Postscript

What I like about blogging is that it provides a dynamic environment for one to write family stories.
This is so useful when further research or reading leads to new information and insights.

My most read blog post about my grandmother's first husband John Bertram Chatfield was published in 2011. Today I have added this postscript to the original post.

Postscript 29 May 2015

Since writing this post I have visited The National Archives at Kew and have procured a copy of John Bertram  "Bert" Chatfield's Naval Record.

John Bertram  "Bert" Chatfield joined the Royal Navy on 14 May 1907 and signed up for twelve years.  During his time in the navy he worked as a stoker on nine vessels and his conduct was described as Very Good to Fair.

Bert's record confirms that he deserted twice in Australia. On the first occasion in 1910 he was on the loose for six months. He was more successful when he ran in  Sydney on 11 September 2012.

A snip from Bert's Service record

His service record  gives a clue as to why he chose Cobar. Prior to enlistment Bert had worked as a banksman in a colliery; as Cobar was a mining town he would have been able to find work there.

Having now read about Bullecourt in Les Carlyon's The Great War I have an understanding of the events at Bullecourt on May 3rd and realise why Bert's remains have not been found.

It is frustrating to fins that some of the links in my original post are now dead. I have amended these and they are live at this date.

State Records NSW Open Day

If an organisation is only as good as the people that  work there then State Records NSW must be a mighty good organisation. I was so impressed with all of the staff members I came in contact with at their Open Day yesterday at the Western Sydney Records Centre. Their dispositions were as sunny as the weather that greeted us at Kingswood. Congratulations to all who contributed to the success of this day.

Registration area

Registration package

On arrival visitors were directed to a registration area in the grounds where we collected a folder containing our personalised program for the day, tickets for talks and tours and a a voucher for a free sausage sizzle.


Although there were tours, workshops and seminars I opted to attend the five seminars on offer. Christine Yeats,State Records NSW public access manager,was the MC in the seminar room ensured that all ran smoothly there.

Gail Davis and Fabian LoSchiavo

The first talk "Treasures of the Archives" by Gail Davis and Fabian LoSchiavo from the City Reading Rooms who were dressed in period costume gave an introduction to the archives' collection with reference to some of the treasures held there.Gail told us that "a treasure is something that:

• documents the history of the state,the country, your local area
• brings you closer to the lives, events and times of the past
• is unexpected or a surprise, particularly when you are doing research
• has value because it is collectable
• has to be protected and looked after (insured?)
• documents your own history"

Caroline Ford - Sydney Beaches

The second session was "a User's view of the Archives" in which two presenters related how they had used the archives to gain information for projects. I found the first talk by Caroline Ford more interesting because it was relevant to me, she spoke of Bronte and Maroubra  Beaches where I had lived, Bondi Pavilion where I had worked when it contained Waverley Library's workrooms and Coogee Beach where I spent many summer days as a teenager. Caroline will be publishing a book as a result of her work, that's another title to add to my Christmas list. The second speaker, Nicky, described how she had used archive material  to provide information for the Underbelly television program. The lady sitting near me and I agreed that wewould have liked to hear more about the Archives' materials and see less of the Underbelly film clips.

Directly after lunch the seminar topic was "Old records, new ways – Researching the digital era". In the first half of this session two gentleman discussed NSW historical land records available online from www.lpi.gov.au. Unfortunately due to time constraints they were not able to fully explore their topic.

Richard Lehane then shared the wonderful news that the clunky Archives Investigator at State Records is to be replaced by a new search tool http://api.records.nsw.gov.au/ that appears to be more intuitive and user-friendly then poor old investigator. This tool has a simple search interface into which one types a search term. A list of results appears in three columns the middle of which contains the results while he left and right columns show filters that one can apply to the results.. In a quick trial of the tool last night I found a number of references to family documents that I have not been able to find previously. Another trip to Kingswood is on the cards.

Martyn Killion

In "Family History - Online Resources" we met two lively and engaging speakers who both gave handouts (gold star). Christine Yeats gave an overview of the online resources available from State Records.  Martyn Killion then shared his "10 websites you can't live without" for Genealogy on the Internet. As it's hard to choose 10 Martin immediately added an 11th. I would probably have omitted one of his sites and replaced it with Familysearch. Both of these speakers gave information that would be very useful to the novice family historian.

