Nov 302016
 



Queensland Newspapers digitised on Trove as of 30 November 2016
 

Remember that fuller runs of these and going past 1954 and other Queensland papers will be at the Queensland State Library and at least some at other libraries including University libraries around the country.

  • Balonne Beacon (St. George, Qld. : 1909 – 1954)

  • The Beaudesert Times (Qld. : 1908 – 1954)

  • The Border Star (Coolangatta, Qld. : 1929 – 1942)

  • Bowen Independent (Qld. : 1911 – 1954)

  • The Brisbane Courier (Qld. : 1864 – 1933)

  • Brisbane Telegraph (Qld. : 1948 – 1954)

  • Bundaberg Mail (Qld. : 1917 – 1925)

  • Bundaberg Mail and Burnett Advertiser (Qld. : 1892 – 1917)

  • Cairns Morning Post (Qld. : 1907 – 1909)

  • Cairns Post (Qld. : 1884 – 1893)

  • Cairns Post (Qld. : 1909 – 1954)

  • The Capricornian (Rockhampton, Qld. : 1875 – 1929)

  • The Central Queensland Herald (Rockhampton, Qld. : 1930 – 1956)

  • The Charleville Courier (Qld. : 1896 – 1898)

  • The Charleville Times (Brisbane, Qld. : 1896 – 1954)

  • Chronicle and North Coast Advertiser (Qld. : 1903 – 1922)

  • Cloncurry Advocate (Qld. : 1931 – 1953)

  • The Coolangatta Chronicle (Qld. : 1926)

  • The Courier (Brisbane, Qld. : 1861 – 1864)

  • The Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Qld. : 1933 – 1954)

  • The Daily Mail (Brisbane, Qld. : 1903 – 1926)

  • Daily Mercury (Mackay, Qld. : 1906 – 1954)

  • The Daily Northern Argus (Rockhampton, Qld. : 1875 – 1896)

  • Daily Standard (Brisbane, Qld. : 1912 – 1936)

  • The Dalby Herald (Qld. : 1910 – 1954)

  • Dalby Herald and Western Queensland Advertiser (Qld. : 1866 – 1879)

  • Darling Downs Gazette (Qld. : 1881 – 1922)

  • The Darling Downs Gazette and General Advertiser (Toowoomba, Qld. : 1858 – 1880)

  • Dayboro Times and Moreton Mail (Qld. : 1937 – 1940; 1945 – 1954)

  • The Evening Advocate (Innisfail, Qld. : 1941 – 1954)

  • The Evening News (Rockhampton, Qld. : 1924 – 1941)

  • The Evening Telegraph (Charters Towers, Qld. : 1901 – 1921)

  • Geraldton Advocate and Johnstone River Guardian (Qld. : 1895 – 1896)

  • Gympie Times and Mary River Mining Gazette (Qld. : 1868 – 1919)

  • Humpybong Weekly and Advertiser (Redcliffe, Qld. : 1927 – 1932)

  • Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser (Qld. : 1861)

  • Johnstone River Advocate (Geraldton, Qld. : 1906 – 1908)

  • Johnstone River Advocate and Innisfail News (Qld. : 1928 – 1941)

  • The Leader (Brisbane, Qld. : 1918 – 1919)

  • Logan Witness (Beenleigh, Qld. : 1878 – 1893)

  • Logan and Albert Advocate (Qld. : 1893 – 1900)

  • Logan and Albert Bulletin (Southport, Qld. : 1896 – 1901; 1909; 1921; 1922; 1928)

  • The Longreach Leader (Qld. : 1923 – 1954)

  • Mackay Mercury (Qld. : 1887 – 1905)

  • Mackay Mercury and South Kennedy Advertiser (Qld. : 1867 – 1887)

  • Maryborough Chronicle (Qld. : 1947 – 1954)

  • Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser (Qld. : 1860 – 1947)

  • The Moreton Bay Courier (Brisbane, Qld. : 1846 – 1861)

  • Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld. : 1878 – 1954)

  • Morning Post (Cairns, Qld. : 1897 – 1907)

