Feb 092013
 

Well I had a fantastic day today.

Today was the Paul Milner seminar at the Hornsby RSL. 

I don’t really have any Scottish research. My Grandfather died as a result of an accident on Army exercises in 1944. Prior to that my Elizabeth Hester Quested moved to Scotland to be with her daughter after Elizabeth’s husband had died and she was there for 1911. The daughter was the wife of a soldier who was based there and that is the extent of my Scottish research.

I am always happy to hear informed speakers and Paul is definitely informed. He has the ability to get his point across in a clear manner with good examples so that the information will stick in your memory.

He took us through the Big Five in Scottish Research with good examples showing the value of the 1855 registrations.

His second talk was on Overlooked sources for 19th and 20th century Scottish research. There are so many new resources coming online. I am quite jealous of the fact that there are 992 directories that have been scanned by the  National Library of Scotland and which are available on Archive.org. Paul said to do a search there using “National Library of Scotland” and you will be amazed at what is there and he is correct.

Another resource was the wonderful Statistical Accounts.

Then Rosemary Koppitke gave a talk on FindMyPast. There is so much happening there that you really do have to keep checking back regularly. There are many new records and with the new Worldwide subscription which includes the British Newspaper Archive, the Irish records, the USA records, the UK records and the Australasian records there are gems for everyone.

After lunch it was Paul was giving two more presentations but the Sydney TMG (The Master Genealogist) group was having a meeting where the  speaker was Bob Velke who is the author of The Master Genealogist. As Paul is going to be a speaker on the 3rd Unlock the Past cruise I decided the TMG workshop was the way to go. (Bob Velke will also be going on the cruise but the joys of workshops is tat you get different problems each time so you learn something new each time)

I have been a TMG user for a number of years.  I started back in 1986 with Personal Ancestral File then found that I wanted to print carts with occupations as my partner’s family had an unbroken run of blacksmiths. I was a DOS girl and was dragged kicking and screaming into Windows and Family Tree Maker V1 when it was owned by Banner Blue. I stayed with FTM for a number of versions but was having problems as I kept finding differing information for birth dates etc and I wanted to be able to record this varying information.

The Master Genealogist was able to do what I wanted and I have been a user since V1 and now we are up to V8.04 (with 8.05 coming soon!)

One of the great advantages of TMG is that there is more than one way of doing things and it is always interesting to hear about how people do their queries and write their search filters. The filters are a very powerful tool.

Bob gave a very helpful and informative workshop. Considering he and his wife only landed at 6am this morning it was even more wonderful that he was able to be coherent and so helpful. 47 hours without sleep is more than I would wish to do and then face a three hour workshop.

I am very much looking forward to both Paul’s and Bob’s other presentations on the cruise. Boarding is tomorrow afternoon and we sail at 8pm. The start of another family history conference with a lovely range of speakers.

Paul is going to be doing a tour of some Australian capital cities
Brisbane 19 February
Perth 23 February
Adelaide 26 February
Canberra 2 March
and Melbourne 4 March.

There are significant savings to be made by booking online ahead of time although you are able to arrive and pay at the venue on the day. This is your chance to hear some of the wide range of talks he will be giving on the cruise.



  One Response to “Paul Milner Seminar & TMG Workshop”

  1. It was a fantastic day. I can recommend Paul Milner most highly, excellent presentation style, great content.

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