Anthea Brown and Fiona Sullivan provided us with a ten page handout for which they get a gold star (but couldn't you have cut the white space,saved a few trees and condensed this girls?) for "Dating old photos". They will be providing a link to a .pdf version of this on the Archives Outside Blog. I enjoyed their presentation in which they showed a series of old photos  and showed us how to look for clues from number plates, signs and clothing to date them. I am most impressed on how State Records uses Social Media to connect with the world.

Mick Reid and Bill Oates

I was blown away by content of the talk by Mick Reid and Bill Oates from the University of New England because what they were discussing was news to me. Bill, the archivist at the University, and his mate Mick, an academic, have collaborated to date photos in the collection by studying shadows in the photos. It sounded like hocus-pocus to me but after seeing their demonstration I realised that there was a strong scientific basis to the work. The book which Mick uses contains software with a spreadsheet into one which one enters data about the photo under investigation. The book by physicist Colleen Fitzpatrick is The Dead Horse Investigation is available for purchase online.

I ran into a some Genimates at  the Open Day but missed out on catching up with others.. I was particularly pleased to catch up with Cassie Mercer from Inside History Magazine, Brad Argent from Ancestry and Martyn Killion from SAG but only managed to wave to Allan Murrin from the Botany Bay Family History Society.

Thanks once again to all of the people at State Records for a super day.

A new approach to tagging

I have written before that I am a Tag Queen, this penchant for tagging is not restricted to my photo collection. I also tag my collection of links on Delicious, my books on Librarything, my resources on Zotero and my blog posts.

Until recently I had all of the tags (labels in Blogger) for this blog listed  in a Gadget at the bottom of my blog template. I had been dissatisfied with this arrangement for a while and created a separate blogger page to display my tags but I just haven't been able to get the html code right to have my tags display on the Blog Topics Page. The untidiness of the huge list of tags on my template has continued to disturb me.

Other geneabloggers have a number of blogs for different topics but I find it more convenient to keep most of my posts in one blog. I therefore need to make it easy for readers to identify posts of interest to them from within my blog.

General Blog Tags

I will continue to add specific tags to all my posts but I have created a more general set of around 10-12 tags that I will display in the Tags Gadget that I have moved to the menu on the Right Hand Side of my blog template.  Having reflected on my blog I will use these general labels: Android, Australia, Blogging, Events, Genealogists, History, Libraries, Resources, Rootstech, Social Media, Societies, Technology. Hopefully these will give an indication of my posts' content.

In the future I will try to add general tags to all posts and, if time permits, will retrospectively tag older posts.

SNGF: Genealogy Database Statistics

Randy Seaver in SGNF (Saturday Night Genealogy Fun) has issued this challenge: 

1)  If you have your family tree research in a Genealogy Management Program (GMP), whether a computer software program or an online family tree, figure out how to find how many persons, places, sources, etc. are in your database.

2)  Tell us which GMP you use, and how many persons, places, sources, etc. are in your database(s) today.

I don't often take part in Randy's Saturday Night challenges as, they appear on a Sunday in Australia - a day on which I am usually involved with our living family. Today, however, I attended a work function with Mr Geniaus so the family are not around. Hence I have an opportunity to join the fun.

My desktop GMP is TMG (The Master Genealogist) and for publishing my tree to the web I use TNG (The Next Generation of Genealogy Software) by Darrin Lythgoe.

TMG produced a Statistical Report that gave lots of information, I will not copy that here. The Project Information Report gave a summary of database information but interestingly does not give a gender breakdown.

                            Project Information

Data Type                 Records   Avg/Per      Size     Date         

People                     8473       -       2564833    5 Oct 2011

Names                     11439        1.4   10813225    5 Oct 2011

Witnesses                 18183        2.1    2003081    5 Oct 2011

Events                    15391        1.8    3488480    5 Oct 2011

Places                     2656        0.3     117463    5 Oct 2011

Relationships             11087        1.3     723123    5 Oct 2011

Citations                 12655        1.5    1027845    5 Oct 2011

Sources                     125        0.0      38090    29 Sep 2011

Repository Links              0        0.0        488    21 Aug 2011

Repositories                  0        0.0        616    21 Aug 2011

Exhibits                      0        0.0       1775    21 Aug 2011

Research Tasks               47        0.0      20338    21 Aug 2011

Timeline Locks                0        0.0        424    21 Aug 2011

Tag Types                   125       -         23082    21 Aug 2011

Source Elements             160       -         14217    21 Aug 2011

Printed on: 9 Oct 2011

I  prefer the report from my family site produced by TNG. The two reports differ as I haven't uploaded my gedcom file to TNG since September 29, 2011.