  • Nambour Chronicle and North Coast Advertiser (Qld. : 1922 – 1954)

  • Nashville Times, Gympie and Mary River Mining Gazette (Qld. : 1868)

  • National Leader (Brisbane, Qld. : 1916 – 1918)

  • The North Australian (Brisbane, Qld. : 1863 – 1865)

  • North Australian and Queensland General Advertiser (Ipswich, Qld. : 1862 – 1863)

  • The North Australian, Ipswich and General Advertiser (Ipswich, Qld. : 1856 – 1862)

  • The North Queensland Register (Townsville, Qld. : 1892 – 1905)

  • Northern Argus (Rockhampton, Qld. : 1865 – 1874)

  • The Northern Herald (Cairns, Qld. : 1913 – 1939)

  • The Northern Miner (Charters Towers, Qld. : 1874 – 1954)

  • The Northern Mining Register (Charters Towers, Qld. : 1891 – 1892)

  • The Northern Sportsman (Innisfail, Qld. : 1928)

  • Pittsworth Sentinel (Qld. : 1919 – 1954)

  • The Proserpine Guardian (Qld. : 1935 – 1954)

  • Queensland Country Life (Qld. : 1900 – 1954)

  • Queensland Figaro (Brisbane, Qld. : 1883 – 1885)

  • Queensland Figaro (Brisbane, Qld. : 1901 – 1936)

  • Queensland Figaro and Punch (Brisbane, Qld. : 1885 – 1889)

  • Queensland Times (Ipswich) (Qld. : 1909 – 1954)

  • Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser (Qld. : 1861 – 1908)

  • The Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld. : 1866 – 1939)

  • Rockhampton Bulletin (Qld. : 1871 – 1878)

  • Rockhampton Bulletin and Central Queensland Advertiser (Qld. : 1861 – 1871)

  • South Coast Bulletin (Southport, Qld. : 1929 – 1954)

  • The South Coast Express (Surfers Paradise, Qld. : 1949 – 1951)

  • South Coast News (Southport, Qld. : 1952 – 1954)

  • Southern Queensland Bulletin (Southport, Qld. : 1888 – 1891)

  • Southport and Nerang Bulletin (Qld. : 1893)

  • The St. George Standard and Balonne Advertiser (Qld. : 1878 – 1879; 1902 – 1904)

  • Sunday Mail (Brisbane) (Qld. : 1926 – 1954)

  • The Telegraph (Brisbane, Qld. : 1872 – 1947)

  • Toowoomba Chronicle and Darling Downs General Advertiser (Qld. : 1875 – 1902)

  • The Toowoomba Chronicle and Queensland Advertiser (Qld. : 1861 – 1875)

  • Townsville Daily Bulletin (Qld. : 1907 – 1954)

  • Truth (Brisbane, Qld. : 1900 – 1954)

  • Warwick Argus (Qld. : 1879 – 1901)

  • Warwick Argus and Tenterfield Chronicle (Qld. : 1866 – 1879)

  • Warwick Daily News (Qld. : 1919 -1954)

  • Warwick Examiner and Times (Qld. : 1867 – 1919)

  • The Week (Brisbane, Qld. : 1876 – 1934)

  • The Western Champion (Barcaldine, Qld. : 1922 – 1937)

  • The Western Champion (Blackall/Barcaldine, Qld. : 1879 – 1891)

  • The Western Champion and General Advertiser for the Central-Western Districts (Barcaldine, Qld. : 1892 – 1922)

  • Western Star (Roma) (Toowoomba, Qld. : 1948 – 1954)

  • Western Star and Roma Advertiser (Toowoomba, Qld. : 1875 – 1948)

  • Worker (Brisbane, Qld. : 1890 – 1955)
Nov 282016
 

It is that time of year again when the non-genealogist in the family is wondering what to get the
genealogist in their life (assuming said genealogist has not been leaving hints all over the place!)

Here are some suggestions:

1. A subscription to Legacy Family Tree Webinars 
US$49.95 annual subscription   

As of November 2016 over 443 webinars are available on demand 24/7 – over 616 hours of  instruction with handouts (in fact more than 2000 pages of handouts!)

