A Few Days in the Geneacave

 My focus recently has been on living family. The twelve grandchildren have been on school and university holidays so we have been spending time at the beach, playing games, having too much fast food and reminiscing with them. One granddaughter introduced me to the Duolingo App for French, we had so many giggles as I progressed through the first few levels. I am continuing with this just a few minutes a day. It's amazing how much I remember of my schoolgirl French from over 50 years ago.

Family Fun

After a busy weekend we find ourselves with a relatively quiet week. 

I have retreated to my geneacave to catch up on several commitments on my list. I am feeling rather virtuous as I am avoiding temptation and sticking to those things I must do. 

Yesterday I tried to catch up on emails and messages on social media. If I have failed to respond to you, please give me a gentle reminder.

I am preparing a presentation on my ancestor Elizabeth Phipps for the Hawkesbury Family History Group. Yesterday I spent half a day going over research done years ago and checking databases to see if I could discover any new facts to add to her story. As I need to update my website on the internet I devoted time to looking at some of Elizabeth's hundreds of descendants and finding dates and sources for their entries. I found several new third and fourth cousins to add to my database.

Today I have written my weekly blog post for our Local Family History Group at Lake Macquarie and followed that up with three short articles for their quarterly journal. I must admit that I cheated a bit and repurposed and updated a few posts from the GeniAus blog for the journal. I have so much material on this blog that it's a shame to let it languish in the archives.

I also need to write the January newsletter for the Lake Mac Group but needed a change of focus.

My next task was to think of The SAG and its Hang Out for members on Friday this week. I prepared an image using Canva for promotion of this regular members only event. Canva makes it so easy to create images that look reasonable.

Fuelled with a coffee (thanks Mr GeniAus) I am readyto prepost some comments to the prompts for tonights #ANZAncestryTime session using Tweetdeck.  With my poor keyboarding skills I find it less stressful to join the conversation early, then I can focus on responding to others' posts.

Last task of the day will be to take a look at a guest blog post about Librarything that I am preparing for a genealogy society.

My day will end with a dinner with one of our daughters. Waiting for me when she goes home is an interesting book, Joan makes history by Kate Greville. 

Aussie Images

As I cast around for images to use on my blogs and in presentations I want to respect copyright.

State Records NSW recently posted on Facebook some images  from the series NRS 15051 School photos. Of course I followed their link and  found some charming old images of  schools my parents attended.  I then did a further search for some family related towns and localities via The Photo Investigator Search and found a load of images that would enhance my writing.

When I saw the note "Reproduction rights: State Records NSW"  on the images I thought "Oh, bother" I can't use them legally.  Then I noticed at the bottom of the pages a Menu item "Copyright". I am so pleased that I followed the link.

I'm no lawyer but after reading their Copyright statement I believe I can use the above mentioned images if I append the description required by State Records NSW ie "© State of New South Wales through the State Records Authority of NSW".

You can read the Copyright Statement for yourself here http://www.records.nsw.gov.au/about-us/copyright-policy.

I am enhancing this post with a photo from the collection. I chose it because it is of a family group  in a rural setting going to school in 1929 and that is how my father and his siblings travelled to school at Bangaroo about that time. It would be perfect to illustrate a post about the Curry Children's school days.

This photo is described thus on the website:

Burdett Public School - members of Sid Nash family leave for school

Digital ID:	15051_a047_002044.jpg		Date:	c. 31/12/1929
Format:	Black and white photograph		Size:	160 KB
Source:	Item held at State Records NSW		Rights:	Reproduction rights: State Records NSW

© State of New South Wales through the State Records Authority of NSW

A New Gig for GeniAus

Not long after it was launched in November 2014 I joined The Surname Society, an online organisation, and soon afterwards registered my CurryAus surname study with them. 

A few weeks ago I was approached by a Committee Member of the Society asking me if I would write " a regular column in our quarterly newsletter", The Surname Scribbler. Naturally I was thrilled to be asked so replied in the affirmative without hesitation. 