I think I had better check on the dates for William Joseph Neely!

Tag Queen

Tina Lyons in a comment on Google+ today indicated that she was tagging her photos. I commented asking what software she used and a conversation ensued. After I had written a very long comment I thought "wow - here is something I can share in a blog post with other genies"...... 


Tina indicated that "I'm using Adobe Lightroom. I needed something that would add the metadata to all my photos. It's easy to do batches and allows me to easily compare photos and delete doubles. Picasa is great for tagging people, but I needed something more robust for the metadata." Adobe Lightroom, is a product with a $AU136.40 pricetag. Now I am a cheapie and use free apps wherever I can. 


I use the free Picasa software. I'm sure Picasa isn't as sophisticated as Lightroom but I'll share my story for other cheap amateurs like me who may be interested. One can add some metadata beyond names with Picasa, it also deals with duplicate images and allows for batch processing.


Picasa deals admirably with the 85,000+ images I have  stored on an external HDD. I had previously used Photoshop Elements for tagging but it crashed regularly. When my collection reached 30,000 I took the advice of photographer, Peter Simon, who was conducting a photography course on a Regent cruise and moved to Picasa. Eighteen months on I am pleased with that decision.

Picasa Tags attached to a Grave Marker

In Picasa I tag people, places (city, country, church, name of place), activity (dancing, swimming, etc), things (places of Worship, Museums,food, restaurants, ships, birds etc) and events by name and I add a year tag for those that are scanned images. All of this metadata appears to be available when I share photos or view them in other software. Basically I tag the who, what, where, and why for each photo. I have encouraged family members to use Picasa so that when photos are shared there is some descriptive information attached.

A word of warning - the facial recognition data doesn't seem to move with an image so I always add a tag with a person's name - these do transfer.

Picasa will also "find duplicate images". This is a very handy tool for someone with as many pics as I have.

Picasa allows "batch editing to make the same edits to multiple photos at the same time". This is a very easy process and saves a lot of time. I use the batch tag to add a couple of generic tags like "London", "Wiggles Concert" or "Rootsech 2011" when I download the photos, I then go through the photos at a later date individually to attach more specific tags.


That Picasa now integrates with Google+ has given me another reason to use this tool. 


We all have different needs, backgrounds and budgets. How do you organise your photos to fit your situation?

Into the 21st Century with SAG

Thursday night, with Captain Heather Garnsey at the helm, I joined around 60 other members  of  SAG (The Society of Australian Genealogists) in SAG's first paid webinar for members. It is so good to see this organisation employing technology to reach out to members.

Thanks Heather for permission to post this image

Genealogists from a number of Australian States and rural and metropolitan areas in NSW joined Heather for the event. Instead of an hour's trip by car to get to SAG in the city I only had to spend a few minutes firing up the computer to get my fix of CGD. For members who live in rural areas getting to SAG for educational events is extremely difficult. Hopefully this initiative will snag a few new members for SAG.

I salute Heather on her competent management of the GoToWebinar software that is used for delivery. She did a great job drivng it while presenting her talk. As SAG are charging $10 for the webinar and, as they should be getting the software for a song (hope Aussie organisations get the great deals available to non-profit organisations in the US), perhaps they could afford to have another person online to support the presenter.

NSW Shipping Records Online was the topic for Heather's talk. Although introductory in nature I learnt a few new tricks from the talk that concentrated on online records at Ancestry.com.au and State Records of NSW.   Added to my todo list is to take a look at these records for the ancestors whose immigration details I found years ago - I should be able to find more details to flesh their profiles. After her formal presentation Heather responded to attendees questions.

Webinars are a wonderful way to present educational and information sessions via the web. I attend on average one per week, this week I have tuned into three. A list of webinars available to genealogists can be found at the Geneawebinars calendar. The SAG webinars are not listed on this site

Future SAG Webinars

It appears that SAG has at least one webinar a month scheduled for the future. Anyone is able to visit the SAG site to find details of these forthcoming educational offerings (scroll to bottom of page) but you will have to become a member to join in.

Christmas Newsletters - Trash or Treasure?