Classes for all skill levels as can be seen in the image showing the categories including the Board for Certification of Genealogists, skill building webinars now available.

Guaranteed to keep them out of mischief for quite a while especially as there are new webinars added at very regular intervals!

2. Subscription to a pay data site such as Ancestry, Findmypast, The Genealogist, GenealogyBank, Fold3, MyHeritage etc. If you haven’t already had a hint as to which one they would prefer (or already have), you may need to give a promissory note as depending on their area of research, they will likely have a preference.

3. Subscription to a Family History Society: 

  • their local one where they could attend meetings  do research and generally these societies will also have subscription to the paysites,  
  • a national Family History Society 
  • one in their ancestral area of interest.


4. Agree to do a DNA test for them (would be even nicer if you also agreed to pay for it). 

There are different types of tests (at different costs). For the autosomal test Ancestry in Australia is A$149 plus postage (US $99 plus postage) Family Tree DNA is US$79 plus postage.

Both have sales at regular intervals. (check prices in your country). As of 28 November 2016, FTDNA has a sale at US$59 for the autosomal test. It is not known how long this sale will last.

Most important thing is that the test is done with a company that has a genealogical database. For the autosomal test Ancestry currently has a database with over 2.5 million tests and steadily increasing and Family Tree DNA also has a large database (they also do other types of tests: Y-DNA and mtDNA).

5. A copy of Blaine Bettinger’s book The Family Tree Guide to DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy. This is an excellent book for anyone who is interested in DNA testing for genealogical purposes as Blaine writes in a clear and easy to understand way. Able to be ordered from all good book stores. it is also available as an ebook on Kindle.

He and Debbie Parker Wayne have also written  Genetic Genealogy in Practice. A workbook in areas of Y-DNA, mtDNA, X-DNA, atDNA, the Genealogical Proof Standard, ethics, and more.

This workbook shows how DNA testing is used in real genealogical examples. It shows what can be done and what can’t be done using the new tool for genealogists:DNA. 

I strongly recommend both books. The workbook takes the theory and by doing the exercises enhances the learning. 
  
Published by the National Genealogical Society it is available in hard copy and also as an ebook with Kindle. The ebook does not have the same page numbers as the hard copy but does have hyperlinks from the test to the figures and tables and also to external web sites (if you have an Internet connection)

Both books are recent publications (2016).




 

6. A subscription to a genealogical magazine/journal of their choice.

7. Road Trip! 

Go on holiday to an ancestral place of interest with the understanding that they may have x days to do research in the archives, museum cemetery etc. (or offer to look after things at home so they can do the trip on their own or with a genealogical friend)

8. If in Australia, get them a registration to the Footsteps in Time conference being held May 2017 on the lovely Gold Coast Queensland. Sure to be plenty you could do there as a tourist while they were at the conference. Early bird registration is now open. Or the Australasian Congress which will be held in Sydney in 2018.

If not in Australia, registration at a genealogy seminar or conference of interest to them such as Rootstech in February 2017 in Salt Lake City, National Genealogical Society conference, Federation of Genealogical Societies, in England Who Do You Think You Are? Live.

There are so many confernces, seminars and local meetings available.

9. Promissory note for x number of certificates (birth, marriage or death) of their choice.

10. Gift certificate from Gould Genealogy the company in Australia that has been supplying the needs of genealogists for 40 years!

11. A subscription to Genealogy Gems Premium with Lisa Louise Cooke US$29.95 gives you access to her Premium podcast and a number of classes including her Evernote series and Google series. (Lisa also does a monthly free podcast available on iTunes)

12. Technology always goes well. A good headset microphone combination is the Microsoft Lifechat LX-3000 (then they will be able to listed to those webinars without disturbing anyone else)

13. Every genealogist needs to back up their research so an external drive is always an appreciated gift. External storage is now very cheap I recently bought a Seagate 4TB portable drive for A$268.

