It has been a very hectic time recently, work has been very busy, had a nasty cold and have been preparing for the trip to Canada to speak at the Kelowna and District Genealogical Society “Harvest Your Family Tree”conference.

I have come up for air and was surprised to find that I had been nominated, not once but three times, for a One Lovely Blog Award!

Thank you to Alona for the nomination: Helen is a good friend of mine, and she is a great genealogist and blogger as well. Very enthusiastic and passionate (not to mention knowledgable) on all things genealogy. I learn a lot from her and her posts.   

For anyone that doesn’t know Alona (is there anyone that doesn’t know Alona?) she has a number of blogs including the fantastic Memorabilia House which is a wonderful way of sharing family ephemera an their stories. She is the Social Media Queen for Gould Genealogy where she keeps us all updated with family history news and also writes the LoneTester HQ Blog. I really don’t know where she manages to find the time to maintain them all but I am very pleased she does.

The second nomination was from Sharon Fritz from Victoria of Strong Foundations blog

I was thrilled and honoured to get one nomination let alone three. I blog to share my thoughts  and sometimes you are not sure anyone reads or cares about what you write so it is humbling and yet glorious also to know that people read and enjoy your writings.

Tonight was the last night of the 5th Unlock the Past cruise. 

Just the final presentation by Eileen  Ó Dúill and a cracker it was. “Mrs Fancy Tart is coming to tea: making sense of family stories” 

We all have family stories that seem OK but when you start researching them things don’t quite stack up and there are a variety of reasons for this and perhaps the one below is the most common.
 

We interpret or put filters on things according to our own knowledge, experience, beliefs and culture.

We do have to be aware of this when we are researching our ancestors as how things are done today can be intrinsically different to how our ancestors would do something, this can be as simple as the fact married women hold jobs now and yet this is really a comparatively recent occurrence.

The expectation that all members of a family contributed to its income, including the six year old is not part of our modern thinking but an agricultural family living in England would have had the six year old helping as he could, whether it was gleaning kindling or scaring off crows.

Eileen gave us an entertaining yet thought provoking talk for our last presentation.

Then it was time for the prize draw!

Lisa Louise Cook helped draw the prizes. 

Including a prize donated by Lisa of a year Premium membership to her podcast which was won by Paul Blake! 

 There were a number of prizes and the above is a group photo of most of the winners

Then we adjourned to the deck for a group photo. Getting a group together for the photo is always an interesting exercise and even with all our efforts not everyone managed to be in the photo but the majority were present.

This cruise was the smoothest behind the scenes conference experience of the five I have done so far and it is due in a major part to Julie Thompson and her team. Nothing was too much trouble for them and it definitely made our lives easier. I’d love to kidnap them and have them as part of the team on every cruise!

The other people who make the cruise a pleasure are the Unlock the Past conference attendees who came, heard the presentations, interacted in the Research Help Zones and shared their experiences with each other and us. The interactions, networking and genealogical sharing of information is a large part of the fun to be had as you know the person you are talking to understands your own genealogy addiction. No rolled eyes or trying to sidle away in boredom when you start talking about a new record source you have found and they get excited when you talk about demolishing that brick wall!

After the group photo we headed back inside for a cocktail party get-together as our final function. Thanks Julie for organising this, it capped the cruise perfectly! So I will leave you with some images of us enjoying ourselves at this function. Until the next cruise out of Sydney in October which unfortunately for me I am not attending but I will be on the one after that which is out of Perth in January 2015 going to Albany the leaving point for the first contingent of ANZACs. Appropriate in 2015 the 100 year commemoration of Gallipoli.

Then the next after that will be the Baltic cruise in July 2015 so just a little while to wait!

The weather continues to be absolutely amazing with warm days and being summer the daylight starts early and finishes late so it is still light at 9.30 plus at night. Some of the locals have not been as impressed as the Australians aboard the Marco Polo as they are finding it a bit warm!

So after my success at the Highland Archives I went back to listen to Eileen O Duill on “Research in Ireland: Planning is the Key to Success”. A good talk on how to determine the origin of your ancestor from  the documents you already have in your possession and the types of document that will help. Without the place of origin it does become more difficult to research particularly if you have a common name to research.

Skara Brae

Day 4 we arrived at Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands and I went on the Skara Brae excursion which also took in the Ring of Brodgar and the Standing Stones of Stenness. These were all amazing and I strongly suggest looking at Google for information on Skara Brae to see the Neolithic homes.

Standing Stones of Stenness

After the tour it was back to the ship and the next sessions. today was Lisa Louise Cooke on “How the Genealogist can Remember Everything with Evernote” I was looking forward to this presentation as although I do have Evernote on my laptop and my iPad I still haven’t started to use it properly. Lisa made it make sense so now I have the impetus to get going with it.

I missed Paul Blake’s presentation on British Army Records 1660-1913 as it was on at the same time as Lisa’s. Then I was part of the Genealogy Software Panel where we had a Family Historian, Reunion, Family Tree Maker, Legacy, RootsMagic and The Master Genealogist presentations by Jackie Depelle, Mike Murray, Rosemary Kopittke and myself. The main aim was to show people a selection of what was available as no one program suits everybody and it helps people when they can hear about a program from someone who uses it. It went well. 