As we will be overseas before Christmas I am thinking of what I can do so that when I return, on December 23rd, I will be prepared for the Yuletide festivities. I write an annual Christmas letter (never more than one A4 page) so I can make a start on that. Elderly aunts and old neighbours tell me that they enjoy reading it each year

I just spotted this post in an online forum "Does anybody get those annoying Christmas letters EVERY YEAR EVERY DETAIL of the families history???...I dont even read them anymore I just trash them."


Trash them? As the writer unwittingly said they contain details of a family's history.They are precious resources for future generations Sure people brag about how clever their kids are but they also convey news of hatches, matches and dispatches and other family milestones. There is no way I would trash these epistles that give a potted (but often skewed towards the positive) history of a family's events during that year.


For those newsletters that come from  family I record the details of births, deaths and marriages that I glean from them in my genealogy database. I then file them in my family history files in the author's file. I have  over ten years of newsletters from one cousin's family that when read sequentially tell a beautiful story, warts and all. She is not into genealogy but one day her descendants may be; there may be nowhere else that this story is recorded for these youngsters. I am pleased that I can curate this collection for the future.

Do you send out a Christmas letter? Do you enjoy reading them? Are they trash or treasure?

It's Official, I'm Official

A first invitation is always sweet but to be invited to a party or to participate at any other event a second time implies acceptance.

I was an Official Blogger at the initial Rootstech Conference. I was thrilled when I received an email from Paul Nauta, from RootsTech Public Affairs and Familysearch inviting me to be an Official Blogger at the 2012 Rootstech Conference. I am pleased on a number of levels.


I had booked my flights to Rootstech a couple of months ago so I was going along even if I didn't have a role other then attendee. I was over the moon when I heard a few weeks ago that I would be presenting at the conference. The blogging invitation, that I accepted with glee, is icing on the cake. 


I will have an opportunity to share experiences of  my journey to Salt Lake City with my blog audience and, hopefully, give those who are not able to make it to Rootstech 2012 a glimpse into the excitement of the conference and an introduction to the people I meet. I am committed to the focus of Rootstech in bringing technology and genealogy together. 


In 2011 all of the Official Bloggers except for me came from the Northern Hemisphere. As the Australian member of this group I tried to promote genealogists and genealogy resources and activities from downunder. My blog posts views increased in February 2011 with many visits from North America, I presume this will happen again. As the Bloggers page is not yet live I don't know who will be my Fellow Official Bloggers in 2012 - I'll just have to wait and see.


Being an Official Blogger has some perks. I hope there's an upfront seat t the opening keynote again. One gets Free Registration to the conference, not such a big deal when the earlybird registration is only $US129 (expires Nov 30).   I'll also have somewhere to stow my bag and a table and wired internet access to use to write blog posts, although with all the chatter and networking that happens a quiet hotel room is a better spot for writing. Once again I will have to provide my own wireless access for tweeting during presentations. I will probably also get a couple of invitations to breakfasts, dinners, briefings and the like that will enable me to chat with luminaries from the genealogy world.


More importantly one has access to dedicated spaces in the RootsTech Media Hub for conducting audio interviews and podcasts. As a newbie in 2011 I did not make use of this facility. Now I know the ropes I will be making online reservations for interview rooms so that I can interview genealogy bods who are at the conference. I would love to hear who you would like me to interview and what you would like me to ask them. How privileged I am to have this opportunity to get such fantastic content for my blog.


The updated Rootstech website states"Bloggers with significant followings who post up-to-date information about technology and genealogy news and events were selected as Official RootsTech Bloggers." I thank the Rootstech organisers for including me in this list and look forward to discharging my role honourably.

The Kettles at Ku-ring-gai

Peter and Pauline Kettle were the guest speakers at Saturday's monthly meeting of The Family History Group of the Ku-ring-gai Historical Society.

The following details were published in the September KHS newsletter.

" Peter has been a long time member of the Sydney Dead Person’s Society,  prior to the beginnings of the Ryerson
Index in October 1998.  Once the Index became established, a Committee was formed and he became Vice President of the RI with John Graham at the helm as President.  Peter took over from John Graham as coordinator of the DPS in Sydney when John moved to Queensland and meetings now
take place at Mowll Village."

"Pauline was born in North Middlesex and lived there until 1961.  She left England for Australia with Peter and family in 1968.  She and her husband have had a shared interest in genealogy for many years.  Like her husband she is a member of the Sydney DPS and is very involved with that group as well as being Secretary of the Ryerson Index."

