my own titles. We are planning to go up the Bruce Highway and come back via the Burnett Highway to see a little more of that part of Queensland.

Mum, a cute me and my baby brother

My mother has just told me that it is 6 weeks to Christmas and asked what are we doing this year. I am having trouble even realising that 2015 is almost over. It has been a big year with broken limbs and time spent in hospitals and doctor's waiting rooms so a quiet uneventful Christmas/New Year sounds good to me.  But Mum is a traditionalist so I need to start giving it some thought but my grandmother's rum ball recipe has leapt to mind. I always loved them!

Next week is Melbourne Cup, my birthday (the old Guy Fawkes night
for those old enough to remember) and I will be doing what I love most, travelling. Diary will be coming from an exotic Queensland location yet to be disclosed but one I always love going to. Have a great genealogy week and remember, keep looking for new information online, it can pay off.  

Convict records & more talks for 2015 - Genealogy Notes 10-17 Oct 2015

Famous last words from last week were that I had no more genealogy talks for the year. A last minute opportunity presented itself to speak in Rockhampton at the Central Queensland Family History Association. I will be giving three talks at an afternoon seminar which will be full on but I hope their members enjoy it. As I haven't been to Rockhampton since the early 90s I will also enjoy being back up that way.

Another report on the In Time and Place Conference is from Helen Smith, also one of the presenters at the conference. Read Helen's review here. It seems that everyone wants a repeat Queensland conference so I hope the History Queensland people take all the positive feedback on board.

Max and I in our convict gear on Norfolk Island

Week 41 Convict Records continues my personal genealogy blog challenge 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2015. Writing that brought back great memories of our two trips to Norfolk Island and it really is good to visit where your ancestors once lived. Attending the reenactment of the convicts leaving when the First Settlement closed was really quite moving. It was easy to see why they would not have wanted to leave such an island paradise.

Max carrying all his worldly goods down to the rowboats

The only trouble with doing a weekly blog challenge is that the weeks seem to go faster!

One of my favourite resources is the Ryerson Index and they have just celebrated a milestone. Every death notice published in the Sydney Morning Herald since 1831 is now included in the Index. A total of 1,861,095 which is an amazing effort from the volunteers. They have also been indexing funeral notices and over 200,000 of those are also in the index from the Sydney Morning Herald. Well done everybody who has worked on the project over the last 17 years.

Of course the Ryerson Index now covers all states and territories but remember to check the coverage as not all newspaper titles are included and not all date ranges for each title.

Findmypast Fridays are always exciting with the release of new records and last week it was another 22 newspaper titles and more Staffordshire, Kent and Durham records. Another search for a great uncle involved in a serious crime in Staffordshire revealed more newspaper accounts with gruesome details. The Friday blog post is well worth checking out and it is every Friday. The week before it was England and Wales electoral registers from 1832 to 1932 which is really helpful trying to trace elusive ancestors between census if they were on the rolls.

MyHeritage announced that they had added about 46 million Swedish household records from 1880-1920 with images, that are now available, indexed and searchable online for the first time ever on MyHeritage Super Search. I don't have Swedish myself but that is a staggering number of new records. Their blog post has more about it here.

Another site adding lots of new records all the time is Deceased Online which is the central database for UK burials and cremations. They have 8 million records for London and 5 million records for Lancashire not to mention heaps of records for elsewhere. I keep up to date with the new additions by subscribing to the free enewsletter which is the easiest way to learn what's new.

It also means I receive lots of these free enewsletters but if something is not of direct interest to my own family history, then it is just a quick hit of the delete button. If it is relevant then I have the choice to either dive straight in or park it for a rainy day when I have more time. Keeping up with everything is the hardest part I find.

This coming week will be preparing my talks for Rockhampton, finalising my blog post and article for the December issue of Going In-Depth and working on the church records course for the National Institute for Genealogical Studies.In between I will be putting in some laps in the pool to help restrengthen my arm, keep up with the gardening (amazing how weeds always live and plants die when it doesn't rain) and enjoying our beautiful spring weather. 

