Friday, March 25, 2022

The Best of Rootstech 2022

As a Rootstech Influencer I found the request to share my best five presentations from the 2022 event a trifle challenging. All who attended Rootstech 2022 came with individual needs and interests so my list contains things that educated, entertained and enthused me, it will differ from the lists made by the million or so other genealogy enthusiasts who attended Rootstech. I believe that anyone with an interest in family history will find much content to satisfy their needs at the Rootstech site.

For me the Rootstech event was not a crazy carnival of genealogy but it heralded an update to a fabulous free learning library of genealogy resources from Familysearch. Prior to the event I wrote "I am not going to stress about filling my days with watching zoom sessions, mine will be a relaxed approach over many days, weeks and months. This is necessary to experience the Joynealogy of Rootstech."

I believe that "Just in time learning" is a most effective means of learning anything so, whenever I have a need for knowledge in the future, I will use the search facility on the Rootstech site to find appropriate presentations. These sessions may or may not have been in my original playlist.

I probably managed to watch about 40-50 sessions over the three days of the live event. Shortly after the event I suggested some of these as must watch sessions in a newsletter I write for my local family history group. My bias was towards sessions about DNA, Australian topics and England/Ireland/Scotland the lands of my ancestors. Here is what I suggested that genies in Lake Macquarie Family History Group should watch. 

Nick Barratt: When Harry Met Dotty - using DNA to break down brick walls
Else Churchill: From Rolled Pedigrees to Digital Data 
Myko Clelland: Series (3 talks) Birth, Marriage and Death in Scotland – going beyond the basics 
Jackie Depelle: Ideas for Researching Non-Conformist Ancestors

Roberta Estes: Associating Autosomal DNA Segments With Ancestors
Caroline Gurney: Series (3 talks) Tracing the English Ancestors – beyond the basics
Rob Hamilton: Series (3 talks) A Freemason and his records

Michelle Leonard: Top tips for identifying DNA matches
Diana Nicolson: Who was Kastian Richardson?
Cathie Sherwood: The Poor in Ireland: Workhouses and Poor Law

Oops, seems I can't count, it was hard enough pruning the list down to ten let alone five!

Modesty precluded me from adding this live session hosted by Lynn Broderick and me 
https://www.familysearch.org/rootstech/session/dealing-with-ethical-dilemmas-in-an-online-world-a-discussion

Thursday, March 17, 2022

My Green Roots Roll Call

It is appropriate on St Patrick's Day that I remember my Green Roots - ie those ancestors who came from the Emerald Isle.


May I introduce my direct Irish ancestors who all arrived in New South Wales prior to 1876. They include several convicts, an Earl Gray orphan, some assisted immigrants and a couple of mysteries :

Catherine Connolly
Patrick Curry/Corry
Mary Cregan/Crigan/Criggin/Cligan/Gregson
Elizabeth/Eliza D'arcy
Mary Kealy
Margaret McKeon/McEwan
Ellen/Eleanor Moore
Catherine Jane Maxwell
Michael Molloy
Dennis Tierney

Please follow the links above to visit these ancestors at my family website.

Thursday, March 3, 2022

Don't hurry - be happy at Rootstech

Rootstech is here and I am ready to learn.


With the Rootstech recorded sessions now live I decided to go through the offerings and create my playlist. There is so much on offer. I am not going to stress about filling my days with watching zoom sessions, mine will be a relaxed approach over many days, weeks and months. This is necessary to experience the Joynealogy of Rootstech.

I am working out which Live and Main Stage sessions are on at Australia  friendly times and try to watch them live as they offer the most opportunities to Connect with other genies.

Meanwhile I am spending my afternoon creating my playlist (I made sure I narrowed it to 2022 sessions) and adding selections. It's hard to decide on what I need to know and what would be nice to know! I also want to support my genimates by watching their sessions (and giving their number a nudge in the all important statistics kept by Familysearch). 

When I am satisfied that I have dealt with the content of a session (I may need to watch some things more than once) I will delete it from my playlist. When I hear what others think of what they view I will adjust my playlist accordingly.

I believe that "Just in time learning" is a most effective means of learning anything so, whenever I have a need for knowledge in the future, I will use the search facility on the Rootstech site to find appropriate sessions. These sessions may or may not have been in my original list.

I am delighted to see that so many sessions from 2021 and 2022 will be available as an online learning resource. Just yesterday I came across a session that filled a gap in my knowledge from the 2021 event. 

My approach fits in with my 2022 research goal "Have fun and find stuff" and my new theme song "Don't hurry - be happy".


Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Paying it forward with travel photos

Many of our holidays are not geneajourneys but, because of my interest in dead people and cemeteries, I often take photos of cemeteries we pass. When we are cruising some of the organised tours on offer take us to historic cemeteries, I take many images including some headstone pictures during these visits.

Headstone in Broken Hill

I find these images so useful to illustrate my blog and social media posts but recently I have found another use for my pictures that may help other genies and researchers.

Monument in Old Drift Cemetery, Zambia 

Ever since a presentation by Marion Burk Wood at the last THE Genealogy Show event I have taken a renewed interest in FindaGrave. As my photo collection is indexed with lots of keywords I can easily access images of cemeteries and headstones using those terms. 

It has given me great pleasure to add to FindaGrave headstone images not related to my close family from cemeteries in Australia, France, Ireland, The Phillipines, UK, US and Zambia and I have yet more to add. Hopefully some of the relatives of these people will benefit from seeing images of their loved ones final resting places.

Headstone from Tyne Cot, Belgium

I've also been able to add general photos of several cemeteries to the Cemetery Entries on FindaGrave.

Perhaps you have been doing this already but I only recently thought of it. It's another way we genies can "Pay it Forward" for all the value we have received from the work of other volunteers.

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