Peter gave a lengthy talk on The Ryerson Index in the morning session of the meeting. Although most of the audience were users of the index many of us were unaware of the history of the index and the roles of the people who maintain the index. I took considerable notes from Peter's presentation that I hope to publish in a forthcoming blog post.

After repairing to the Swiss Deli for sustenance with blogger, Jenny  I returned for the meeting proper that was chaired by Family History Leader, Jo Harris. Once done with the business of the day Jo introduced Pauline Kettle who read her paper on "Workhouses of England". As there is one ancestor in my tree who died in a workhouse in Dorchester, Dorset I was interested in the content of Pauline's talk and will be looking at the internet sites she referenced in her handout. Most promising of these is The Workhouse site.

The Society has an excellent program of talks and events. While there on Saturday I registered for "Sahibs, Nabobs and Boxwallahs–Europeans in India, 1600–1947" with Sylvia Murphy, "Familysearch.org" with SAG vice-president, Vicki Eldridge  and an Irish Day with Terry Eakin. Visitors are welcomed at these events. For further details contact the Society.

Family history research - Crookwell Gazette

SAG is going to Goulburn

Family history research - Local News - News - General - Crookwell Gazette

Postscript: I had intended this for the GeniAusEvents blog but selected the wrong optin to post. Now that it's here it may as well stay.

If you're at a loose end....

...don't forget to check out the Google calendar of events on GeniAusEvents.  This week's listing includes events in ACT, NSW, Qld and Vic. plus links to the calendars of :

• Australian Institute of Genealogical Studies Inc
• Genealogical Society of Queensland
• Genealogical Society of the Northern Territory
• Genealogical Society of Victoria Inc
• Geneawebinars
• Heraldry & Genealogy Society of Canberra Inc.
• Society of Australian Genealogists
• South Australian Genealogy & Heraldry Society Inc
• Tasmanian Family History Society Inc
• Unlock the Past
• Western Australian Genealogical Society Inc.

GeniAusEvents is a one stop shop for your CGD . To keep abreast of happenings one can subscribe via RSS or opt for email alerts.

Addicted to the Tablet

When I got to the supermarket this morning I realised I hadn't taken my tablet with me - PANIC.

It wasn't that I had forgotten to take my medication that was troubling me, it was that I didn't have my Galaxy Tab in my handbag. If I had a sudden urge for information or needed to seek a solution to a problem I wouldn't have my tablet to help me and would have to resort to using the tiny screen and keyboard on my mobile 'phone.

It seems that each day I find a new use or discover a new app for my Tablet. Since it's nearly four weeks since my last post about the tab,  Genealogy True Confessions: I take the tablet to bed , I thought it time to report on it once more. I was also prompted by a comment on that last post this morning from Caroline Gurney.

I have found that notetaking at genealogy events on the Tab is quite easy. I can easily rest the tab in the palm of one hand and, using a one-finger method, type decent notes. I suspect that this would be difficult with a larger 10" tab, the 7' format of my smaller unit makes this possible. Early on I made a booboo and used the Tab's  Memo app for notetaking but, on returning home, found it difficult to transfer the notes to another format. It can be done but not with ease.  Next I tried using the Google Docs app to take notes and this worked well. I then hit a venue where the reception was patchy and I could not connect to open a new Google Doc.

In bed that evening I decided to go to the Android Marketplace to see what I could find. I downloaded a couple of note-taking apps but wasn't happy with them then I found GDocs Note, a simple app that can be used to record notes without an internet connection. When connected it syncs all notes to a single Google Docs folder. I have used this at two locations (where I did have a connection and was able to syc on the go),  it is simple, basic and perfect for my needs. The ability to sync when connected allows one to have a backed up file.

At a non-genealogy function the other day someone expressed an interest in one line on my family  tree. I was able to whip the Tab out of my handbag, connect to the family site and seek the desired information.  My camera was missing from my handbag when I wanted to snap a photo of Joyce Ryerson for a blog post. The photo I was able to take on the Tab in difficult light was quite acceptable for a blog post.

Some other savvy shoppers, Shelley from Twigs of Yore, Tanya Honey from My Genealogy Adventure and  one of my daughters have also become Galaxy Girls. I'm hoping these youngsters will teach me a few more tricks to do with my toy.

eBay has been a source of some super treasures for me. The eBay app that I have downloaded to the Tab allows me to find and bid on genealogy books and other bits wherever I am. If someone recommends a book in a meeting I can quickly see if there is one available on eBay. I can't say that Mr Geniaus is pleased that I now have even more ready access to more great buys.

