Saturday 5 November 2016

Dentists, Cornwall & Other News - Genealogy Notes 30 Oct - 6 Nov 2016

My first overseas trip in 1975
With Melbourne Cup, my birthday and getting ready for a holiday it has been pretty much a non genealogy week at least on my own family history research. I have been busy finalising some client reports so that I can go away with a clear conscious.

My December article for Going In-Depth is already there and I probably should also do the December blog post to avoid a mad rush when I get back. Remember you can see a few free issues from 2013 under the Back Issues link. There has been another Q&A for Family Tree Magazine UK and I'm always amazed at some of the brick walls people encounter.

I've also been catching up on watching the latest Australian series of Who Do You Think You Are which I have enjoyed a lot. One celebrity even has a dentist in the family and as Max comes from a chemist/dentist UK family I discovered some new places to look. The British Dental Association has an online museum and there are all kinds of fascinating things to look at and read about. Even if your ancestor was not the dentist, they may have gone to one. Did you know that toothbrushes as we know them only appeared about 200 years ago and even then they were usually too expensive for ordinary folk.

Thanks to Facebook I discovered the Cornwall Forever website and its down to fully explore when I return. It looks at the people, places, history and all kinds of other interesting facts. The current series of Poldark has also been a must watch as I imagine my own Cornish tin miners working in the mines. With the food shortages, lack of jobs and the incredible winters depicted in the series it is little wonder that so many of them came out to South Australia in the early years.

The Office view
When we moved here we decided we could live with the carpet. Four years on we still haven't managed to get it clean (must be the black sand although the beaches are white) and the original cream colour is not what it was when the house was first built. The front lounge is OK as I don't think they ever used that room and we don't either. So the four bedrooms are down to be recarpeted on our return. No big drama except that I have to move the big bookcase in the third bedroom and clean out everything in my study - bookcases, filing cabinets, desk and everything else. It's just like having to move again!


The Office view
Looking around me I can't imagine how I have managed to accumulate so much more 'stuff' since I first unpacked here four years ago. For a person who keeps saying no more books and magazines I seem to be some sort of magnet for them. Speaking of magnets, even the filing cabinets are again covered in magnets from my travels in the last few years. The rest of them are still unpacked in the wardrobe. I started collecting them when I moved to Canberra in July 1999, must have been for something to remember during the cold dark winters!

This post includes two views from my study window. And people wonder why we left down south?

There may be another Diary before I leave but possibly not as there are only three days left  and I'm still hoping for a trip up to Fort Bribie depending on the tides. After my holiday with no work, not even emails, I will be totally relaxed and looking to do some serious family history in the lead up to Christmas. I find that if I can take something along, almost like show and tell, I can get other family members to remember things.

Have a great genealogy few weeks and I'll be back soon.



Saturday 29 October 2016

Specialist websites, NAA charges & Other News - Genealogy Notes 22-29 Oct 2016

It's been a strange week - it feels like I'm on a treadmill and not going anywhere. Or a Groundhog day. Still we can't always progress in leaps and bounds.

Dorcas Trevaskis
Following up on one of my discoveries from the recent Unlock the Past expo in Adelaide, I previewed Verity's soon to be published Veryhistoric Yorke Peninsula website (stand by for the URL) as my GG Grandparents James Henry Trevaskis and Elizabeth Rosewarne married there in 1865 and my G Grandmother Dorcas Trevaskis was born there the following year. I first met Verity on an Unlock the Past cruise so she was aware of my family interest in the area and I knew that she was into One Place Studies. It is simply amazing how much she has pulled together including photographs and newspaper articles for some of the places on the Yorke Peninsula. It is a work in progress and like anything, some places have more information than others. There are also links to sites of interest for all South Australia.

Her other website Dusty Docs is also quite amazing and I had thought it was only for the UK and Ireland but there are also pages for Australia and New Zealand. Just go to the Choose a Country option and both are in the drop down menu. I always find portal sites fascinating as the compilers bring together all kinds of websites, some of which are obvious and others you would probably never think to look for or even stumble over. Of course once you start exploring unfamiliar links, there goes a few hours!

It is coming up for two years since I started writing articles and blog posts on Australasian genealogy topics for the digital genealogy magazine Going In-Depth, published by the The In-Depth Genealogist. Although published in America, it has authors from around the world so that in any issue there can be lots of interest. As usual I was behind in my reading, or even flicking through, so I was unaware that many of my articles actually make the front cover. I was quite chuffed (is that a word) and like all writers and bloggers, I often wonder does anyone read what I write. To be featured on the front cover is a tangible expression that people like my topics.

