The Dance Card is Filling Up.

In just three weeks Mr GeniAus and I are setting off to the US for a bit of R&R in Seattle followed by the frenzy that is Rootstech in Salt Lake City.

I am keen to explore Seattle, a city we haven't previously visited, but am super excited for Rootstech. In the 8 years I have been a Rootstech Official Blogger and Ambassador I have been privileged to meet an interesting and motivated mob of family historians and I have managed to interview a few celebrities and ordinary folk like me.

This year we only have seven nights in Salt Lake City and my Dance Card is filling up.

Ready for Rootstech

My Rootstech week kicks off with DearMYRTLE's Mondays with Myrt webinar broadcast from the Family History Library. This program goes live most weeks at a time when I am tucked up in my bed in Australia so I relish the opportunity to pop in on DearMYRTLE and have a chat.

I haven't planned a Commonwealth Dinner (link to 2018 invitation) yet - but if there are no Ambassador obligations or clashes may organise one for the Monday evening. I think that Sharn White and I may be the only Ambassadors attending from Australia this year - I wonder if any other Aussies are making the pilgrimage.

On Tuesday there are two Ambassador events. The Media Dinner in the Salt Palace sets the scene for the whole conference and gives us another opportunity to meet Presenters, Sponsors, Ambassadors and Familysearch staff prior to the Big Event.

I have an early start on Wednesday with a breakfast invitation for 7:00am with the folk from Ancestry and then the first session of the conference is at the respectable hour of 9:30. I'll probably go to all the sessions this day as the Media Hub where I hang out doesn't open until Thursday. There is an Expo Hall Preview from 6:00 - 8:00pm.

On my radar for Thursday will be people to interview. I hope to gather at least another dozen or so  video clips for my YouTube Channel. I may need an early night after all my activity and I will want to catch up with Mr GeniAus.

Friday brings another hosted breakfast thanks to sponsors, MyHeritage. I will definitely not miss the keynote from Australian, Saroo Brierley Since seeing the movie (Lion) and reading the book (A long way home)  about his search for his birth family I have been impressed by the tenacity and drive of this young man. I hope that I get an opportunity to interview this fellow Australian in the media hub.

There are no dates in my calendar for Saturday so I will continue with interviews, chat with genimates and attend a few session on DNA. I am hoping to get together with old friends on Saturday evening. Several of my co-presenters at The Genealogy Show in Birmingham will be at Rootstech, I do hope we can manage to get together. 

Rootstech  always comes up with some surprises. I love hearing speakers who are new to me and the keynotes selected are usually motivating, interesting or entertaining.

I hope to fit in a bit of shopping during my time in Salt Lake City (I love US bargains)  but I'm not sure how I'll achieve it with such a busy Dance Card.

Four of Each

I've been tidying up my hard drive and found this that I posted on Facebook a year ago. Thinking that my descendants might find it interesting in the future I am posting it here where it will be backed up on Pandora.

A few days ago my genimate Paul Milner indicated that these four genies might respond to the statements below: Michael Leclerc, Diane Loosle, Jill Ball, Paula Warren. I was so pleased to see myself lumped in a group with those geneastars that I had to respond. In comparison my life is rather tame compared with Paul's.

Four places I’ve lived:
1 Potts Point, NSW, Australia
2 Vaucluse, NSW, Australia
3 Maroubra, NSW, Australia,
4 Bronte, NSW, Australia (all four a stone's throw from Sydney's harbour and beaches)

Four places I’ve worked:
1 Student nurse, Randwick, NSW, Australia
2 Librarian, Waverley, NSW, Australia
3 IT Guy, Dee Why, NSW Australia
4 Medical Receptionist, St Leonards, NSW, Australia

Four places I’ve been:
1 Nuuk,Greenland
2 Iles du Salut (Devils Island)
3 Murmansk, Russia
4 Havana, Cuba

Four things I love to eat:
1 Cheese
2 Prawns
3 Smoked Salmon
4 Australian or NZ lamb

Four People I think will respond:
1 Brenda and Charlie B
2 Pauleen Cass
3 Sharn McDade White
4 Caitlin Gow

Four favorite drinks:
1 Diet Coke
2 Champagne
3 Cafe Latte
4 Sparkling Mineral Water

The ironing's not done ....

.... and it's all Shelley Crawford's fault.

