My Mate Joan

Early this morning I heard some sad news. My friend, Canadian genealogist Joan Miller, passed away peacefully on Friday 4th January, 2012.

I had hooked up with Joan on the internet a few years ago and we finally got to meet at Rootstech in 2011. From that meeting grew the idea of putting together a panel presentation for Rootstech in 2012. Joan worked on this with myself, Amy Coffin and Audrey Collins until just after Christmas 2011 when she wrote "I've been having health issues and there is a good chance I won't be able to attend Rootstech."

Joan (left) and Jill Ball (right) interview Jay Verkler at Rootstech 2011

Today I am remembering Joan and being grateful for her friendship, support and encouragement. 

Among other things Joan was passionate about the Genealogists for Families Team on Kiva where she was co-captain with Australian, Judy Webster. 

A number of genealogists have asked on various social media today how they can commemorate Joan. Joan's daughter Heather has asked that commemorative loans or donations in memory of her mother should be made through Kiva and the 'Genealogists for Families' project.  Details on how this can be accomplished can be found on this Genfamilies blog post.

I chose to make a loan to a farmer in Kenya to help him to buy piglets as Joan had recently made a loan to another farmer to allow him to buy pigs.

Rootstech News - International Panel: Genealogy 2.0

My friend, Joan Miller of the Luxegen Blog, has indicated that she is taking a healing hiatus from genealogy to concentrate on recovering from an illness. I am saddened to hear of her illness and wish her well as she travels the road to recovery.

Since meeting Joan at Rootstech last year I have kept in constant contact with her via email and social media and was looking forward to co-presenting with her at Rootstech 2012. Unfortunately Joan, who coined the term Genealogy 2.0 for our presentation, will not be able to join Amy Coffin, Audrey Collins and me for the presentation. I thank you,  Joan, for all of your assistance with preparation for the gig, we are most indebted to you.

It was an easy task for us to decide on another foreigner to invite to take Joan's place on our panel. We four agreed that another Canadian and an Official Rootstech Blogger, Lorine McGinnis-Schulze, would be the perfect candidate.

We were thrilled and relieved when Lorine graciously accepted our invitation. We welcome Lorine to our panel and look forward to getting together at the Salt Palace for our presentation in Room 225B at 11:00 am on Friday February 3rd.

The Heat is on...

I'm a procrastinator, I don't work well until a deadline is drawing near. I was reminded yesterday in an e-mail from Joan Miller, one of my co-presenters at Rootstech 2012, that I must get cracking with our syllabus document that is due on November 1. Joan was too polite to say "get your act together Jill" rather she just sent me a chatty e-mail asking how things were going. Thanks, Joan, for the reminder I'll get onto the job as soon as my babysitting charges go home tomorrow.

We are using a Google doc to plan our presentation and write the syllabus outline that is required by November 1. I might propose to Audrey Collins, Amy Coffin and Joan Miller, who are presenting with me, that we use the new GoogleDocs Presentation tool to collaborate on preparing our presentation slides. I must admit that I have only had the briefest of looks at this tool, I'll leave it until after we submit the syllabus document to see if it will suit our purposes.

I was also reminded about the conference this morning when I found my registration receipt in my inbox; Mr Geniaus also received his receipt. Although he is not into genealogy he is interested in family history; there is such a variety of talks on offer at Rootstech that I am sure  he will find plenty to pique his interest.

If you have been thinking about registering for Rootstech it would be a good idea to do so now at the earlybird rate which is available until November 30. You can check out the schedule here.

We'd love to see you in our session:
Genealogy 2.0: international panelists discuss their use of social media to connect with cousins, collaborate on projects, discuss issues, market and promote genealogy services and perform acts of genealogical kindness.

Blink and you'll miss me...

and Joan Miller from Canada interviewing Jay Verkler at Rootstech 2011 in a promotional video for Rootstech 2012.

Wonderful surprise for the returning traveller

Mr and Mr Geniaus have been off globetrotting for the last few weeks.Although it was not a genealogy field trip I managed to visit a few institutions, see some distant cousins and collect a few new resources on our round the world journey.  Over the next few weeks I will blog about some of my experiences and finds.


After our 20 hour journey from New York I was feeling a little flat on my return home yesterday. In between loads of washing I managed to log into my email where I found a great surprise.There were two emails with the subject line "RootsTech Proposal Accepted".  My spirits immediately soared; I will be presenting in two sessions at Rootstech 2012 in Salt Lake City.


