Waiting time

Sitting at my computer waiting for a video to upload I went looking for a monument on the Monument Australia website, It didn't take me long to find what I was seeking so then I started playing around. I noticed that many of the monuments were dedicated to People  and Bing! My inbuilt Genealarm went off. Could this site be a good place to search for people?

In addition to the monuments dedicated to people and looking at a few of the descriptions on other entries I realised that many of them included names. Had I  found a new-to-me genearesource?

One of the tabs on the home page of the site is "Search", so I selected that and went to the Search Page. As many of my genimates know I am doing a surname study for the Curry surname in Australia. I simply entered the word Curry on the Keyword area and hit search.

I was rewarded with quite a few irrelevant hits as the search also returns results where Curry is part of a word so there were many mentions of  Cloncurry and Tuncurry. However hidden among this list were a few mentions of Australian Currys.

There were Currys on several honour rolls and a Memorial Tablet. I'm keen to find out more about Les Curry who is memorialised on a plaque in Bellrive, Tasmania.

Due to the limitations of the Search facility on this site if you have a common name this database will probably not be too useful for your purposes. If your ancestral names are less common you may find some surprises. It behoves us as genealogists to look under every possible rock.

A Second Cousin for Mr GeniAus

A few weeks ago we got a copy of a family history written in 2005 that included members of Mr GeniAus' Parkinson line. The common ancestors are William Henry Parkinson and Martha Jane Midgley. On reading the document we discovered that some of Mr GeniAus' previously unknown second cousins had emigrated to Australia from England in the seventies.

We were anxious to contact the female Parkinson descendant in Australia who wrote the history but the contact details we had for her were no longer relevant. She has a relatively common married name so searching for her in the White Pages brought up too many options, we need more than initials to identify her. We planned to check the Victorian Electoral Rolls  for her next week when we visit the National Library of Australia but then .... I started thinking.


Realising that this lady had a brother whose surname was less common than hers I did a Google search, a Facebook Search and a Linkedin search for  him. Bingo - combining the clues I got from these searches and comparing them to the info I had for him in my database and the written history I thought I had found a business 'phone number for this potential second cousin.

Mr GeniAus is not as shy as I am about cold calling people so he immediately got on the 'phone and told his story to the chap who started out hesitant but, after a few minutes, became quite keen. He was quite surprised to receive a call from an unknown second cousin here in Australia. He has taken our details to give to his sister, the genealogist in the family.

So the wait is on. I do hope we hear from her soon.

Twelve Tabs

When I settle in for a session of Australian research from home I open up a collection of tabs on my browser so that I can jump from one site to another with ease.

In case the above image is a bit small for you to see here are the pages I open up:

National Archives of Australia
The Ryerson Index search page
Trove
NSW BDM Family History Page
NSW BDM Birth Index Search
NSW BDM Marriage Index Search
NSW BDM Death Index Search
Familysearch
Ancestry
Findmypast
NSW State Records Indexes online
Google Australia

I am sure that many of my genimates have a similar setup.

Of course these are not the only resources I use but they are a good starting point. In the past few months I have been going through my database and checking the entries systematically (I still have a way to go). Having these tabs open is of great assistance.

I am wondering what your collection of tabs looks like.

Word Order Matters

Tonight as I was preparing my handout for tomorrow's presentation on Effective Google Searching I was reminded of this one minute Youtube video that I share with participants because it explains why Word Order Matters when performing Google searches much better than I can.

I thought some of you might find it useful it too.

Blog Archives - a Finding Tool

GeniAus' Blog Archive

PLEASE Geneabloggers include a Blog Archive as well as a Search Box on your blogs.

I have just spent some time trying to find a few old posts on another genie's blog that didn't have a Blog Archive Widget. In this case the Search Box on the blog couldn't find the four posts I was seeking. I could have also tried a Google Search but that probably wouldn't have helped me either. I did eventually locate the posts but it took me a lot of going backwards and forwards and too much time.

How about taking a look at your blog and, if it doesn't have one, add a Blog Archive Widget so that dummies like me who know you wrote a particular post but can't find it via your search facility can browse the archive and find it easily.

If you don't know how to add a widget you can learn how to add one in Blogger here: http://www.wikihow.com/Add-a-Widget-to-Blogger  or Wordpress here: https://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/