Saturday at the Roadshow

Quiet Saturday morning traffic enabled me to leave home later and arrive in time for the first talk of the day by Elaine Collins from FindMyPast. Elaine is an experienced and competent speaker who is able to talk comfortably to a large audience. I had missed the first half of Elaine's talk so was pleased to be able to catch it the second time around.  Her news that only one subscription will be needed to access the resources of the UK and Australian editions of FindMyPast in the near future was pleasing. It was good to get an update on the resources that are aavailable through one's subscription. I certainly get my money's worth from my annual subscription.

After hearing Elaine I moved to the smaller room to prepare for my presentation that I have reported on in my post Gasbagging about Genealogy.

After my session I stayed on in the room to hear Shauna Hicks deliver "Archives you may not know - but should!" In her presentation Shauna presented a long list of links to archives that may have relevance to genealogists. Her notes can be found here.

Geniaus and Dan Lynch

After a long lunch break I lined up for my fourth presentation by Dan Lynch. Firstly Dan autographed my copy of Google Your Family Tree and then he posed for a photo with me, thanks Dan. As with his earlier presentations I did not learn so much about the mechanics of Google but I learnt about why some media and google applications can be relevant to genealogists. I tend to steer away from video but, after listening to Dan, am going to explore video as a means to put some context to the lives of my ancestors and distant cousins. Dan suggested that by listening to video one can an idea of how people speak and use language in their locations. He also reminded us that both photos and video found on Google show the physical attributes of places and buildings and will add more context to our research. The best tip for me  was, when using Google to search in countries that speak a language other than English, to search with the terms from that country eg use eglise instead of church or frere instead of brother when searching in France. This approach is bound to bring up more hits.

Dan's enthusiasm as a Google apostle was evident through his talk. When people are passionate about their topics it adds an extra dimension to their presentations.

The next speaker I heard, Louise St Denis, was another presenter who was passionate about her subject and who presented with vigour and flair. Her topic "I found it once. Why can't I find it again!" was basically a mini-tutorial on how to cite one's sources according to genealogical conventions. Louise gave a good overview of this meaty topic.

Unfortunately, as an amateur genealogist who has no thoughts of becoming a professional, I  would find it tedious to apply these rules to my hobby. I have blogged about this on several occasions as I believe that, for a hobby, as long as a citation leads others back to a cited source does it matter if it is done according to Harvard, APA, MLA or some other method. The most important thing for me is being able to find something again!

Apart from the speakers I'll comment on some other aspects of the Roadshow. I thought that the venue was very good with ample parking, a variety of food outlets, a lift for those unable to climb stairs and plenty of space to for small gatherings. If radio mikes could be supplied for speakers and a shuttle from a nearby station arranged for those who don't drive this would be a near perfect venue.

The warm welcome given to attendeess by Carole Riley SAG Councillor and Professional Genealogist set the scene for the day.

The Roadshow had a small number of exhibitors and, if the hole in my wallet, is indicative of other attendees' spending then the exhibitors were relevant to the crowd. I was able to subscribe to a magazine, buy some books and sign up for The Irish Day at SAG.

I must commend the stalwarts from the Sydney TMG Users Group of which I am a fairly new member; volunteers, Linda Bishop and Faye Cooke, manned the table for the two days of the Roadshow  demonstrating to attendees the features of The Master Genealogist software. TMG was the only software package that had a presence at The Roadshow.  If I was in the market for software again I would consider this program not just for its merits but becaue there is so much support available to users through the Sydney TMG Users Group and similar groups in other states.

Thanks again to the team from Unlockthepast for feeding my addiction to genealogy via the Roadshow.

Sleep gets in the way of good intentions

My plan, when I returned from the History and Genealogy Roadshow tonight and had some dinner, was to blog about the event but I am in need of some shuteye. So I'll just give a quick recap and come back and add hyperlinks to this post later.

I arrived a little late for Elaine Collins' talk on FindMyPast but enjoyed what I heard. Elaine outlined some exciting new projects in the pipeline so I was pleased that I had renewed my annual subscription last month. I just need to make time to revisit the site and do new searches for the people in my database.

Louise St Denis from The National Institute for Genealogical Studies packed a lot of content into her talk. She was an entertaining and engaging speaker.

I have a pretty good knowledge of the Google family of products but still enjoyed the three presentations by Dan Lynch that I attended. I learnt a couple of new tricks and was entertained by Dan who is a polished and professional presenter.

As my knowledge of genealogical records is a bit shallow I learnt quite a bit from Jeremy Palmer's talk on "The Parish Chest". It was the best of the three talks I have heard from Jeremy so far.

During the day I engaged in a bit of a twitterthon with Carole Riley, Gould Genealogy and Unlock the Past as we posted tweets during the talks. Those tweets can be found by using the hashtag #HGRS10 in a twitter search.

Genealogy can be a lonely pursuit; events like the roadshow give us a chance to meet and chat with people with similar interests. I was pleased to catch up with people from SAG and the Sydney TMG Users group. I am looking forward to day two of the Roadshow tomorrow when I will have a chance to add more to my knowledge.

Now for some zzzz's

It looked like a Seniors Convention

The few youngsters who attended the seminar organised by Unlock the Past at the North Ryde RSL last night were outnumbered by the many enthusiastic seniors at the function. I was pleased to find two retired librarians that I worked with at Waverley Library in the early seventies. The number of enthusiasts at the function , some of whom had travelled quite a distance, indicates that family historians want to hear from speakers with international credentials.

Elaine Collins (pictured), from findmypast.co.uk, was the star turn of the evening. She gave an overview of the various product offerings of Bright Solid and a comprehensive tour of the findmypast site that would have been very informative for those not familiar with the product. Speaking to an audience with such a range of skills and knowledge is a tough gig. Elaine was a competent speaker who was able to engage a large and disparate audience.

After a presentation by Rosemary Kopittke on Scotland's People Elaine returned to the stage to give an overview of the new find.mypast.com.au and tell of plans for the development of this product that is presently available on a subscription basis for $59.95 per annum. The datasets on this site differ from those on the UK site; there are a number of fulltext documents such as government and police gazettes that can be searched by keyword. Unfortunately for those of us who already subscribe to the full findmypast.uk offering there is not discount for taking up this additional product. In the future consideration will be given to providing a facility to search both product sets at once but this will not be in the short term.

I had hoped to meet some fellow Twitterers and some of my online genealogy pals but they were difficult to find in the crowd. I think that I was the only person Tweeting from the audience!

Although the evening could have been seen as a sales pitch for the products of Bright Solid, Gould Genealogy and Unlock the Past it created an opportunity for a large group of people with a shared interest to get together. As I walked in by myself I was immediately befriended by two ladies who graciously invited me to join them for dinner. In the line to enter the auditorium and in the wait for the presentations to begin strangers chatted amicably about their ancestors, brick walls and triumphs in search of their ancestors. I was impressed by the convivial atmosphere of the evening.