Local & Family History Go Together - Genealogy Notes 3 - 9 Oct 2015

What a fantastic week starting with the History Queensland In Time and Place conference in Brisbane. The conference was excellent and there were a number of geneabloggers there and I have listed some of the reports below. There may be more coming or I haven't picked them up yet. Some of the other bloggers went to different sessions so I think we have captured most of the sessions and different aspects of the conference.

Reports on the Time and Place Conference so far:

Alex Daw (Family Tree Frog)  In Time and Place - Just Right 

Caitlin Gow (Genealogically Speaking) In Time and Place

Fran Kitto (Travel Genee) Queensland's First Local, Family and Social History Conference 

Shauna Hicks (SHHE Genie Rambles) Review of History Queensland Conference 3-4 Oct 2015

As well as my blog post on the conference I  kick started my 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2015 again. Week 40 is on Company Records and my focus was mining companies given my families' mining background but there are company records for all kinds of things. Given all the lessons learnt in last weekend's conference, company records should not be overlooked for what they might tell you about the local community and the people who lived there.

While visiting the Queensland Family History Society display at the conference I picked up their beginner's course flyer and was pleasantly surprised to see that they are using my Where Do I Start? research guide as the text book for the beginner's course. We had chatted about this earlier in the year before the guide was even printed but I hadn't realised they were going ahead with it. My broken right elbow has kept me out of the loop with lots of things so lots of catching up to do.

Myself and another committee member of the Bribie Island Historical Society have set up a new blog (Bribie Island History blog) for the Society although some members of the Committee are not convinced it is a good move or necessary. To me blogging is such an obvious way to spread the word about whatever you are researching and as a blog is searchable by Google it is ever so much more effective than having something published in a local newspaper which has limited readership.  Hopefully the blog will see some results quickly which will help to show people why blogging can be good for societies and individuals.

Having two hands to type again certainly helps with my writing and I finally finished my book review of Carol Baxter's two new Help! books - Help! Historical and Genealogical Truth: How do I separate fact from fiction? and Help! Why Can't I Find My Ancestor's Surname?  Read my review here.

I am also excited to have been asked to review Nathan Dylan Goodwin's new book The America Ground (another Morton Farrier forensic genealogist adventure). While I wait patiently for that to arrive (still a paperback girl), I have to do my review for the Australian Society of Archivists on Personal Archiving: Preserving our digital heritage edited by Donald T Hawkins. So lots of reading ahead.

My next piece of writing is an article for Going In-Depth, The In-Depth Genealogist's digital magazine. I will be continuing my Australian series for them again from the December issue. It seems simply ages since I wrote the last article but I couldn't keep with my injured arm and fortunately they have been very understanding.

As usual I am behind with my emails, enewsletters and even my print journals. We have had some lovely weather and I have been out and about now that I can drive again. I have even started exercising in the pool again but nothing too ambitious yet. The gardening had also been sadly neglected so a few hours were also spent getting rid of weeds.

With no more talks for 2015 I am also hoping to do some more of my own family history research. Until next time, have a great genealogy week.

Look Two Hands - Genealogy Notes 25 Sep - 2 Oct 2015

This is my first blog post using two hands since early July. I now have the go ahead to use my right arm but it is a bit weak from no usage and aches a bit if I overdo things. But I can type ever so much faster.

During the week I did a catch up on some of the WDYTYA episodes in Australian season 7 and I think it is one of the best series so far. Also noted quite a few geneafriends helping the celebrities which was fantastic. Some great stories and even a bit teary eyed in some episodes. You can catch up online if you missed any of the episodes.

Gordon Price in Syria 1941

I am all set for the History Queensland conference this weekend and I hope people like what I have done for my keynote address. It is a bit different from what I usually do but then it is a keynote. I am also looking forward to hearing the other speakers but there are two streams outside the keynotes. One with a local history focus and the other a family history focus. As usual it would be good to be two people and go to both. I will have a blog report next week.

