“Footsteps In Time” May 2017 Conference Southport Queensland
Now, at this state family history conference in May 2017, I
would have opportunities to gather more resources and more strategies to be
even more organised and productive with the stories and items (? Treasures) I
have gathered. Yeah?
Wow, what a fabulous weekend of very knowledgeable and well
experienced speakers to hear and reflect on their wisdom and RESEARCH outcomes.
The organising committee from the Gold Coast were
exceptional in the way they arranged their speakers and venue. The venue was
great at the Southport Community Centre though their seats were rather hard on
the posterior by the end of each day. Technical electronic glitches aside,
speakers were able to continue their presentations and keep to time. Going
between venues was a little bewildering for the ‘Out of Towners’: the rain
Friday did not help.
The trade display was a source of interest and fascination –
the electronic era is well and truly established. Family tree design and
publication is well resourced with software packages.
The ‘Pub Crawl’ presentation given during the Saturday
Dinner gave me some ideas for a conference from our own Association which I
will forward to Marion and Kay.
The main themes I was able to gather were:
·
Be diligent in your research focus – cover as
many avenues as you can in gathering information about your person / family –
use newspapers, school admissions, hospital / mental health institution
admissions, government gazettes, land records, wills and intestacies,
obituaries, church / parish records,
ships logs, immigration records, war records, personal journals and
correspondence, BMD indices, and any type of index. Many of which are located
in our own local Clubrooms.
·
Nanna is not always right – think ‘Chinese
whispers’ – think about the time period and social ‘mores’ (scandal) of that
time. Those ‘brick walls’ may be originating from this evasion or presentation
of this ‘truth’.
·
DNA testing is a tool for identifying
links – plan on doing y DNA (male lineage, Surname) & m DNA (mitochondrial, mother to children) & a DNA (autosomal, alleles from
parents) Confused – yep. If you planned on using your superannuation for
travelling around Australia and / or the world visiting rellies you found doing
family history research AND doing DNA testing – the superannuation bucket needs
to be rather large. Recommendation is to get the oldest living rellie you have
tested with all three tests and then have any cousin of any distinction tested
also (second, third, fourth, immediate, removed, etc.). $ $ $ I personally
think DNA testing is to prove we are all related – reassuring or terrifying
thought; thinking Manchester concert bombing, Mafia, Hitler, Moses, Mother
Teresa and Ghandi.
·
Have your list of questions ready or submitted
prior to visiting research venues such as State Archives / State Library – will
facilitate time management for both yourself and the venue whose staff are only
too happy to assist. Objective is a more successful outcome for time and money.
·
Family History Associations are repositories of
vast amounts of information. Members of such organisations research and gather
stories and histories usually for themselves and their families – I am lead to
believe that the Associations and their members’ stories and histories should
be promoted far and wide to establish networks and publications that facilitate
a greater ‘family’ knowledge pool. I am starting to see a pattern here – hmmm?
Thankfully, the Conference organisers stored the majority of
presentations on a USB stick that was given to all paid participants of the
Conference – there were only a couple of paper based handouts.
Personally, I need to win the Lotto and retire from my
current work to focus more intensively on my current passion of researching my
Family History.
Had a wonderful weekend with Kay, Marion, Nola, Carmel and
Margaret at the Conference. Learnt a
lot. Now I am waiting for Sydney March 2018 for the International Congress.
No comments:
Post a Comment