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?
Showing posts with label brickwalls. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brickwalls. Show all posts
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Saturday, August 13, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, July 18, 2011
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!
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!
Thursday, July 14, 2011
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!
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!
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