The tidy up of the study went well - now I have neat piles of stuff to read and file. My trouble is that while reading or filing/entering data I get bright ideas and hive off to do a spot of research which is of course more interesting than just straight filing/entering data. Some of the websites I read about in magazines or see talked about on Facebook can lead to hours of research. For example, I read in an RSL newsletter about the Rats of Tobruk Association Victoria website and as my Uncle Gordon was a Rat of Tobruk I had a quick look. There is lots of information about Tobruk and members of the Association.

Regular readers will know that at the beginning of the year I took on Thomas MacEntee's Genealogy Do Over challenge to relook at some of my family lines which I first started nearly 40 years ago. I was making great progress until family medical dramas overtook the year. Cycle 4 has just started and Thomas has a new workbook on the horizon. Read about the changes here.

I have to also get back to my own blog challenge 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2015. I am up to Week 40 so 12 blog posts to go and only 12 weeks to the end of the year. I need to get my skates on if I want to wrap this challenge up.

The National Institute for Genealogical Studies have just asked me to do another online course for them on Australian church records which will be interesting. I give talks on this topic as I believe church records are an underutilised resource. My Unlock the Past research guide on Finding Ancestors in Church Records: a brief guide to resources highlights some of these resources. It will be good to do a much deeper look at church records for family history.

Now that I have the use of both hands again I really do want to get back into more blogging, writing up my own stories and tidying up my research. There are no more talks for the year so I can concentrate on my projects, get back my fitness after three months of little activity and tame the garden again!

Have another great genealogy week. Until next time.

Rockstars, Gems & Reviews - Genealogy Notes 15-24 Sep 2015

Still using only one hand so more reading than doing again this past week. I do like Geniaus' Gems or GAGs as she calls them - basically a weekly round up (when she has time and is not travelling) of interesting blog posts that she has read or seen in the past week or so. I usually find quite a few interest me and I might not have found them apart from Jill's round up. This link is to the GAGs post on 18 September. There should be another one soon.

A highlight has been the announcement of the 2015 Rockstar Genealogists - an annual listing by John D Reid (Canada's Anglo Celtic Connections). This year I was honoured to receive the Bronze medal for Australia and New Zealand and the top 10 for our area has an impressive list of speakers and bloggers. I was delighted to also find that I have personally heard 6 of the top 10 international Rockstar Genealogists right here in Australia. Great to see so many of them now travelling downunder. The Australia/New Zealand top 10 are here. Congratulations to everyone who made the top 10 lists and thanks to all those who appreciate the hard work that goes into giving presentations.

My review of the Port Macquarie genealogy conference is now online on my website and I have almost finalised my keynote paper for the History Queensland conference on 3-4 October in Brisbane. That will be a good catch up with all my Queensland geneamates and perhaps a few others from south of the border. Sadly it is the last conference for the year.

Family History Fair at Port Macquarie, 2015

On a brighter note I do have the 10th Unlock the Past genealogy cruise to look forward to in February 2016 which goes to New Zealand and the southern Australian capital cites ending in Fremantle, Western Australia. One of the key presenters I am looking forward to hearing is Judy G Russell (The Legal Genealogist) from the United States and also catching up again with Louis Kessler and some of the other regular UTP speakers.

This afternoon I am helping the Bribie Island Historical Society set up a blog so that will be interesting. There is a basic website but I think we can do more with a regular blog to share stories of the Island's fascinating past.

The study needs a bit of a tidy up. I seem to be able to pull books down from the shelves but getting them back up is a bit more tricky. The table has piles of stuff on it - lots of new info from Trove waiting to be data entered into my genealogy program and then filed in my family history binders. But that requires two hands! When I do get the go ahead, I will have to be careful not to overdo it but ease back in gently.

Have a great genealogy week - until next time.

Port Macquarie conference & other news - Genealogy Notes 1-14 Sep 2015

Hard to believe two weeks since by last update but I have been busy notifying prize winners and sponsors of the National Family History Month prize giveaway. There have been some very excited winners and I even had the pleasure of meeting some at the NSW & ACT Association of Family History Societies in Port Macquarie over the weekend.

