Congress Day 2

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Suzy Hazelwood via Compfight

Another long day but very worthwhile. No fast food for breakfast instead fruit salad with yoghurt and some coffee from the cafeteria at the conference centre. Earlier start today with announcements then half an hour from one of the sponsors, Ancestry. Looks like there will be some new ideas coming through with both DNA and the site itself.

Plenary session: Just three generations with Judy Russell
Judy spoke about how important it is to tell the stories in the family but the stories need to be accurate and proven. Otherwise stories from families will be lost within three generations.  I have no idea of my maternal grandmother’s favourite book.

She suggested we follow the genealogical proof standards

  1. Reasonably exhaustive search
  2. Complete source citations
  3. Analysis and correlation of evidence
  4. Resolution of conflicts in data
  5. Soundly reasoned written conclusion

Since completing the UTAS course, I am certainly following these steps in greater depth and starting to write the story of just one person at a time instead of looking at lots. But can be hard to get the emotions from people past in stories, so it is very important to gather what you can now while the elders in the family are still alive and can pass on those stories to you.

Poor Law in England and Wales with Paul Blake

I knew a bit about poor law and workhouses from researching some of my convicts but learnt a lot from this session. Mainly reasons why settlement places could change from the place where the poor person was born. I did not know about the apprenticeship being a reason to change settlement place. I was amazed at the amount of records available but many of these are at the local government record offices so would involve a trip to England or hire a researcher. Which one do you think I would prefer?

Uncovering your Irish Roots with Pauleen Cass

I think we can all agree that research in Ireland can be difficult but Pauleen says to make sure you have researched everything in Australia first as there might be subtle clues in obituaries or wedding certificates and so on that could lead you closer to the townland or parish your relatives came from in Ireland. Once you have as much as you can from Australia, there are more resources coming online for Ireland every day.

Here are three sites I use:  Irish GenealogyRoots Ireland and Irish Genealogy toolkit

Pauleen also mentioned that the blog of John Grenham was worth following as he mentions new records as they become available.

 

The second Plenary session was held after lunch and was by Angela Phippen on Oops! I wish I had checked the original

This was looking at the book called The Letters of Rachel Henning which had been published by the Bulletin as well as multiple runs by other printers. It was only when Angela looked at the original letters that she saw what had been edited before being used in the printed versions. The unedited version told a totally different story about the Henning and Hedgland families.

Google .. more than just a search with Michelle Patient

I use most of those Google tools mentioned in this session but I know I should make more use of newspapers and books. The one tool I have not used is Keep, but as that is relatively new, I have an excuse. I love using Google docs for collaboration around the world such as all the participants in the student blogging challenge I run twice a year. I think being a globally connected teacher for many years has helped.

My last session for the day was with Kerry Farmer DNA a modern tool to solve historical puzzles

I am only just getting into using DNA but I understood most of what was mentioned in this session. I learnt more about using X DNA but not sure if this will help with dad’s side of the tree. Need to make more use of the fan template for X DNA but I use the Shared cM Project often.

 

 

4 thoughts on “Congress Day 2

  1. Wow! The days are certainly very full, you will need a holiday after it to recover. Thanks for sharing.

  2. Thanks Sue for sharing these with us. You will need a debrief at the end of the day. So much to learn and know.

  3. Very grateful for the blog. Sorry to have missed Pauline’s presentation but your summary really helpful. Just do much to take in 🙂

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