Bridging the
Past & Future Sydney 2018
15th
Australasian Congress on Genealogy and Heraldry
9 – 12 March
2018
International
Convention Centre
Darling Harbour Sydney
After my ‘Unlock the Past’
cruise in 2016, I planned and saved madly to attend this Congress (at least
once). Am really glad I could achieve attendance. Apparently, it is very
uncertain that Congress 2021 will happen as no state has put their hand up to
host.
What a blast of a four day
Congress – very well organised, coordinated, arranged and any other thesaurus
word you can use. I have forwarded via email the last Congress newsletter to
the Secretary if anyone is interested; it gives a summary of the Organising
Committees thoughts.
The International Convention
Centre (not to be confused with another huge building that continues on from
ICC: International Exhibition Centre) WAS BIG! On the Friday there was
apparently over 4,000 people in the building at various conferences – at least
700 people at the Family History workshops and Congress. The Congress was held
on the third floor – thank goodness for lifts and escalators; the wooden stairs
were available for the energetic folk. These fixed staircases were gorgeous in
pale woods highlighted with gold coloured detail.
This third floor was dedicated
to the Family History Congress and held the main lecture hall for welcomes and
plenary sessions (up to at least 450 people), 3 smaller lecture rooms, 2
exhibit areas and significant surrounding hall space for more exhibitors and
for networking and the Morning Tea breaks which were yummy.
The staff of the ICC were
brilliant at restocking food and the water fountains in each lecture room.
They also kept the toilets clean
and stocked between breaks – with paper hand towels. Showing my country hick,
the water in the toilets’ hand basins was heated!
Handouts of the sessions were
available to download from 2 days before Congress or if participants had
difficulty doing this then the Organisers had USB sticks with the handouts
available for purchase that sold out and more had to be frantically obtained. I
downloaded mine to my laptop hard drive – when I get organised will copy to an
external hard drive. There are a multitude of links within each lecture.
There was a diverse selection of
topics covered: technology – blogs/apps/software hints and tips, Heraldic
bookplates and designing, Wars, Obscure record linking, Aboriginal relative
research, Trove, First fleet and convict records, New Zealand research,
Education records, English/Scottish/Irish records, Legal aspects – copyright,
wills/probate records, German research, DNA, Huguenot research, and Maps. There
were 6 plenary sessions, 2 sponsor sessions, and 15 sets of concurrent
sessions.
I think the main element to the
Congress from my perspective was that participants were encouraged to record
their own stories as well as verifying and establishing their ancestors as
individuals with fascinating histories set within the context of their time and
environment.
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