I gave a Masterclass on using Public Record Office Victoria, attended the free family history fair, collected a very nice goodies bag, enjoyed the Welcome function and dinner, and went to all sessions on both days. I will do a full review this week as I learnt lots of new things. In the meantime my presentation is on the Resources page of my website, scroll down to Presentations.

As I still only have the use of one hand, everything seems to be in slow motion. Plus the piles around my desk just seem to be getting bigger and bigger, waiting for me to have two hands. I need a priority list on the to do list!

The biggest priority is my keynote address for the History Queensland conference in three weeks time. That will be the last opportunity in 2015 to catch up with geneafriends in the SE Qld area and I am looking forward to it.

I have a final blog post for NFHM to do for The In-Depth Genealogist who were one of our new prize sponsors. My report for AFFHO is also nearly complete and then it will be time to start thinking about NFHM 2016! I hope genealogy and family history societies start planning to include their events for next August. Every society usually has a monthly meeting or opens their library one or more days a month so everyone can participate without doing extra events. One society reported that they gained 60 new members during NFHM which is fantastic.

Time to get back to my arm exercises so have a great genealogy week and I'm hoping to get back to more regular Diary posts soon. Till next time.

National Family History Month ends for 2015 - Genealogy Notes 24 - 31 Aug 2015

Time always flies when you are having fun.  August went super quick and there were hundreds of genealogy events across Australia during National Family History Month. From the feedback I have received many societies were very pleased with attendance at their events and gained new members. One society even said they had 50 new members sign up. Is that a record or can another society claim more?

The NFHM sponsors prizes giveaway was drawn on 29 August with the assistance of Genealogical Society of Queensland members as my right arm is still encased in a sling. Since then I have been busy contacting some very excited prize winners and letting sponsors know who won their donated prizes. All slow going with my left hand. To see the list of winning individuals and societies visit the Sponsors page of the NFHM website.

There is no NFHM committee, only me and amidst all the feedback there were some very nice comments about myself  which were appreciated as coordinating a voluntary project is time consuming. I would like to thank all the societies and individuals who assisted me in spreading the news about NFHM. Without the participation of the sponsors, societies, libraries, archives and others there would be NFHM for me to coordinate. We will be back again in August 2016 - mark it in your diaries now and start planning your events.

I don't like singling any one person out as so many participated but I feel that Jill Ball's 12 hour geneagala hangout deserves a special mention. Many others also helped Jill over that time and you can watch it all on Jill's You Tube channel. Judging by the YouTube view numbers lots have already watched it. Sadly I had to miss it but hopefully she will do it again in NFHM 2016!

Needless to say I haven't done too much other than NFHM but I did pick up from Facebook that John Reid's (Canada's Anglo Celtic Connections) is again conducting his search for Rockstar Genealogists. The nominations for 2015 are now open and it is great to see quite a few Australian speakers on the list already.

Last weekend I attended the GSQ's seminar It Doesn't Rain in the Cloud with three speakers - Geoff Doherty provided an introduction to the Cloud and what you can do in the Cloud, Judy Lofthouse explored genealogy sites within YouTube and my talk was on Apps and Blogs. As usual my talk is on the Resources page of my website, scroll down to Presentations and look for Are You Appy & Bloggy: If Not, Why Not? I think everyone went home to check out the Cloud!

I also did a very successful session at Caloundra Library on Family History on the Cheap. It was the biggest audience I have ever seen for a single talk so the Library must have a very good publicity machine. My NFHM talks for Moreton Bay Region Libraries are now finished and all these presentations are also on the Resources page of my website.

Now my thoughts are turning to the NSW & ACT Association of Family History Societies annual conference at Port Macquarie next week. I am presenting a Master Class on Public Record Office Victoria and I have almost finished the presentation, just a bit more tweaking here and there. Then in October there is the History Queensland Conference where I will be giving one of the keynote presentations.

My arm will be in a sling for another 4 weeks but I hope to get back to some more regular blogging now that NFHM is over. I miss the writing plus I have lots of notes to write up from the Unlock the Past genealogy cruise and the GSQ seminar mentioned above. Not to mention getting back to my 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2015 - at this rate it will be 2016 before I finish!

Have another great week genealogy searching. Until next time.