“Which family history program should I use?”  is a regular question I get asked and, at times, I think they think I am being difficult when I say “which program depends on the person, how they visualise things, what extras they want to do etc”.

I started with Personal Ancestral File (PAF) way back when I started then changed to Family Tree Maker when it was still a Banner Blue program because among other things it would print a chart with occupations and my partner had six generations of blacksmiths. I kept PAF on my computer as I really liked the cascading pedigree charts with the associated family group sheets. I stayed with FTM for a few years until The Master Genealogist was released then shifted to it (with all the interesting things that can happen with multiple shifts across programs) and have stayed with it as my primary program.

I currently have on my computer, The Master Genealogist as my prime program and Legacy, RootsMagic and Family Historian also for other features that I like and use occasionally.

After some room changes done just before the cruise began, the conference was underway with the first session today by Dr Lesley Silvester talking on the Mystery of the Standing Stones – Orkney, Lewis and Ireland followed by Government and Police Gazettes by Rosemary Kopittke  then a session talking about the Genealogist.

It is an interesting subscription site. I have been a member for a number of years and originally was very valuable to me because of their Non-Conformist record sets for which they had the exclusive licence for a number of years. This record set is now able to be seen among other providers now.

The Genealogist now has been working with the National Archives on a wonderful record set: the Tithe records. In 1836 England was mapped as part of the Tithe Commutation Act. Previous to this time one tenth of all produce was tithed.  This created a number of problems and it was decided to determine values of land and to have the tithes done in cash. Each landholder and tenant are listed, field by field. Maps were drawn (interestingly one of my Quested’s drew a number of the Tithe maps in Kent). These are large maps, this one that Rosemary is perusing is around seven plus foot square.

The Genealogist is also digitising these maps in colour and these will become available over the next twelve months.

Then it was lunch time before we started the next sessions. Eileen O Duill gave a good talk on starting your Irish Genealogical research and looking at ways of determining the home place of your Irish immigrant. This is something you need to be able to research effectively especially if his name is Michael Murphy or James Ryan!

Then Lisa Louise Cooke gave a fabulous presentation on “How to Create Exciting Interactive Family History Tours with Google Earth”. You know how it often is when you mention anything to do with family history,  the relative gets either a glazed expression in the eyes or a panicked expression on their face. So finding a way to tell the story so they want to hear more is fantastic. The end result had everything , the old maps, the video, the photos, certificates and so much more but done in such a way that the recipient doesn’t realise it is the same documents you have been trying to show them all along. By making the tour interactive with items to click and see makes it in Lisa’s words “almost like playing a video game”. As every scientist/psychologist will tell you once people start interacting you definitely have their attention!


Then another break before Paul Blake took us through the joys of English probate research. Post 1858 there was the Central Probate registry which for the first time meant the Government took control of the proving of wills. prior to this time it was the various levels of Church courts and you needed to know which Church court covered which area and which level of court was likely to be used to be able to find the will. From 1792 to 1903 this was made a bit easier by the Death Duty registers which recorded the amount of money the Government was going to get, it also recorded other information which is of use to family historians. The indexes to the registers are available on Ancestry so well worth a look.

Marie Dougan then gave a presentation on “Families Moving Between Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales”. There were many reasons for this movement ranging from work to family to the lure of the cities etc. Work is a big reason and those of you with coal mining families will often find this movement occurring. The military, coastguards, government employees are all people who could end up moving around and then perhaps staying in an area far from home, even the agricultural labourer will often move from one employer to another from a hiring fair. I have a family who move along the Pennines from village to village with few of the 13 children being born  in the same parish. He was a mole catcher and moved as required. My coach builder in Kent did the same with the railways. The railways , of course allowed for easier movement as the 1800s progressed.

Then after another short break Mike Murray gave a fascinating presentation on “Crofts and Crofting – a unique way of life in the Highlands and Islands”. It is a very different way of life and I didn’t know a lot about it as not having any Scottish research of my own I had not delved before. Then the final presentation of the day was another look at a different way of life with Sean O Duill. His presentation was on Death and Burial Customs: Peasant Ireland in the 19th Century. Again a very different way of life.

Then off to dinner. It was a formal night in the main restaurant and I must admit that is not my scene so we went to dinner in the bistro which had a nice selection in a non-formal environment.

I started writing this blog for my own personal satisfaction and as a way of sharing items I found interesting and to share information about my own family history journey.  Along the way it has been a tremendous amount of fun and I have met up with some relatives, which is always a bonus as well as making many friends.

It is hard to know at times who is reading the posts (as not many people comment) but apparently some people do indeed read them and consider them useful.

I am honoured to announce that this blog  has been selected for permanent preservation by the National Library of Australia in their Pandora web archive.

 So as their website explains:

“The name, PANDORA, is an acronym that encapsulates their mission: Preserving and Accessing Networked Documentary Resources of Australia.

The PANDORA Archive is a selective collection of web publications and websites relating to Australia and Australians. It includes materials that document the cultural, social, political life and activities of the Australian community and intellectual and expressive activities of Australians. ”

I will be  good company as other blogs I know that have been archived are Judy Webster’s blog, Shauna Hick’s blog and also the First Families site.

The websites being archived cover a wide range of topics as can be seen below:

And a number of these topics can be broken down into further sub-topics.