I wanted to show the Cornish Association stand without people as otherwise you would not get the full effect of what a colourful stand they had produced. The rest of the time there are too many people around for you to see their great display.
The first presentation of the day was Jenny Higgens talking on the National Library, an amazing resource that on talking to some overseas visitors we don’t appreciate as much as we should! Over 6 million pages of newspapers, Picture Australia and so much more. There are a number of oral history recordings which are gradually being digitised and which includes a number from the Broken Hill project. These were done in the 1980s and included interviews with some people who were born in the 1880s. Wonderful to see that heritage being kept and made available for future generations.
In more modern times these contracts when they have survived can give great information about our family history.
I assisted on the Guild of One Name Studies stand. Regular readers would know I run a One Name study on Quested, which a name that is mainly found in Kent, England. We had a wonderful time showing people where their surnames were found in the 1881 census. This is done using Surname Atlas which is a very useful program that looks at surname frequency from the 1881 census and has listed these by county and what is even more useful by Poor Law Union. This can be very useful as it can show where a surname may originate.