Congress day 1

UTAS DipFamHist at Congress 2018

Long day starting with a 20 minute walk to breakfast at a fast food place. All this walking to and from Congress is going to keep me fit.

Picked up my bag of goodies, including the important program. Planned my day using the booklet rather than fiddling around with the ipad. Headed to Cockle Bay Room where all the sessions I wanted to attend were going to be held.

A great day of family history also included our photo session on the steps of the International Conference Centre for the UTAS contingent, Sorry a few missed out but Lis is going to photoshop them in at a later date.

Sessions I attended today

Tarting up my blog with Jill Ball @geniaus

I felt my family history blog was doing quite well except I don’t have a header relating to my blog title.  It can be very difficult to find headers that are creative commons relating to the purpose of my blog. Might need to do a bit more research on this – would love to find one with old time ships from the early 1800s sailing across the oceans.

My navigation bar helps with things that wont change such as how to comment, reason for the blog and a bit about me. The sources from the Diploma of  Family History may be added to by either me or through comments from my readers.

My readers can use the tags or categories or archives to find posts relating to their interests but maybe I need to include a basic search widget. I have also needed to add one of these to my student blogging challenge blog.

My audience for my blog are mainly family or those students who have taken part in the UTAS Diploma of Family History. I advertise the new posts in the relevant Facebook groups for DipFamHist but rarely use Twitter or Pinterest, so I haven’t included any social media links on the blog.

Thanks Jill for a great session

Searching at the NAA with Judith Paterson, Rachel Cullen and Paivi Lindsay

I am so used to just doing a record search or passenger search that I may have missed other records held at the National Archives Australia. We learnt about how records were categorized and how knowing an agency or government department where your records might be, can help you find those unusual resources. Using advanced search and then searching by agency, series and items rather than a general name search. Might need to see if I can find more about my step grandfather Mikolaj Hrydziuszko other than his naturalization certificate.

Loved the way they used an example of one person and showed how they found documents as well as audio visuals and images relating to their research person.

Traversing TROVE with Cheney Brew

This was interesting in that I usually only use the newspapers in Trove but there are so many other records held at the National Library of Australia that can be accessed through Trove. Might need to check out some of their other sources. The other UTAS students sitting near me when we saw the video made about one of the research people, said it was like the annotated maps we did for the Diploma.

Convict records in VDL, NSW and WA with Dianne Snowden

Dianne did  a great job summarising all the convict records in these three states. As a convict researcher, you need to know the name of your convict, ship he came on and when and where he was sent to as there are differing records in each of the three states. One person in the audience was lucky enough to have a convict from each state –  Jacqui Brock from our UTAS group.

Many convict records are now appearing on Ancestry and FamilySearch but remember to check the National Library of Australia where they have links to convict records around Australia.

 

Where do I begin searching?

I am so lucky that my family history has mainly been in Tasmania since the early 1830’s. I began my researching by asking questions of my mother who seemed to know everything about the family or at least her side of it. My father knows very little about his side and is amazed at what I am finding out for him. Unluckily, we haven’t had any heirloom bibles or notebooks handed down in the family, so I am having to start from scratch.

My number 1 spot

The LINC webpages which has just been updated this week. These are resources related to Tasmania but they do have other links to visit outside our clean, green state. Type in the name of your relative in the search bar at the top.

This search will include

  • births RGD 33
  • deaths RGD 35
  • marriages RGD 37
  • convicts
  • wills and more

Then visit the record, remembering to take note of the source of the record. How much did you find that was useful?

My number 2 spot

The National Archives of Australia – this is for information after 1900 when Australia became one federated country rather than separate colonies. I do a record search and will find war records as well as naturalization records, some passenger lists – both boat and plane. Part of the NAA this year is the Discovering ANZACs website – joint project with National Archives of New Zealand – where all World War I service men and women have their records open to the public. See another post I have written telling you where to find more war records.

My number 3 spot

This is Trove which is part of the National Library of Australia. It has a section of digitized newspapers from all states of Australia. These are being updated all the time. What is also great is they include a citation button in top left corner where you can copy the source of the record very easily. I use the Harvard/Australian version all the time to keep things consistent in the family tree software programme I use.

Readers: What are your three favourite repositories or places to find information for your family history? Do you have some for places outside Australia?