As the deadline for the 3rd issue of the Surname Scribbler approaches I am wondering what I have done. Having perused the first two issues of the newsletter (that's a perk of membership) I realise that I am in exalted company, the articles in the first two issues have been well researched and referenced. I anticipate that my column will be on the lighter side, I'll write about my geneajaunts, the geneaevents I attend, the genimates I meet and perhaps share details of my surname study blunders. 

Thanks to the Surname Society Committee for their invitation, I look forward to having a small role in this 21st Century Society.

You can join me in the Society for just £GBP5 per annum - you don't have to register a surname (but there's lots of help and no pressure if you do) and you will get four issues of The Surname Scribbler each year.

And now to write.....

Writing Family Histories at Hornsby

The next genealogy talk at my local library at Hornsby will be presented by author, Carol Baxter. Those who have attended Carol's previous talks around Australia will know that she is a lively, vivacious and knowledgeable presenter. In this talk on March 19th Carol will you how to turn dry facts into exciting narrative.

Thanks to Neil Chippendale, Local Studies Librarian at Hornsby for sharing details of this event.

Book online http://www.hornsby.nsw.gov.au/library/activities-and-events/writing-interesting-family-histories or at any Hornsby Shire Library Branch.

A Feel Good Experience.

The most read post on my blog is one I wrote in 2011 "John Bertram Chatfield - Trans-Tasman ANZAC Day blog Challenge". I don't know why this is but maybe because it was about someone

My Grandmother, Ethel Jane Pusell

dear to my heart, my maternal grandmother and her first husband.

I was thrilled to receive an email from a Society today which in part said " I would like your permission to use your blog  (posted Monday Apr 22 re Anzac day challenge) for our members. The idea is to give reluctant writers a good story to read and discuss the format you used to write on John Bertram Chatfield as a guide for their own story. Last year some members attended a workshop on using the national library records to research their WW1 veteran and, I believe, some, including myself, need to write up their stories."

Of course I wrote back immediately, I am thrilled that something that I wrote might help others get involved in writing their family stories. 

It is so good to realise that my blogging efforts can help others.

Spreading the Word

Randy Seaver reminded us in his recent post that many genealogists are blissfully unaware of the geneablogging phenomenon.  In writing about his recent genealogy cruise Randy states
"Apparently, very few of the 170 or so genealogists and Legacy Family Tree software users have heard of Genea-Musings or of genealogy blogging in general.  This didn't really surprise me...I see it at genealogy society meetings and seminars too.  Many genealogists that use the Internet and use genealogy software do not read genealogy blogs." I share Randy's experience when I mingle in genealogy circles.

Of course this got me thinking. We geneablogging disciples love our blogs and we consistently share the reasons why in numerous blog posts on other social media but, if we wish to capture the interest of the genealogy community at large, we need to publish in the media that they read.

Randy Seaver and I meet up in The Family History Library pre Rootstech 2012

How long is it since you penned an article for a genealogy journal or a society newsletter expounding the virtues of geneablogging? Let's make a concerted effort to write something about geneablogging in some sort of print medium. We could make an offer in these articles
to talk to interested groups about geneablogging. I feel that I have done well if, after I give a talk to a group of 30-60 people, a few decide to follow some blogs and just one becomes a blogger.

As Randy says many people are interested to know what a blog is and why it would help them in their ancestor hunting. When I was teaching I believed in making use of the teachable moment, that is at the moment when someone expresses an interest. Let's make an effort to use those teachable moments when someone says "What is a blog?" to ask if they've got a few minutes and sit down and give a short demonstration and explanation on the spot.

How are you going to share the joys of geneablogging?

Are you in on "The Book of Me, Written by You"?

Julie Goucher, an energetic and enthusiastic blogger from the UK has issued a challenge to bloggers around the world to take part in a fifteen month activity. Thomas MacEntee over at Geneabloggers is also giving this activity his support.

In her blog post on Saturday Julie wrote "Today is the launch of what is going to be a 15 month project. Each Saturday, at around 12.30am UK time I will release the prompt for that week's Book of Me, Written by You.