If I am in a library or bookshop I can use the LibraryThing app to scan the barcode of a book I want to read or reference and add it straight to my LibraryThing Collection. When I am reading a document that quotes measurements in feet, inches and furlongs I use the ConvertUnits app to convert measurements to more meaningful metric.

I often come across a term, person or place I don't know. The Wikipedia app on my Tab gives me instant access to that 21st century reference tool.  If I don't get an answer there I can use the Firefox app to search the internet or the Gmail or Calendar app to write myself a reminder to chase up an answer.

Blogger, Hootsuite and AVG Antivirus are other apps that I have recently installed but  am yet to explore. I am a fan of the Tweetcaster app for tweeting. I like the free Voice Recorder app that I downloaded and may find it useful in an emergency. However if I use this at an event I will be preculded from notetaking so I will continue to use my digital voice recorder for this purpose.

I really can get by without my Tab but having it at hand makes life a whole lot easier.

Geniaus in your pocket

Geniaus Mobile Template

Geniaus has gone mobile. No more should you have to squint and scroll to see the Geniaus blog on your mobile device.

I'm pleased that I selected the Blogger Designer templates for my blogs, Geniaus, GeniAusEvents and GeniMates because Blogger has released mobile-optimized versions of them.

I have set the options for my blogs to use the mboile templates on mobile devices and Blogger Buzz says this morning states "If you are using one of these templates, when you enable the mobile template option your blog will begin rendering using the mobile version of the same variant."

Well I have tried to look at Geniaus on my Windows Smartphone and Galaxy Tab this morning  and they are displaying the normal template.

Have I done something wrong or are there teething problems with these new templates?

PS.  I was just too quick with my test. I have gone back to my tablet and it is now displaying my three blogs in their mobile templates.

Cardboard Cutouts or Real People?

My commitment to CGD is sending me along to quite a few genealogy events where I am able to hear a range of very knowledgeable speakers present on their areas of interest or expertise.

This morning I read a post by Anne Roach where she described her use of auto-tweeting to add an element of interactivity to a recent conference presentation . Anne reminded me that "Benjamin Franklin allegedly said, “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." When I was teaching I always tried to involve the kids because I believed that children learn by doing; so do adults.

When I attend some genealogy events I wonder if some presenters recognise that they are speaking to real people because they may as well be speaking to cardboard cutouts. I may be old, gray and stiff but I am not made of cardboard.

Is it because presenters draw on their experience of classrooms and universities of the sixties, where the teacher was the 'sage on the stage' and students had to shut up and listen? Education in schools and tertiary institutions has moved on from a time when learners were seen as empty vessels to be filled; it is now commonly recognised that, by involving the learner, a richer learning experience will ensue.

It is daunting to have to get up and speak to a group of strangers; it can be annoying if they continually interrupt with questions and comments and disrupt one's train of thought.  However, we as speakers, have a responsibility to our audience. We should not just tell them what we want them to know we should also try to satisfy their thirst for knowledge or information.

HINT 1: At the outset Ask a few of the attendees: Why are you here? or What do you hope to get out of today's presentation?" 

HINT 2: If it's a small group or an all day seminar invest a few minutes in finding out something about each person in the group. 
 
You will then have some information to help tailor the presentation to audience needs.


HINT 3: If a question is not of interest to the whole group offer to answer it at the end.

HINT 4: Always take a question - if is too complex to be answered immediately put it on a 'parking lot' list to be answered at the end of the presentation.

When faced with a diverse audience recognise that some people in the group may know more about some aspects of the talk than you do. Their contributions can break up the tedium of your talk.


HINT 3 : Graciously accept their contributions and involve them in your discussion. Never put them down.


There has been much written about levels of concentration and how long people can sit still and listen. Once asked what I did all day at school I said "I daydreamed."  Victims of "chalk and talk" type presentations are prone to drift off and may miss important aspects of your talk.


HINT 4: Pepper your talk with questions. Pose a question or problem and give the attendees a minute or two to discuss it with their neighbour. Ask a few to share their thoughts.


HINT 5: For longer sessions set some individual or group exercises.

Just as I love the collaborative aspect of blogging where reading Anne's post caused me to think, comment on her post and compelled me to write this post I recognise the collaborative nature of learning.

