A long drive to Chester Hill

I was thrilled to be invited to the launch of National Family History Month at Chester Hill in Sydney yesterday afternoon. The eloquent Martyn Killion who was MC opened the event.

Bryan Scales, Sydney Office, National Archives of Australia gave a short presentation on 20th Century Immigration to Australia: records held by the National Archives of Australia. Bryan went over some familiar series of documents but also told us of a new series that had been digitised. It is :

Series number	A1197
Title	Incoming passenger cards
Accumulation dates	01 Jan 1965 - 31 Dec 1972

Bryan asked if anyone in the audience had been overseas and returned to Australia between 1965 and 1972, my hand shot up. Bryan suggested I take a look at the records (which are organised in six month sets with cards within each set arranged alphabetically by surname) to see if I could find my record....and I did. Because they aren't indexed by name it takes a bit of effort to find the records but it's really quite easy.

When I returned from my honeymoon 1970

This snip only shows the top half of the card, the bottom section also contains my intended address. This is pure Geneagold. Imagine how many Australian Currys I will be able to find for my surname study there. 

The Keynote address by Dr Perry McIntyre was "Family History 30 years after Australian’s Bicentennial: who is looking now? In this thought provoking presentation Perry discussed the changes in the Australian population over the past thirty years and during her talk threw out challenges to family historians, archives and repositories and genealogy groups. She encouraged all to make their information and records accessible and appropriate to Australia's changing population.

Dr Perry McIntyre and Martyn Killion

Martyn Killion  also presented this year's Nick Vine Hall Awards for the best genealogy/family history society journals or newsletters in 2016 (not sure if I can name the winners yet). 

Our gracious hosts were the staff members of The National Archives of Australia who served us a delicious afternoon tea.

While chatting with those in attendance I met two genies from The Lacemakers of Calais Group who live on my road and who had also made the trek to Chester Hill. It's a small world! I also said g'day to people from The Society of Australian Genealogists and the Bankstown, Botany Bay, Ku-ring-gai and Nepean family history groups.

Thanks to my genimate and National Family History Month Coordinator, Shauna Hicks, for my invitation to the event. I'm pleased I made that long drive.

An Excuse to visit Canbera again

Prior to my last visit to Canberra in March I consulted the National Archives of Australia catalogue to see what files I could find for some of my indirect ancestors. One never knows what hints and information about one's direct ancestors are hidden in these files.

Unfortunately only few of the files I found were available to order in. Most had not yet been examined (to make sure they do not contain classified information?) so I made several applications for the files to be examined and made available for access.

The Reading Room of The National Archives of Australia is calling me

Over the course of the last week I have received several emails from The Archives that start "Thank you for your application for access to an item held by the National Archives of Australia. The following item has now been examined".  

The messages continue with "If you wish to purchase a copy of this item, select the 'Item barcode' link above and then select the 'Request copy' link on the item details screen. Alternatively, please see How to purchase copies.

You may choose instead to view the item in the reading room where it is located. If so, please contact the National Reference Service at ref@naa.gov.au beforehand and quote the item details above so that the necessary preparations can be made."

As I only live a few hours drive from Canberra I prefer to view and copy the documents myself  than to have a copy made and sent to me. Seeing the original document is more satisfying than receiving a copy.

My next issue is that I must convince Mr GeniAus that we need to take a trip to Canbera soon.

Red hearts at the NLA

A  friend's wedding in Canberra is giving me an opportunity to spend a couple of extra days to undertake some research in our nation's capital.

When I was preparing for my research days prior to Congress last month I didn't give myself enough time to order items from the National Archives of Australia. Why they need five days notice to collect files from their storage facility that is less than thirty minutes drive away I don't know. Surely they do at least a daily run between the Reading Room and the storage facility at Mitchell. The good news is that this time I have ordered the files I wish to see withe plenty of notice.

This morning I am on the National Library of Australia website and being thankful for the Add to Favourites red heart. This helpful tool ensures that my time at the library  is most productive.

See the Red Heart

I hadn't used this facility until my last trip to the library, this time as I read/examined books
 I added them to my favourites. What is even better is that when one adds a favourite a little text box appears into which one can put a text note.

Add to Favourites Text Box

So this morning as I search the NLA Catalogue for resources little red hearts are showing up in the catalogue for items I have already favourited. How nifty is that! I won't be ordering in books I have already read.

I do add the books I read to Librarything but it's so much better to be able to see the little red hearts on the catalogue.

If you want a few little red hearts in your life you will need a library card from the NLA and to be logged in to the library site while you search the catalogue.

Postscript After spending some time on the site and pulling up a list of my favourites I discovered that I had used this facility back in 2011 but had quite forgotten. I hadn't used it on my visits between 2011 and 2015. Hopefully I will remember to use it in future.

I learnt a new trick yesterday ... Australian genies this one is for you

Whenever I want to download the Service File of an Australian soldier from the First World War I go to the National Archives of Australia, search for the record and then painstakingly download the record one page (jpeg images) at a time. I haven't downloaded the records for all of the WW1 people in my tree because it is such a painful process.

Down at the Society yesterday I was complaining to my friend Jackie about  how long it took to download a 60 page file; Allan, another researcher who was sitting around the table with us emphathised with me. Jackie (a Mac girl)  said that if I had a Mac I could download it as one file in .pdf format from the Mapping Our Anzacs site and I said "Well if you can do it on a Mac I will be able to do it on a PC."

I fired up my little laptop, found my soldier on Mapping Our Anzacs  by using the See other search  options on the bottom right of the screen,  and in the search by name box entered his family name. Once his entry came update I clicked on the image of his record on the right hand side of the page.

When the next page opened up I selected the Print option and waited for a while as the file downloaded .

Once that happened a window appeared with a Print as pdf option, I selected that, added a meaningful filename and, hey presto, I had a copy of  the file on my laptop in one sequence rather than as a collection of jpeg images. This sort of file is much smaller and so much easier to browse.

Now, dear readers, you may have known how to do this already but it was a revelation to me (and Allan). We are so grateful to Jackie for teaching us this new trick.

It's amazing what one can learn by sitting around a table and chatting about research with one's mates.