Since she wrote about her network graphs for Visualising Ancestry Matches last year last year I have been hooked. Shelley posted detailed  instructions for creating these very useful visual representations of one's Ancestry matches (and beyond 4th cousin level too). What was easy for a cluey chick like Shelley was hard labour for this old girl. I persevered and created my first graph which helped me work out a few connections.

Since I created my first masterpiece my number of Ancestry matches has grown greatly. In October before I went on holidays I started the process again but it took me ages and my resulting graph looked like a dog's breakfast.

Shelley must have realised that there were quite a few people like me who didn't really have the patience and persistence to create these useful things because in December she announced her ConnectedDNA service. For a small fee one can avoid the headaches associated with creating network graphs by contracting Shelley to do the dirty work for you.

I placed my order and coughed up my $80 on Saturday. I was sent a link to upload some files to Dropbox for Shelley to work on. When I opened my email Sunday morning my files were waiting for me.   I received four files : the most amazing spreadsheet that listed all my matches with lots of relevant data, my very pretty network graph in two formats (.pdf and .jpg) and  a group map that gives an overview of my pretty graphs.

My pretty graph looks something like this but it also has names on each of the dots

The pretty graphs show clusters of relationships of my matches so I can see at a glance who matches with whom and therefore deduce where in my tree a relationship may be (very handy for those matches who are treeless and have meaningless kit names).

I love the spreadsheet and have gone down a rabbit hole today adding the notes from my own basic sheet of matches into Shelley's.  I have already been able to work out where a few more matches fit into my tree. I'm so impressed that I want to order graphs for all of the kits I match on Ancestry and FTDNA but I had better work with what I have and save up some pennies for more graphs from ConnectedDNA.

Perhaps I could even do some ironing.

Legacy Downunder Webinars

I was rather chuffed last year when I was approached by Marian Pierre-Louis on behalf of  Legacy Family Tree Webinars with an offer to present a webinar in their new Downunder webinar series. Although I get incredibly nervous about presenting to a video camera I could not turn down such an invitation. I was so excited about this gig but I had to keep Mum about the event until the series was announced.

Marian selected the topic, Six Feet Under Downunder, from the list I have on my blog so for the past few weeks as I have been putting my Powerpoint presentation together I have been burying myself in books and articles about burial history and practices in Australia.

An outback cemetery

Hopefully I will manage to cover the following:

"After a discussion of the history of burial practices of indigenous and early European arrivals in the colony of New South Wales we will explore the development of cemeteries, crematoriums and memorial parks down under. We will discuss current legislation regulating burials and cremation and look at some current trends, practices and statistics for burials in Australia. The major focus of the webinar will be on resources available for locating details of people who were buried or cremated in Australia since European settlement in 1788. We will examine a range of free and subscription print and online resources that provide such details."

Tonight after I listened to the recording of Helen Smith's webinar on Australian Archives which kicked off the series it hit me that I am next on the docket for the Downunder webinar series. 

My nerves will be calmer if I know that some of my genimates will be joining me for my deadly webinar. YOU can sign up to join me in the webinar for FREE at 12 noon (AEDT) on February 6 from this link: https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar_details.php?webinar_id=910.

Return to the Geneacave

It has been nearly six months since I have been able to access my genacave and its resources. Today I was finally able to sit at my desk.

During our house renovations my geneacave was used as a storeroom and was packed to the rafters with boxes and tubs. My files and books were hidden behind this mountain of stored items so my geneactivities were restricted to what I could do on the internet. I have let some of my genearesponsibilities slip during the upheaval and now need to play catchup.

Thankfully we were able to take a couple of holidays while the builders took over the house.  We managed to get home late on Christmas Eve so we could spend Christmas with the family.

We escaped from the renos

The renos are nearly completed and we are putting the house back together. First priorities were packing the kitchen, bathrooms and our wardrobes. Today I decided it was time to find my desk and I have managed to make a pathway there.

It was so good to sit on my office chair and connect my external monitor and scanner. I sifted, sorted, scanned and tossed some of the papers that we had dumped in there. I have so much physical and digital filing to do but at least I now have access to my technology.

Alas, when I tried to connect to the internet the signal was very poor, even worse than we endured on our recent cruise. My modem/router is downstairs at the opposite end of  the house from my study and I have to wait for the builder to come back from his holiday to see where I can now connect it.

So here I am working at our dining table in the living room where I can get an internet connection. At least the view is good and the breeze refreshing.