Please, genealogy presenters, recognise that learning is a collaborative exercise. Involve your students. You can learn from your them and give them and yourselves a richer learning experience. 

Beginning Family History - Castle Hill Branch - The Hills Shire Library Service

Ian Beckett, a retired detective and Castle Hill Library volunteer, who was the presenter at this event opened his talk by posing a few questions to the audience. After which he looked at me and said "What are you doing here?"

My retort was "You can always learn something" and I did learn a few things and was reminded of others.

I will once again use the PMI format to report on this event.

Plus

* The Hills Council isoffering free events about family history/genealogy to the community.

* Eventbrite is used to organise event registration and ticketing.
* Comfortable venue with comfy chairs.

* A staff member, Tony, was on hand to direct visitors to the lecture room. He also introduced the speaker and audience.

* The talk was correctly labelled as for beginners.

* Ian used anecdotes to embellish his talk.

* Ian spoke off the cuff with some reference to a printed outline.

* Ian had handouts for the audience.

* Ian gave this sound advice:

• Get a filing system (Ian described his personal system)
• Start with yourself 
• Next talk to grandparents, aunts, etc to build a picture of your relatives
• Gather Birth, death and marriage certificates
• Pick the male line to start with as that name should be consistent
• Think outside the box for names you can't find

* Ian offered to assist attendees with their research.
* An evaluation form (with pencil) was provided for attendees to complete.

Minus

* The outline for the talk and points to be covered was not initially shared with the audience. 

* Apart from a very short demo of the NSW Historical BDM indexes Ian did not use any visual aids, demonstrations or artefacts in his talk. 

* Ian suggested starting with a 4 generation paper chart and then progressing to a computer program. 

* Some of the resources mentioned were incorrectly cited.

Interesting

* If we go back 21 generations we will have one million ancestors.

* That the audience was directed to other libraries eg Hornsby and Windsor to use the Ancestry Database and for the magazine "Practical Family History" to Hornsby Library. Perhaps it is time for The Hills to organise subscriptions. 

* Ian suggested we open bank account with a small balance for online purchases.

* Ian suggested using the City of Sydney Assessment Books 1845 - 1950 to find inner city residents.

* Most audience members were from the 50+ age group.

* A large proportion of the audience displayed a lack of knowledge about computers generally but a willingness to learn about using technology for genealogy.
* Used my Galaxy tablet to take notes in Google docs. - worked well.

Resources
The resources Ian suggested using were:

• Google
• Genuki
• State Records of NSW
• The Ryerson Index
• Trove
• Ancestry
• IGI (Familysearch)
• Coraweb (Websites for Genealogists)
• Genealogy Message Boards 
• Cyndi's List
• Ancestral trails a book by Mark Herber
•  (Who do you think you are?) Nick Barratt Encyclopaedia of Genealogy

Places Ian suggested visiting were:

• Parramatta Heritage Centre
• Cemeteries
• LDS at North Parramatta
• Hornsby Library
• Windsor Library

I must be crazy....

I launched another blog today, GeniAusEvents. This blog is mainly for Aussie bloggers but would be of interest to people travelling from overseas who want to attend some genealogy events in Australia.

Here is part of what I had to say in my first post:

"This morning I was reflecting on a post I made on May 3, Elusive Events, in which I wrote "I dream of an online calendar that lists all events that may be suitable for budding and experienced  Australian genealogists. Something based on the Geneawebinars Blog would seem to fit the bill...but who will take responsibility for such a resource?"

That post attracted a number of comments one of which from  Elizabeth O'Neal said..."The only way to find out is to give it a try". I also thank Judy Webster who gave some useful tips in a comment on that Elusive Events post, as I get going  I will  employ these.

I set up a blog, GeniAusEvents and let it rest. This morning when I was fiddling with my Google calendars I thought I may as well give it a go. So I set up GeniAusEvents Google calendar, added a couple of events and pasted the code at the bottom of my template. The calendar will be visible at the bottom of each page of this blog. Hey presto, another blog is born.

I am not promising that this will be a comprehensive list but, as I monitor quite a few mailing lists, blogs and twitter I hear about a number of things that may be of use.

The focus of this blog will be events of interest to Australian Genealogists including conferences, excursions, family reunions, lectures, open days and seminars. This is by no means a comprehensive list but a listing of events that I come across on my genealogical journey. As I live in NSW it may have a bias towards that state.