14. Cloud back up services are also an appreciated gift as “many copies keep it safe” Sadly computer drive will fail. It is just a matter of when. Cloud back up services like BackBlaze or Carbonite  automate the backup for you (there is a yearly subscription).

15. Even more technology, most genealogists use a computer so maybe a new laptop or an iPad. 


16. A family history program that stores your family information on your own computer. There are many programs around and this is where the person should probably choose the one they like.Programs like Legacy, Rootsmagic, Family Historian, FamilyTree Maker are all family history programs. Some have free versions that do 90%+ of the full product while others have a trial version so you can “try before you buy“.

There are also other programs of value to family historians such as Evidentia, Map My Family Tree, Clooz, Charting Companion, Genelines (all available from here), Custodian 4

17. Gift certificate for office supplies. I have never come across a genealogist yet that didn’t like office supplies!

18. Archival supplies. Genealogist have treasured family papers and these should be stored in archival protective materials. Gould Genealogy in Australia have a range of archival supplies or overseas do a search for archival suppliers.

19. Scanner to scan all those photos and documents. Many people have the all in one printers now that can also scan photos and documents or you can get a stand alone scanner.

20. Slide/negative scanner Most genealogists have a collection (horde) of 35mm slides and negatives that need to be scanned. This site has a review of a number of slide/negative scanners.

21. It is not just photos, slides and negatives that genealogists have. They also have family heirlooms that they should be recording for the future. One way of doing this is using Shotbox which has it own lighting system which makes for much better images and you can use a smartphone. Also useful for photographing craft items or items for sale on eBay.



22. Not every gift for your genealogist needs to cost money. Perhaps you could write a blank cheque for a day a month where you will look after things at home and they can visit an archives or library. Or maybe a blank cheque for an evening at home where the genealogist has research time in their study.

23. If the genealogist in your life does not have a dedicated “genealogy area”  in the house are you able to create one for them?

24. Are you a computer whiz who is good at using Photoshop or a graphics program that could digitally restore a photograph for them? Every genealogist has photos that need restoring.

25. Maybe you could write that blank cheque for x hours talking about your childhood, school days, or the time before you were together. 

Perhaps find some of the photos of your life or family  and write the story of the photo. It is so much easier than it sounds.

You get the photo and then:

When was it taken and who took it?
Where was it taken?
Why was it taken?
Who is in it?
What was your memory of the occasion?

This will be valued by the genealogist in your life.

Nov 272016
 


As an Ambassador Family Search gave me a Rootstech pass to give away. I asked the entrants to chose a session they really wanted to attend at RootsTech and tell me why that session appealed to them.

There are so many wonderful sessions on such a range of topics. These are just a few of the range of topics picked by entrants and for a range of reasons:

Presentation: ‘Using Autosomal DNA to Help Extend a Linage’ – Friday 11am session. Why? DNA is becoming a widely accepted method for tracing family lines, proving and in some cases disproving relationships. I would like to know how to get more from my results and in doing so be able to share this with others so they do can get more from their results.

Presentation: RT1490 Kitty Cooper on Triangulating DNA since I continue to be befuddled.

Presentation: “The Scottish Poor Law: a source for genealogists”. This is of interest as it’s something I haven’t tapped into yet, and heavens knows many of my Scottish ancestors were poor.

Presentation: RT1337  Thomas MacEntee “Can I Use That In My Genealogy? A Copyright Primer”

Thomas MacEntee is a very interesting well researched speaker and while a lot of the copyright information he presents would be US specific the principles would apply in Australia with the relevant legislation.

Presentation: “Using Evernote for Capturing Notes and Ideas” by Drew Smith would most certainly be beneficial for me. I’m still struggling with Evernote, so I have no doubt I’d learn oodles.

Presentation: Handwritten Text Recognition Technology, Eric Pfarl, Qidenus

I’m very interested in this class. Some of the toughest research problems arise in transcribing and translating handwritten records.  I’m volunteer at a local Family History Center and often researchers come in a brickwall that involves the misinterpretation of a handwritten record.
Presentation: Family Storytelling – High Touch and High Tech. In the past, there have only been a few of my family members who were interested in family history research, and only slightly more who were a vaguely willing to listen to our latest finds or answer questions. 