There is a six month exclusivity period with the publishers but after that I am free to do what I like with my work. So I have over 12 months of articles and blogs that I am thinking of updating (if necessary) and putting on my website for wider use. I've covered lots of Australian archives and libraries as well as some of the usual, and not so usual, genealogy topics. This has appeal as I'm not writing totally from scratch but it will also be a useful measure to see how much has changed since I first wrote the piece.

The big news this week is the increase in the National Archives of Australia's copying charges - see Fact Sheet 51 for the new prices which are effective from 24 October 2016. There has been a sharp increase in the cost of files between 11 to 100 pages which is probably a truer reflection of the costs to digitise the files. If you can visit the Archives office where the records are, you can usually use your own digital camera to take copies. However, if you can't visit, then depending on what you are researching it may be cheaper to get a local record agent or whoever to look at the file first.

Me and my baby brother
This coming week we have Halloween (yes even on Bribie Island), Melbourne Cup and my birthday which used to be the old Guy Fawkes night. Apparently Mum watched the fireworks from her hospital window before giving birth to me! I have some good early birthday memories from when you could have bonfires and fireworks in your own back yard. It was never the same after they moved it to June and then eventually banned it.


Perhaps I'm just suffering birthday blues or Mum continually telling me she can't have a ?? year old daughter is having an effect. Apparently I'm making her feel old! Mind you I'm wondering where all those years have gone too. A good reminder to get all those family stories documented now before time speeds by and our memories fade.

Have a good genealogy week and happy searching.



Thursday 20 October 2016

Victorian Inquests, Facebook & Other News - Genealogy Notes 15-21 Oct 2016

Another big week. Lots of exciting news including that one of my talk proposals for the Footsteps in Time  genealogy conference on the Gold Coast in May 2017 was accepted. That means I have to send off the photo and short biog to the Committee and the deadline is 30 October. Hopefully that means the conference program will be up on their website some time in November. Being so close to home I was always going to attend, but the program is also a big attraction. Can't wait to see who else is speaking.

Towards the end of my time with Public Record Office Victoria (PROV) we were digitising inquest files in collaboration with FamilySearch. It was exciting to read Suzie Zada's blog post Victoria, Inquest Deposition Files 1840-1925 online. The project was huge so nice to see that we can start to see some of the files. Suzie's post was also a reminder that PROV has a new Beta website. On first glance it looks more exciting and inviting but I haven't had a reason to look for anything yet.

I personally hate new websites because it can be a challenge to find information you could once find easily. A good example is State Records New South Wales new website which thankfully they are working towards getting things right although I still struggle to find things. For example, I had difficulty finding their guides on asylums, not under A, not under H, but under M for Mental Health Facilities. Some asylums are benevolent, destitute or children so it seems odd to now put them all under M and not A for the more generic asylums. Even an old fashioned see reference would help. I liked them on the old site.

Another blog post that I liked this week was Alona's  Update Australian Facebook + Genealogy. Alona has been compiling a list of all Australian Facebook sites that relate to genealogy and family history. It is quite amazing how many there are and how much traffic some of them get. Lots of people are asking for advice and making connections online.

But like anything online you do need to check that what you have been told is correct and follow through with original records. I remember one time someone told me that they had been advised that a particular series of records had been destroyed. Having worked in archives for most of my life that seemed strange as they were significant records, so I checked the catalogue and easily found the series which had been indexed and I was able to give the person a direct reference to ask for. A bonus for me was that I hadn't thought to look at that series myself, and I found a file for my mother in law.

A few years ago I had the pleasure of hearing Paul O'Keefe talking about his family connection to Ned Kelly. From memory the talk was called The Girl Who Loved Ned Kelly and it was the story of Ettie Hart, Paul's great great grandmother. It was fascinating and I'm pleased to see that the whole story is now a musical Ned Kelly My Love and showing in Brunswick, Melbourne in November. One of the few times I wish I was still living down south!

Some of my ancestors lived interesting lives but no one is going to write books or musicals about them. Therefore it is always exciting to see this happen to people I know.

Tomorrow I'm going on the Kookaburra River Queen, a paddle wheeler that goes up and down the Brisbane River while offering morning and afternoon teas, lunches and dinners. We are down for the buffet lunch for Chris' Blarney lunch. Chris writes a number of blogs (how does she keep them all up) but I particularly follow her That Moment in Time which is a weekly round of interesting blogs, Irish news, what's new on Findmypast and other places. If you are short of time it's a good place to look. I know a few of the people going but others will be new. It should be a good day and the weather is fantastic at the moment.

Lots of genealogy reports, articles and blog posts coming up again this week. Some weeks there is nothing but then it gets super busy with requests. Still I love challenges. Have another great week of genealogy searching. Until next time, good luck.