Conference Ribbons

One of the extra-curricular activities at geneaevents in the US is the collecting of Conference Badge Ribbons. This practice has spread to Australia and the UK although it is not yet as popular as in America.

Kiwi genealogist, Roger, has a long ribbon cascade

It's certainly great fun to collect these ribbons from friends, institutions, societies and businesses but have you actually thought strategically about the wearing and placement of these ribbons?

I started collecting ribbons at an early Rootstech conference and, after a few years, joined the fun by ordering some to promote my blog and website.  For the first few years I sought and accepted ribbons and added them to my ribbon cascade as they were given to me.

One day I realised that the the Ribbon Cascade I was wearing was a walking billboard that told those who admired my colourful collection who and what was important to me and whom I supported. So from then on I didn't rush to add ribbons. I made sure that I added those ribbons that were most important and told something about me to the top of my cascade.

I began to think of the strategic placement of  ribbons on my cascade. At international events an Australia ribbon goes near the top of my cascade followed by my GeniAus ribbon and a Convict Descendant if there are some on offer. Other ribbons near the top will be for associations of which I am a member like the Virtual Genealogical Association, an event with which I am associated like The Genealogy Show and Kiva Genealogists for Families a charity I support.

As the ribbons can create a trip hazard I try to keep my cascade to a reasonable length.

Blogs I follow (especially Australian ones) get good placement. I may add ribbons for companies with which I have tested my DNA and services I use like Google, Wikitree and Familysearch. I will add funny ones like "I Haunt Cemeteries" closer to the bottom of the cascade. Once I have added all of these I may add incidental ones that people give me but if they are irrelevant I file them away for another day.

As I prepare for Rootstech London I am thinking about ribbons. Now that my Facebook page is my main platform for communication I order may some with a link to my Facebook page and some for our Downunder genies who are attending. I am also considering deconstructing some of my Ribbon Cascades from earlier events and creating something to wear in London. It's such a waste to have them sitting in a box at home.

I hope those attending Rootstech and other geneaevents consider sharing some ribbons. They are a great conversation starter and will provide excellent promotion of your sites and services.

Remember to stop and think about the ribbon you are going to wear or offer at an event. What message does it convey to other conference attendees?

Cascades from my past

Here and there in National Family History Month

Aware that it's National Family History Month and that I am actually in Australia I threw myself into #familyhistory activities last week. Surprisingly I am not giving any talks this month so I've had a bit of time to play. Mr GeniAus does wonder what I am doing in my geneacave all day!

Piling system

From time to time I tear myself away from the more palatable geneactivities to do a little bit of tidying, scanning and think about filing. I'm very good at digital filing but a failure at physical filing. I have reorganised my cupboards but my piling system is still evident.

I continued to microblog via my GeniAus Facebook page and The Hornsby Shire FHG page. I contributed to many conversations on Facebook which I fine myself using more and more since the demise of Google+.
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Although I haven't written on this blog I have been blogging here  https://curryaus.wordpress.com/2019/08/07/avoiding-the-keyboard/ and here  https://hornsbysfhg.wordpress.com/2019/08/08/geneagala-day/ and  here https://ballau.blogspot.com/2019/08/inspection.html.

Monday was spent experimenting with data gathering and importing into my CurryAus project see blog post above).

On Tuesday I took myself to the monthly meeting of the Newcastle Family History Society, it's only the second time I have been to one of their meetings since joining. I'll try to do better. Sitting among the small audience of members who all knew each other I once again realised how lonely it can be as the newbie in a Group. It was disappointing to see such a small attendance at a meeting of a group with such a large membership. I wasn't sure that I would enjoy the talk by Marie Hughes who talked about her family and their business, Hughes Pottery which operated in the Merewether area for over 100 years. As a newcomer to the Newcastle Region I found the talk fascinating the story of the family business was interwoven with the family's genealogy. 

Hughes Pottery at Newcastle Family History Society

Two webinars were on my program for Wednesday. Firstly I watched Fiona Brooker's webinar on New Zealand  at Legacy Family Tree Webinars. I left this early to tune into the Newspapers webinar from the National Library of Australia which you can now view on their website or Youtube. I'm sorry that I didn't stick with Fiona's webinar as there was more for me to learn there than at the newspapers session which was a basic presentation aimed at new users and beginners.