Then out of the blue a few years ago, my sister produced a New Testament that had belonged to her mother. We had begged to see that book ever since us younger ones learned of its existence, but she had never been willing to get it out for us. Two years ago our family reunion was held at her home. Not only did she produce her mom’s New Testament, but she came up with a couple of things that she didn’t even know she had – including a crocheted bookmark with our grandfather’s initials in the pattern. (I can guess that my mother probably made it and Grandpa obviously never received it. Mom never met him since he lived on the other side of the country. Did she make it and learn of his death before she could mail it to him?). I suspect that there was a story there, but we will never know. At that reunion, I passed out a questionnaire about our family – just from Dad and both wives (not polygamist!) and their descendants. That got everyone’s attention. Even those who refused to fill one out got involved with helping their kids, nephews, nieces, grandkids or by just listening. Everyone insisted that I provide the answers and discussion and stories flowed! But the neatest things were that each one, even the genealogists in the group, learned things about the younger generations and there was a unanimous request for family history to become a regular part of our reunions from now on!!!!

While I wished I could have given every entrant this amazing prize valued at US$299, with the aid of an online random number generator I am pleased to announce that Roger Moffatt of Michigan is the winner!

Note as a Rootstech Speaker I have been given a free personal registration to Rootstech. I would also have been given a free registration as a Rootstech Ambassador. 

Nov 262016
 

Today I heard voices of my family never heard before. Most of whom have long since passed on.

There is a special feeling hearing voices of your family from the past.

This is why I have never heard them before. They were on these reel to reel tapes. I have been carrying them with me from move to move, too precious to discard but also too precious to waste. I had heard many horror stories of people over the years giving their precious tapes to someone to digitise and having oh so many problems.

I recently attended the Unlock the Past Adelaide Expo which was fantastic.

One of the exhibitors I particularly wanted to speak with was Big Egg Media who do all sorts of tape/film conversions to digital and also photo scanning and restoration.

I have been listening to the Extreme Genes radio show with Scott Fisher as a podcast for quite a while now and a regular presenter has been Tom Perry, a digital preservation expert from TMCPlace  This meant I knew the types of questions I needed to ask to make sure my precious tapes would be in the right hands.

I spent around twenty minutes asking questions of Anthony and then handed the tapes over to be processed. He told me it would be a couple of weeks before they could start on them and I was happy with that, after all  a few extra weeks wouldn’t matter added to the time I had already waited.

My Grandmother was born in England and one of 13. She emigrated to Australia in 1949 with my father who was aged nine. The tape in the white box is “Christmas Greetings from the Family 1968” which is from the English family to my grandmother while the second is from my Grandmother in 1970 when she was a housekeeper on a sheep property. 

My Grandmother used to write letters regularly to her family in the UK and also record tapes for them. So you can see these really were very precious irreplaceable in fact.

I picked them up from the Post Office as the parcel needed a signature and got home and listened. They had done a marvelous job. They had told me they needed to rectify the tape as it was flaking so they needed to bake it back on.

I am very happy with the result and it was totally worth the money paid. This type of work needs to be done by the professionals  and they do come at a cost but they have given me something precious.

Have you precious tapes, films deteriorating away that needs digitising? Don’t leave them too long, there is a point of no return.

Photos that need restoration? Big Egg Media also do gift cards. 


Nov 252016
 

Advent in 2016 is from Sunday 27th November to Saturday 24th December. 

While I am very fond of chocolate and as a child loved the little calendars that you opened each day and gained a piece of chocolate, for a number of years now I have done a different type of Advent calendar.

It is a “Paying Forward Genealogical Kindness” Calendar (and yes there might be some chocolate as a reward each day!). Below is my 2016 Advent Calendar. Some of these will take a few minutes, some a few hours but each of them shares just a little kindness and there can never be too much kindness in this world.

So much of our research has been made easier because of the very many volunteers in the past who have indexed and transcribed records for us.