If you are new here, welcome! The details, background flyer and Face Book link to the Book of Me can be found HERE."

As an advocate for creating future family history this activity has great appeal for me. I have created a blog for My Book of Me and I've joined in the conversation at the Facebook Book of Me page. I am impressed and the number of people who are the participating and discussing this project. Many of them have already posted on their blogs responses to the first week's prompt: 

"Ask yourself 20 times “Who are you?”

Each time you should give yourself a different answer, and if you can easily go beyond 20 then that is fine too. The last time I did this (December 2012) I came up with 26. This is the sort of prompt that you can re do at various stages of your life, perhaps after some changes or at the start of the New Year.

This prompt is about how YOU see YOU."

I am still trying to decide on whether I will publish my answers or keep them private. Interestingly one of the descriptors I included is "I am a procrastinator". I am also still evaluating my responses as I like to give due consideration to what I write; another of my descriptors is "I am a thinker".

Just yesterday the benefits of relating my family history was evidenced when a reading of  my Father's Day post elicited tears from one of my offspring. It is so important to record our stories for future generations.

Fifteen months is a long time but I am committed to this worthwhile activity. Will you be joining me?

When one isn't enough...

Lovely little light laptop

While Mr Geniaus is out working I am taking advantage of our trip to the country to have a writing day
but I am a little frustrated.

I am working on two projects, a World War 1 Writing Project for a local historical society and a book on another topic. You see I don't like printing off the papers I need to refer to as I write. I am using Dropbox for the World War 1 project bits and pieces and a combination of Evernote and Google Drive for the book.

When I do work like this at home I work with two computers; the big one for reading the resources I have gathered and the small one for writing. I can bring up my reference documents on the research computer and craft my articles on the writing one, when I need to do a bit of copying and pasting I can look up the odd thing on my writing computer. I find that I rarely need to print out a document. When next I sport myself a new tech toy it will be a giant monitor that will allow me to view multiple documents all at once.

The book writing process is progressing okay as I have a outline of what I am writing and I don't have to refer to other sources too often but for the more urgent task of the biographies I need to constantly refer to the resources in different formats that I have gathered in Dropbox for the dates and facts I need to include. Jumping around to view these bits on my little Windows 8 laptop is giving me a headache. If I had access to a printer in this motel I would be hotfooting it downstairs to print off all the stuff in Dropbox and help kill off a few trees.

I tried to travel light but one little laptop just isn't enough for me.

Dragging out the Dragon

My copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking voice recognition software, version 11, is now nearly two years old. I haven't used Dragon much since I last reported on it because I basically forgot about it but I should reacquaint myself as I have a book to write and my keyboarding skills are not improving.

I don't know if it's because I have a new Logitech H390 USB headset but the Dragon behaved spectacularly well last night when I used it for My Big Day Out blog post. After the great results I got I will persevere as I am sure that with the Dragon's help my writing task will be made easier.

The Dr Rex Stubbs OAM Memorial Annual Scholarship

I snipped this from the latest eNewsletter of The Royal Australian Historical Society. I'm wondering if I should apply.

---------------

Entries are now open for the Dr Rex Stubbs OAM Memorial Annual Scholarship. To enter, write why you would like to attend the Royal Australian Historical Society (RAHS) state conference and gain a two year membership to RAHS. Using any media, express why the history of the Hawkesbury is important to you, or why an aspect of Hawkesbury¹s history is of interest to you. This may be done in writing, by an artwork or in a digital presentation. Entries close on Saturday, 31 August 2013. The Royal Australian Historical Society state conference will be held at Katoomba during 2-3 November 2013. The theme of the conference is ³The Great Divide: Getting there from here², examining place and landscape; museum collections; new family history resources; and commemorating the past. The scholarship is available to residents of the Hawkesbury Local Government Area (LGA), members of historical groups from within the LGA as well as Council¹s Cultural Services (Museum, Gallery and Library) volunteers. Further details and an entry form can be downloaded from Council¹s website here. Alternatively, brochures with all details and an entry form may be picked up from Council¹s Administration Building; Hawkesbury Central Library, Windsor; Richmond Branch Library; Hawkesbury Regional Museum; Hawkesbury Regional Gallery or the Hawkesbury Visitor Information Centre. Please contact Hawkesbury Central Library on (02) 4560 4460 if you wish to have a brochure posted or emailed to you.