On Thursday I made a rash decision to register for The Society of Australian Genealogists' Wikitree Challenge that was scheduled for the next day, Friday. This event organised by Veronica Williams and Danielle Lautrec aimed to improve Australian content, share our research, and promote the Society's collections all in one day. 

I failed on promoting the Society's resources but managed to share second place in the Challenge. I went way beyond the finishing time of 3pm so that I could complete my personal goals. My 16 Great-grandparents and many of their descendants now have sourced entries on the Wikitree. You can visit me here on Wikitree. 

My mother always taught me that if had a commitment one shouldn't back out if something else came along so on Saturday I missed the dedication of a new plaque on my descendant Elizabeth Phipps' grave at Richmond. Thanks to cousin Lynn Griffiths who organised the event to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Elizabeth's death.

Meanwhile I spent the day at Hornsby Library chairing the annual Geneagala day we at Hornsby Shire Family History Group host in conjunction with the library with special guest Emily Hanna from NSW State Archives and Records. It was a splendid day. You can see some photos and a report here in a Facebook post.

Genies at Gemeagala Day at Hornsby

While August has been a quiet month for talks presented by me September is busy so I have fired up Powerpoint and worked on my webinar and in person presentations. I spend way too much time preparing for these gigs; I am a serial reviser.

I spent quite a deal of time on my DNA Matches. I have used DNA Painter to map both my and Mr GeniAus' chromosomes. In the hope of finding new cousins to map I have repeatedly visited  Family Tree DNA, Gedmatch and MyHeritage but haven't had much joy. My greatest disappointment at the moment is the lack of matches to paint. If you only have your DNA at Ancestry and want to make more connections PLEASE upload to each of these sites. I have been able to keep up with new strong matches at Ancestry as they seem to be trickling in.

Mr GeniAus is smiling because I won a free pass for him  to attend #RootstechLondon. To win the prize I had to submit an interesting word that I had come across in my family history research. My winning word was Progonoplexia (I have a bad case - how about you?)

What did your week look like?

Get your genes in order

I heard a rumour that hundreds of genies are attending the Unlock the Past series of DNA Downunder seminars around Australia.

If you are not among the "in crowd" who have registered for this event and you don't want to be suffering from FOMO in the coming weeks you must register today at
https://www.dnadownunder.com/.

If you are grappling with the results of your DNA test or are an experienced genetic genealogist there is something on the program for you. As an added bonus you will be able to meet and network with fellow genies and DNA experts and spend your geneadollars at the exhibitor stands at the event. and then there are the prizes - over $17,000 across all cities https://www.dnadownunder.com/prizes-and-offers. over $4300 in Sydney and over $2000 in all other cities.

I hope to see you there.

Jill's Jigsaw

Mr GeniAus and I are hoarders. Back in 2014 I even started writing about my efforts to offload stuff  in Diary of a decrapifier.

When we moved house two years ago we thought that we had tossed out a lot of stuff prior to the big move but we didn't! Two years down the track we still have a garage that is full of cartons and  odd bits of furniture. Over the past few days we have stepped up our efforts to claim the garage for our cars.

As well as attending to the big stuff I have been looking at my tech gear. We took a hammer to our museum of laptops' harddrives earlier in the year. Gone tonight are a few old thumb drives of 128 and 256 megabytes together with old cables, adaptors and chargers. I am now looking at old external hard drives (and taking a trip down memory lane) and copying files I want to keep (nearly everything) onto my 8TB external Hard Drive. This has taken me ages as I look at the websites I built in the late nineties and early this century.

One gem I found was Jill's Jigsaw, my first family history related site that I built around 2000 using Adobe Dreamweaver. I had a narrative page each for some of my earliest ancestors and spreadsheets that listed all ancestors and their families. I kept this up until I created the GeniAus family site using TNG in 2009. It is so much easier to look after my current site than Jill's Jigsaw.

It was gratifying to find that all of the links on the site still worked when I fired it up in Chrome.

Do you still have a copy of your first attempt at an online tree?