Faceless no more

I have been preparing my slides for the webinar on Online Books that I am presenting next week for The Society of Australian Genealogists.

I was browsing through an online .pdf copy of  Parramatta and District Soldiers in the Great War, 1914-1919. Mr GeniAus on seeing the image on my desktop asked whether there were pictures of his Ball Ancestors in the publication.

I had used the publication several years ago for another purpose but didn't think to check for photos of  Grandfather James Ball or Great-Grandfather, John James Ball. Mr GeniAus immediately fired up his laptop and entered the term "Ball" into the publication's search box. He was rewarded with three Ball images. The first was for Fred Ball, brother of James and the second was of James. We had previously seen copies of these images in local newspapers via Trove.

The third image was of "Pte. J. Ball Sen of Liverpool", John James Ball. We have been researching the Ball family for thirty years and this is the first photo we have found of John James. We were both gobsmacked and annoyed with ourselves because we had first looked at this publication several years ago but had blinkers on as we were consulting it for a different purpose.

Needless to say we are both excited that John James in no longer  a Faceless Ancestor. Now we can look again at the few unlabelled Ball images we have to see if we can identify more for John James' gallery.

Will I see you there?

One of the events I have signed up for in National Family History Month is the two day Researching Abroad event hosted by Unlock the Past in Parramatta on 15-16 August.

I am an Ambassador for this event and look forward to catching up with many of my genimates there. I will be there all day Tuesday and for half the day on Wednesday as I am must attend my FHG meeting on the Wednesday afternoon.

I'm wondering if anyone else is likely to be hanging around for dinner at the venue, the Parramatta RSL, on the Tuesday. Seems like a perfect opportunity to catch up and have a chat.

The cost for attending this event is quite modest - it's a great opportunity to hear international speakers. Will I see you there?

More from Parramatta

Yesterday I posted a couple of photos of Audrey Collins in action at the Parramatta Unlock the Past Roadshow. Around 100 family history enthusiasts came along to hear Audrey, Carole Riley, Carol Baxter and Rosemary Kopittke speak.  Also along to add a bit of colour to the show was Heather Garnsey from SAG, the two Vickis from Findmypast, members of the Gould Genealogy team, Allan Murrin and Heather Clarey from the organising committee for this year's NSW State Genealogy Conference and yours truly providing demonstrations on the Flip-Pal mobile scanner.

As it was in my hometown, Sydney, I saw a few familiar faces from the genealogy scene plus I met up with Wendy who I knew when I lived in the Eastern Suburbs and whom I hadn't seen for around 20 years, Annette who I worked with at Waverley Library too long ago to mention and Pat who I knew from my days working in school libraries. It was pleasing to see members from The Hawkesbury Family History Group and The Ku-ring-gai Historical Society, two genealogy societies of which I am a member, in attendance at the event.

I was pleased to be able to hear two of Audrey's talks at this event. I was most interested in the first talk about records for Irish research in the National Archives in Kew. I now have a lot of leads to follow when next I visit there.

Following are a few more snaps from the event.

Carole Riley demystifies Land Records

Carole dispenses advice

Non-Conformist Religions from Audrey

  

Time for a chat

Anthea from Gould makes a sale

Carol Baxter explains how to write Interesting Family Histories

Lots of Notetaking