Hazel in Canberra

When I worked in libraries one of my favourite Australian children's authors was Hazel Edwards not just for her great picture books but for her engaging personality and the wonderful stories she shared when addressing groups of adults and children.

Hazel also has an interest in Family History and has written a popular book "Writing a non-boring family history". Whenever Hazel travels to Sydney to give a workshop it seems that I am not around so I was excited to see that she is to be giving a workshop on September 20 at the Family History Fair that precedes the 29th Annual Conference of the NSW & ACT Association of Family History Societies in Canberra.

The Conference blog tells us that places for this workshop are limited, I am so glad that I have booked and confirmed my place.

I'm looking forward to my date with Hazel. Conference attendees can find details here:

Write a non-boring family history with Hazel Edwards – Conference 2013

Packed in like sardines

When the small seminar room at Mosman Library was nearly full yesterday morning I heard someone behind me say "We're packed in like sardines."

People continued to pile in to the room for Carol Fox's talk "Writing your life story". A lady sat on the floor beside me and a few stood in the hallway. The helpful library staff rustled up a few extra chairs for the overflow. There is a booking and ticketing system for the Mosman events  presumably so that once all seats are allocated no more bookings are taken. No-one appeared to check off names as people arrived for this popular event. That the room was over full and there were chairs set up in the hallway blocking egress created a safety hazard. The venue for this event was totally unsuitable. 

If  the numbers at these events can't be limited and if demand exceeds  the space available the nice people at Mosman need to think about another space. I have previously attended Mosman events that were held  in the Local Studies room; while using this would have inconvenienced the one or two users of that area it would have served more people by being used for the seminar. Perhaps the Council has another space outside of the library that the library can use for its events, perhaps the Council Chamber might be available for these events.

In spite of my safety concerns (I was first to arrive so got a seat close to the door) I enjoyed the seminar and thank the Mosman Library people responsible for organising it. Carol is the fourth speaker I have heard on this topic but as each presenter has taken a different approach to the topic I heard some new ideas yesterday.

Carol reminded us that "There is no right way" to do this. She suggested that we "just get it down" and  emphasized that " this is your story you can write whatever you like". 

During her talk the vibrant Carol read excerpts from a number of self-published family stories to illustrate the different approaches that can be taken to the writing task. She shared details of many resources that have been written on the subject including  one she particularly likes by Michael Oke "Write your life story". An Australian title she recommended was Remember when by John Hockney.

As a practical exercise Carol suggested we construct a personal timeline of events from our lives and 
start writing from anywhere on timeline. To make the initial writing easier she suggested we start with the easiest topic or a happy event.

As I enjoyed this event I will be keeping my eye out for announcements of further talks in the Monday Matters series.

A Feisty Female

Local Author, Laurie Chater Forth, was the guest speaker at yesterday's meeting of The Hawkesbury Family History Group. 


I was lukewarm about attending this talk as I hadn't heard of either Laurie or her book "Margaret Catchpole – Her Life and her Letters ". And, wow, did I get a surprise?

Laurie was a charming, knowledgeable and interesting speaker who, in a quiet way, demonstrated a passion for her topic "Life of Margaret Catchpole". 

Laurie indicated that she would not give a "chapter and verse" talk on the life of Catchpole as most people in the audience probably knew the story of her life. I had heard of Margaret Catchpole, convict, and in my life as a librarian had biographies of Catchpole on the shelves but my knowledge of this formidable woman was scant.

Lauire 

I learnt that Margaret Catchpole, a convict, nursed women and babies in the Hawkesbury area in the early 19th century, was a successsful farmer and the first reporter in the district through the reports in her eleven letters (copies of which are held in the State Library of NSW and the national Library of Australia.



