On Rations

I have been hit by a first world problem. I have to ration my data.

As many of you know we are living between two houses at the moment. At our old house I have a ginormous data allowance and can spend my days playing in cyberspace without having to worry about how much data I consume. My problem is when I am at the old house I need to devote my time to clearing out a life's worth of stuff and getting the place tarted up for sale so geneactivities take a back seat. I have emptied my study ready for its transformation into a home theatre/media room and have moved most of my technology, files and my desk and office chair to their new home.

Up at the new Lake House where I have set up my new geneacave I use my smartphone as a hotspot for internet access. Although I have 40gig of data per month on the phone I find that I can devour several gig  a day when using it as a hotspot for the laptop (a data hungry beast). I can keep up with social media, email, blog reading via Inoreader and checking new DNA matches  on my smartphone where these activities appear to use little data.

Data Rationing here at The Lake House

I can blog on the phone using an external wireless keyboard but I don't enjoy doing it that way so I don't blog (it has to be fun not a chore - right?). I can't update my websites on the phone and I find it very difficult to research promising DNA matches as I need to have several windows open to do this efficiently. Similarly when writing my sometimes weekly GeniAus Gems posts I need to have several apps and windows open at once, I missed posting last week because doing this via smartphone would have been an exercise in frustration.

In the next month or so I will transfer our landline, internet service and Foxtel service to the new home. I could throw more money at my data provider but am loathe to do this so in the interim I will be quiet in the blogisphere. 

Now, while my asthma is forcing me to rest, I am off to do some work on my FHG website, try to place some new DNA matches in my traditional tree, respond to some messages from potential DNA matches and follow Shelley's instructions for Visualising Ancestry DNA matches (until that does my head in!).

101 Reasons to attend #congress_2018 - Meet Shelley

Shelley, a young genealogist from Canberra who blogs at Twigs of Yore, will be attending her second Congress in 2018.

She blogged about her Congress plans this week. Shelley is a modest and intelligent young woman who has a background in statistics. She is a whizz with spreadsheets, databases and masssaging data who applies her skills to her genealogy research.

An expert user of Family Historian software Shelley has given me some valuable assistance in using that program. Check out her recent blog post Reconstituting the Allsops of Tissington–progress to get an indication of the depth of Shelley's knowledge.

At Congress you will have an opportunity to mix, mingle and pick the brains of many experienced genies like Shelley.

At Congress 2015 - Shelley, our Genimate Tanya and GeniAus

Funeral Booklets

When I attended a family funeral yesterday both Mr GeniAus and I took a funeral booklet/order of service.

I have been sorting out my huge "to be sorted" pile of ephemera this week and I came across several duplicate funeral books for family members. I really only need one of each for my files. I then remembered the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet where I have a collection of funeral books for unrelated people. I have saved all of the funeral books for services I have attended over the years plus I have been given some by people who are aware of my hoardng and genealogy obsessions.  I realised that these private publications can be a goldmine of genealogical information and wondered  if I should I should share them with the geneacommunity. Some of the earliest booklets I have are quite simple while some of the newer ones are quite sophisticated publications but they all contain genealogical data. One would hope that the people compiling these publications  provide accurate information.

The latest addition to my collection gives birth and death dates for the deceased, the name of the celebrant and the names of those taking part in the service. It is highly likely that some of these people are family members. The booklet also has two pages of photographs of the deceased covering his life span. Some of these booklets give other information like the date and time of the service and details of the burial or cremation.

I am going to gather up my collection of duplicate family booklets and those for unrelated persons and offer them to a genealogy society or library that I hope will index them. I may even offer to index them if the repository provides me with guidelines.

What do you do with the funeral booklets you collect? Please don't toss them - send them to me and I'll add them to my collection.