I was absolutely stoked to get this news but now have tummy butterflies. I don't think there will be many other Australian presenters at this international event so I feel a responsibility to do Australia proud. This will not be too difficult for the first session "Genealogy 2.0: international panelists discuss their use of social media to connect with cousins, collaborate on projects, discuss issues, market and promote genealogy services and perform acts of genealogical kindness" in which I will be joined by esteemed genealogists Amy Coffin (USA), Audrey Collins (UK) and Joan Miller (Canada). I was thrilled when these genealogists whom I met at Rootstech 2011 agreed to my proposal to form a panel to discuss Genealogy 2.0. We should have lots of fun collaborating with Web2.0 tools to prepare our presentation.


Although my second gig "The Galaxy Girls –three genealogists and their Android tablets" will be a solo performance I have the support of two Australian genealogists, Shelley from Twigs of Yore and Tanya Honey from My Genealogy Adventure who also purchased Samsung Galaxy Tablets not long after I did. Via email, blog posts and more recently through a Huddle on Google+ Shelley, Tanya and I have been discussing our tablet use. I am indebted to The Galaxy Girls for agreeing to allow me to report on their tablet experiences.


The generosity of the genealogy community is demonstrated by the willingness of these five genealogists to support my proposals for Rootstech 2012, I am most grateful to you.

Elusive events

As a new retiree with a commitment to CGD I am seeking edcational opportunities to further my genealogical skills and knowledge. Like Joan Miller of Luxegen I think I may become a Genea-Conference groupie.

I dream of an online calendar that lists all events that may be suitable for budding and experienced  Australian genealogists. Something based on the Geneawebinars Blog would seem to fit the bill...but who will take responsibility for such a resource?

Presently it is a tedious process to identify learning opportunities. There are a number of organisations that offer relevant events but there is no one central place where all event details are listed.  To locate events within cooee of Sydney, NSW  I need to go to the SAG Calendar, Unlock the Past Events, Joy Murrin Events Calendar, NSW State Records, The Royal Australian Historical Society, The State Library of NSW, The National Library of Australia, The National Archives of Australia , Geneawebinars, and webpages of local family history societies (if they have one).  I also follow some libraries and groups on Twitter and Facebook and subscribe to a number of e-newsletters. This is a time-consuming exercise and does not ensure that I find all possible events.

Just this morning I saw a comment on Facebook by Kerry Farmer that she was giving a talk at Ku-ring-gai Historical Society. I visited that society's webpage and found a .pdf document listing a number of family history talks for this and next month. It was too late for me to attend this morning but I will attend some of these in the future.


How do other Australian Genealogists find events?

I wonder how hard it would be to get people and society representatives to contribute details of events to a blog like the Geneawebinars Blog if I set one up?

Genea-Bodies

A great GeniMate from Rootstech, Joan Miller, wrote a thoughtful piece in her Luxegen blog today "Genea-Bodies: The New Somebodies".  She says "We Genea-Bodies have a voice.  A collective voice.  A passionate voice.  And we talk about our passion."   I encourage you to read Joan's post and the comments that follow. 

I usually just write a line or two in a blog comment but was so fired up by Joan's post that I nearly wrote an essay. Here is what I said:

"For this opinionated little Granny from downunder to have a voice is an honour and a responsibility. Social networking tools have made this possible. 

I took my role as an official Rootstech blogger and tweeter very seriously and hopefully my contributions assisted in getting the news out about this fantastic event. My blog statistics were certainly up during February.

Evaluation is an important part of any process; social networking tools facilitate evaluation that could not previously occur. The ability of Genea-Bodies to contribute to conversation on all facets of genealogy is empowering. I can voice my opinion, be noticed and take part in discourse with others….and some people listen and take notice of little me!

Ten years ago we had virtually no influence. If we bought a shonky product we just whinged to the provider, if advertisers made unrealistic claims we could not easily point out their errors or if we had a great idea we could write an article that might not be published. 

Now we can keep people on their toes. Genea-Bodies contributions about and evaluations of issues, services, products and resources via blogs, Twitter etc will lead to improvement in products and new knowledge in our field. 

“You’re nobody until somebody loves you” – social media provides the love to turn us all into "somebodies."