Joining a Local Writing Group provided Laurie with the impetus to get writing.  Her journey with Margaret Catchpole started in 1999 with an article in Hawksbury Independent. Isolation separation loyalty identity crisis.


In her talk Laurie outlined the research she had undertaken as she sought an answer to the question "Who was Margaret Catchpole?"


There had been many books and articles written about Margaret Catchpole but, through her research, Laurie was able to prove that many of these accounts were erroneous. Laurie is hoping, in her book that she describes as "an easy read", to have given Margaret Catchpole back her genealogy."

What Laurie gave me was an entertaining and illuminating talk on research methods and the life of a feisty female.

Thank you, Laurie. I am looking forward to reading your book.

Geniaus in Print

Inside History Issue 7

Travelling down the freeway to the South Coast a number of weeks ago I was having a chat online via my android tablet with Cassie Mercer from Inside History magazine. I mentioned to her that I wouldn't mind writing for the magazine. Within the week  I got a message from Cassie asking me if I could write an article within a few days. Of course I could; I immediately set to tapping out some notes on my keyboard. As much as I love my android I don't have a plug-in keyboard for typing up long articles on it so always turn to my laptop for long writing assignments. I edited my 1800 words down to just under the required 1200 and emailed it off.

During my career as a teacher, librarian and IT guy I wrote many articles for journals and newsletters and when I was president of my professional association I seemed to be always writing. This new assignment was my first foray into the world of genealogy writing so I was understandably nervous.

I so enjoyed working with Cassie who kept me in the loop at all stages of the publishing process, provided lots of positive reinforcement and lavished me with praise once my task was completed. Since I bumped into Cassie last week at State Records Open Day and she told me that the magazine had been delivered to her I have been anxiously waiting its arrival in my mailbox. On Tuesday and Wednesday others tweeted that they had received their copies and I received messages from Twitter Pals that they had read my article.

Snippet from My Article

The Inside History magazine was waiting for me when I got home this afternoon. I was thrilled to see my article in print and was delighted to be published in the same edition as Hazel Edwards who was one of my heroes with her "Hippopotamus books" when I was a children's librarian. I have heard Hazel speak on a number of occasions and particularly enjoyed her Antarctic stories. If you ever meet her ask about her parcel collection experience.

I love my Android tablet and will be talking about it at the Rootstech 2012 Conference in Salt Lake City. Fellow genies Shelley from Canberra and Tanya from the North Coast have generously helped me with material for that presentation.

If you are an Android user or would like to know more about my Android Adventure I'd love to hear from you. Meanwhile, might I suggest that you visit your local library or newsagent and grab a copy of the Inside History magazine that is brimful of great reading. Here's a sneak peek.

Carol Preaches Active Voice

Carol busily signing bookss

If you want to go on a roller coaster ride and learn something at the same time Carol Baxter is the girl for you. A very lively presenter, Carol , who spoke at a hundred miles a minute, extolled the virtues of using active voice when "Writing Interesting Family Histories".

Around 40 people listened intently as the energetic Carol offered writing tips at Ku-ring-gai Historical Society's Family  History Group event yesterday. At $5 per head, including morning tea this event that was open to the public was great value.  Those who were cashed up could also purchase a copy of  Carol's book, "Writing Interesting Family Histories"  for $20. However, having read the book last night, I do not think it adds much to the copious notes I took in Carol's fast-paced talk.

The book would be a worthwhile purchase for anyone who cannot attend one of Carol's talks but her enthusiasm, personality, rich vocabulary and digressions from her printed notes made this a very enjoyable learning activity.

