Back on Board

Those of you who are my Facebook friends will know that I was back on board a cruise ship for a few weeks this month and so my geneablogging suffered.

Mr GeniAus enjoyed our sojourn at sea where we journeyed from Auckland up to Singapore with about a dozen stops along the way, some old, some new. As lifelong learners we appreciate the opportunities cruising gives us to visit new lands and learn about people and places via the Smithsonian lecture program provided on board.

Our dear little ship, Seven Seas Navigator, in Akaroa, New Zealand

I got back into the swing of genealogy yesterday when I presented my Geneagoogling: effective Google searching talk at The Society of Australian Genealogists to a lively and responsive group. There were some familiar faces in the audience as well as folk who were new to me. It was pleasing to meet a couple of young genies at the session.

One of these genies, Nyree, mentioned that she has a blog. Of course I took a look at it on the way home and was impressed by its professional appearance. Do take a look at One Girl's Family History : an outlet for an obsession and leave a comment for Nyree. We need to encourage new, young geneabloggers.

I was chuffed when one familiar face chatted with me. It was Susan whom I had met through Wyong Family History Group. Susan is also a user of my favourite program Family Historian but it was something that Susan said that made me go all coy.

As a sometime genealogy presenter I often wonder if I have had any effect on the people who are in my audiences. Do they come along, listen, think that was interesting but then go about their business without taking on board any of things I have mentioned. Susan indicated that I had inspired her to put her information on the internet and that she had crested three websites following a workshop day I had presented at Wyong a couple of years ago.

Susan has used Weebly to post her family history data and stories on the internet. Take a look at her three sites:  Crust Family from Queensland, Glennan Family from Cooma and Andrews and Jones Families. I was absolutely chuffed to discover that someone had heeded my advice and created this wonderful trio of resources. I was even more thrilled when I read this in the about me page of one of Susan's sites " After attending a workshop on "Family History in the Modern Era", and being inspired by the presenter, Jill Ball, I decided to put my research on the internet. . It's a great way to share my family history research with family members and hopefully, the many photographs I've collected over the past 40 years will not be lost."

While I was at sea I received an invitation to present a program to the Forster Family History Advisory Group at The Great Lakes Library. I look forward to meeting the genies up on the north coast in November.

A Cousin's Call

When we returned yesterday from a couple of days away (paying attention to living family members) I found several messages on our answering service.

We were thrilled to hear from one of the callers who had left two messagees. It was Mr GeniAus' newly discovered second cousin making contact. I had tracked down her brother via Linkedin and he had promised to give her our details.  As the days went by we wondered if we would hear from her -  she would call when we weren't around.

When Mr GeniAus phoned her this morning the cousin had visitors so we arranged to call back this afternoon. She was as thrilled as we were to make contact. She says she is not tech savvy so hasn't used Trove and other online resources. I have found several things about her grandfather and mother that will add to the family history she wrote in 2005. She has photos, documents and memories of her grandfather who was Mr GeniAus' grandmother's brother. What a Win-Win situation.

As she is moving house in two weeks and we are taking off overseas for Christmas we have promised to exchange details via email and will organise to visit her in the New Year - she'll only be a six hour drive away!

It is only because someone had posted some info on this family in an online tree that we were able to find this lady. 

From now on they'll have to ask

Am I being Bah Humbug?

A while ago I found an unsourced tree that had quite a number of my ancestors listed online at a fellow genealogist's website. I immediately thought how mean-spirited or lazy this chap was for not sharing sources. It didn't bother me personally as I was using his site for clues from which I went off to seek sources.

I've been mulling over his practice for some time and think I may follow his lead. I like to share and collaborate with fellow genies, that's why I have my tree on the web in a public space. What I expect is that if anyone republishes what they find at the GeniAus Family site they will acknowledge their source.

I regularly see on Ancestry and now on MyHeritage  bits and pieces from the notes I share copied into online trees without acknowledgement. What makes me giggle is that I am a poor typiste and make quite a few keyboarding errors, these are replicated in those trees. Copy and Paste has a lot to answer for.

I stopped putting photos on my GeniAus Family site  when I saw so many of them subsequently appear on Ancestry, I have yet to see one sourced as coming from me. Could so many distant cousins really have copies of those photos in their collections? The photo with the most shares, an image of my Kealy ancestors' home in Ballyfoyle, was taken on my last trip to Ireland. As I have another trip to Ireland planned I'm going to try for a sharper image which I may just keep for myself.

The original photo of the Ballyfoyle home from which the shared one was cropped

The cropped and enhanced (by me)  photo I find all over the place

I am about to upload an update to my site that includes names, dates and places but no sources or notes. I know that some folk will still copy my stuff but if they want more information they will have to ask.

Am I being mean-spirited?

Copy at your Peril

It happens.....

Last night I was going over some old research and realised that something just didn't gel, so I did a bit of Troveing and looking at new resources online including a very well-sourced tree on Ancestry (there are some).

When I had done this part of an in-law's tree more than ten years ago I was too hasty and I made a big BooBoo in attaching children to a wrong set of parents.

Being a caring, sharing sort of person I uploaded my data to a private Ancestry tree and, when I created it, my family website. So this misinformation has been out in geneaspace for over ten years.

I am wondering if anyone has visited my site, looked at the assertions I make there and copied them willy-nilly without checking on their validity?

This is a WARNING - If you are going to use the data from my site please double-check to make sure that I was on the right track when I published. I have been known to meander more than once.

BTW I have removed the offending tree from Ancestry and uploaded a more accurate one, I have also reloaded a fresh Gedcom to my family site.

I wonder if those who have blindly copied my errors will do the same?

Follow Friday - Wellbelove Genealogy

As I am contemplating starting a one-name study I was interested to find this website (and accompanying blog, Facebook page and Youtube channel)) from Alan Wellbelove. I was rather impressed with the site and thought you might be too.

http://www.wellbelove.org/