Over the years I have tried to give back whenever I could but because of study and work, generally could not often do it in person onsite somewhere, so looked for ways I could do it at home  (or anywhere I might be) using a computer.


‘Genealogists for Families’ Project
Small micro-loans given to help people help themselves. A fantastic initiative started by Judy Webster. Currently there are 324 genealogist members from all over the world who since 2011 have made over 7792 loans totaling  $205, 000. Each loan by an individual is $25 (the loan amount for a project varies) and then the person pays back the loan which allows you to relend that money again and again. So over my time as a member I have donated $1223 which because of the relending has meant that $3425 in 137 loans have been made.
Find out out more here



Trove
The wonderful free website of the National Library of Australia that has digitised newspapers and now also the new South Wales Government Gazette that have been OCR’d (Optical character recognition read by a computer and interpreted). The OCR quality can be variable depending on a range of reasons including typeface so by correcting the text you make the record searchable and available for all.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/

 

National Archives of Australia
Transcribing records to make them more findable and able to be listed online.  Thanks to transcribers 248 250 record descriptions have been added to RecordSearch. This makes resources available to the community as they are able to be found by a name search.

State Library of Queensland
http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/about-us/pitch-in
So many transcription opportunities around the world depending on your interests and experience:
Just a few of the ones I have done some work with in the last couple of years are listed below:
Transcribing early modern recipes
Virtual Volunteering Australia
US National Archives
Smithsonian Digital Volunteer
Atlas of Living Australia: Digitising Field Diaries Australia (Museum Victoria)
World Memory Project
Project of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has a very large collection of documents. In  partnership with Ancestry.com they have created the World Memory Project which has volunteers at home indexing the records so they are name searchable. This will create a free database.
Welsh History
Tithe maps project currently active
Distributed Proofreaders
Checking and correcting  OCR to allow out of copyright books (Public Domain) books to become ebooks.
What’s On the Menu?
Project of the New York Public library transcribing historical restaurant menus.  
http://www.pgdp.net/c/


What other projects do your family history society, local museum, state archives, etc have that you could give back a little? There are so many ways of “Paying Forward” 

Remember every name indexed is one more person found for future researchers.

Nov 152016
 

I’m feeling a bit like Santa Claus as being a Rootstech Ambassador I have been provided with one four-day pass (US$299 value) to give away to one of my wonderful readers.

RootsTech 2017 takes place February 8 – 11, 2017  in Salt Palace, Salt Lake City, home of the amazing Family History Library.

It’s the world’s largest family history event with over 200 classes for all family history and technical skill levels. There are classes to help you bring your ancestors’ stories alive, as well as classes to help you discover more about them. Regardless of your research experience, there are classes and labs for you!

RootsTech is  an amazing time with 200+ classes, the Innovators Summit, the large Exhibition Hall with so many interesting vendors and many, many genealogists! Meeting up with online genealogy friends is always an amazing highlight!

The pass includes keynote and general sessions, over 200 classes, including Getting Started classes, the Innovator Summit, and evening cultural events.

So what do you need to do to be in the draw ( done using a random number generator) from the entries received. If you have already paid your registration and you are the winner you will be refunded your registration.

So to enter you need to go to the site have a look around and then tell me a class you want to attend and why you want to attend it.

Email your response to HVSresearch@bigpond.com by 25th November midnight (New York time)

Your entry must contain :

1. Your name
2. Your email
3. The presentation you want to attend and why it interests you

By entering you give permission for your name to reported on this blog and on Facebook and Twitter.

Good luck to everyone!

Special presentation by  LeVar Burton.  Buddy Valastro better known as “Cake Boss” will be celebrity guest judge for the first ever cake decorating competition!

 As an Ambassador and speaker I  also get a complimentary pass for myself. I have to pay for my travel, accommodation and other expenses  as will the lucky winner of  this free RootsTech Pass.

The RootsTech’s 2017 cultural opening evening will be  at the beautiful Conference Center at Temple Square and listening to featured musical guests: Oscar “Andy” Hammerstein III and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with the Orchestra at Temple Square.

These are just some of the exhibitors you will find in the Expo Hall.