Among the things I must remember before I set fingers on the keyboard are to :

• Release my grip on old habits and release my creative writing spirit (if I can find one)
• Remember that facts are critically important 
• Use evocative language
• Realise that dates are not absolute! They are relative to the calendar being used at time
• Select a structure and stick to it
• Communicate perspective through careful choice of words
• Remember Oomph in writing is carried by verbs
• Use active rather than passive voice - make the doer do it 
• Ground my writing in historical context
• Grab my readers with my first sentence
• Think about what my ancestors saw, heard, felt, smelled, tasted, and emotionally experienced 
• Recraft my writing over and over and over

Hitting the jackpot at Mosman

Sometimes I feel as though I have won the lottery and I did today after my visit to Mosman Library for  "Remember when...",  a full day workshop presented by Dr. Noeline Kyle of  Family History Writing and Lorraine Purcell  who has published a number of family history books.  Although I am not a Mosman resident I was able to sign up for this session before it was fully subscribed. I would commend these presenters to anyone interested in publishing their family stories. Details of  Noeline's future workshops can be found on her website and on the GeniAusEvents calendar.


Thanks to Mosman Council for hosting this event in Library and Information Week 2011.

Lorraine Purcell and Noeline Kyle at Mosman today

Because of my background I learnt more today from the first speaker, Noeline Kyle but both speakers were very good. I'll drag out my favourite tool  from teaching days and report on this event in a PMI format.



Plus

* Free event.
* Comfy chairs spaced apart.
* Yummy sandwiches
* Experienced speakers.
* Friendly and personable presenters.
* Printed program and impressive package of notes/handouts.
* Relevant slides with touches of humour to accompany talk.
* Artefacts used by Lorraine to illustrate her talk.
* Creation of an environment where attendees felt comfortable sharing their writing.
* Presenters graciously posed for a photo.




Minus

* Hazardous cords running across the floor of room.
* Dungeon like seminar room.
* Speakers not properly introduced by someone from the library.
* No-one on hand from library to thank speakers at conclusion of the event (I know it was a busy day but...)
* Discussion of on-line, print on demand publishers eg Lulu glossed over.
* No discussion of blogs, websites, vlogs or other online tools as formats for publishing family stories.
* No mention of using digital media, eg Facebook, Twitter, for marketing of published works.


Interesting

* Would like to have had a couple more practical writing exercises, group involvement and a little less 'chalk and talk'.
* A quick whip around the audience to identify their interests would have enhanced the experience.
* Speakers had a display of their books for sale.

Yahoo! Style Guide: Writing, Editing, and Creating Content for the Digital World - Derek E. Baird :: Barking Robot

Yahoo! Style Guide: Writing, Editing, and Creating Content for the Digital World - Derek E. Baird :: Barking Robot

For genealogists who publish on the web this article by Derek Baird on Yahoo's Style Guide will be illuminating.

You've got to grab them

"The best writing manual is obituaries" was an important message I grabbed at the free blogging workshop held at Mosman Library this evening.

In his talk Steven Lewis highlighted the importance of hooking one's readers with a headline that will encourage readers to read on. He compared blog post titles with newspaper headlines that must grab the reader. Steven (aka rule17 ) reminded us that, as with newspaper articles, blog followers may not read the whole post. "Readers won't be with you from headline to fullstop". It is important to lead with the most important content. Obituaries, that have interesting titles are not usually written in a linear fashion, have structures that bloggers can follow.

I hadn't thought of this in relation to my genealogy blog but realised that, with those blogs I follow in Google Reader, I probably delete 80% of the posts after reading the post title and first few sentences.

So genealogists, if you want to ensure that others fully enjoy the brilliance in your blogs, you will need to get creative with those titles.

Ideas for the Diary

In a recent blog post educator Will Richardson posted this list:

What did you make today that was meaningful?
What did you learn about the world?
Who are you working with?
What surprised you?
What did your teachers make with you?
What did you teach others?
What unanswered questions are you struggling with?
How did you change the world in some small (or big) way?
What’s something your teachers learned today?
What did you share with the world?
What do you want to know more about?
What did you love about today?
What made you laugh?
As someone whose diary looks like an appointment list I am going to modify and use this list of questions as prompts when writing daily entries. I already add my Facebook statuses into my diary as they express my thoughts and feelings at particular points in time. The responses to these questions should give any future generations a fuller picture of me.