Connections Reflections

Just a few of the presentations I attended at Connections2025

Just back from three days of learning in Brisbane my thanks to GSQ, AFFHO and History Queensland for hosting an excellent conference. The mix of historical content along with AI advances and traditional genealogy was a good combination.

The opportunity to meet and mingle with like minded souls who are all keen to learn and share their expertise was a bonus. I caught up with many geni-mates known online and others I knew in real life.

Now to to refocus my research:

• Investigate the networks or friends and neighbours of my ancestors more closely
• Investigate the other passengers who travelled with my ancestors, were they from similar villages, towns, where did they settle etc.
• Pay more attention to the political and social circumstances of the time
• Work more on the organisation of my genealogical records and photos
• Continue to use a variety of AI tools for routine data extraction and organisation tasks

Family history is never finished, there is always more one can learn and do no matter one's age. Being open to learning keeps the brain active. 

This post first appeared on https://carmelgalvin.info

Smart tables for your family history

Think of a spreadsheet as a smart table for sorting and organising your accumulated data. Whether you're using Google Sheets, OpenOffice Calc, Microsoft Excel, Apple Numbers, or other programs, use the power of digital tables to manipulate your family history data.

10 uses

1. Track certificates bought and/or ordered
2. Timelines - for individuals and/or families
3. Census data across the years
4. Tracking DNA data matches / DNA contact list
5. Land records
6. Research plans
7. Records downloaded from a particular dataset 
8. An index of photos digitised
9. Progress sheet of biographies/ blogposts/ reports written 
10. Checklist of resources for a particular area/country

This is a compilation list, some of the best explanations of how and why to use a spreadsheet program for your family history data. 

https://generationsgenealogyaus.wordpress.com/resources/using-excel/ 

https://www.familyhistoryfanatics.com/genealogy-spreadsheets 

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiMXWjHlj5RRgZG4aCinoL6o_2R8iGEEc&si=SartZNl6SBWsiJT_

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJUpgvagmBH8fvWp0IEeOYW93NoSXhCZW&si=isoVuZTcp6YqAcMC

This post first appeared on https://carmelgalvin.info

Revisiting the AJCP in Trove

In my preparations for a webinar for the Society of Australian Genealogists about the Australian Joint Copying Project now available through Trove, I uncovered many treasures awaiting the family historian, too many indeed to include in a presentation.

My points emphasised the need to browse the Finding Aids to make best use of this huge resource as so much of it is manuscript, inaccessible via text searches through the current limitations of OCR technology. There are more than 8 million digitised images along with over 10,000 digitised text pages.

The Finding Aids accessed from the AJCP portal provide a comprehensive view of the kinds of resources within both the PRO (Public Records Office) and M (Miscellaneous) series.

One should not be discouraged if searching by name but rather think about the types of records that may have recorded the names or other details about one's ancestors. Some examples:

• By browsing within the emigration records housed within the Colonial Office records, one can find individual letters of application as well as registers where emigrants names, occupations, ages and place of origin are handwritten.
• Looking inside the Finding Aid for the Board of Trade - registers of seamen with their qualification as mate or master can be found.
• Job applications for missionary positions in the colonies provide a wealth of personal details about the applicants. These are found through various organisations listed in the M Series.
• The records preserved by a wide range of societies and businesses provide rich background material for family historians
• County Office archives Finding Aids provide a window into the various resources that have been digitised, so if you know the county from where your emigrants came, browse that finding aid.
• Personal letters exchanged between family members give details of trips, living conditions and sometimes include photos. Signatures are a treasure to collect.

To whet the appetite to explore more here are a few finds that were not included in my webinar.

Enjoy exploring these vast resources not just from the AJCP portal page but also by searching within the Diaries, Letters &Archives category in Trove where all this material in now available.

This post first appeared on https://carmelgalvin.info

A pathway to indexing

Local History Preserved

Volunteers at Cooroy Noosa Genealogical & Historical Group have created a new index. Over the last 20 years the members of the Group have collected and collated a wide range of historical documents, photos and newspaper clippings about the residents and events in the local Cooroy region and its surrounding districts in the Noosa Shire, Queensland.

These collections are housed in folders which until now have been of limited use except for those with amazing local knowledge. The scope of the collection covers the early days of the region up to and including local living legends from the last twenty years. It has been the long term intention of the group to provide a comprehensive index to these materials and now that the new Heritage Centre has been planned, paid for from extensive fundraising efforts, built and occupied for two years, the time for this undertaking has come.

Driven by stalwarts of the group, Bev Warner and Margaret Rickard, a planning meeting was held, the data fields decided and templates developed. I held an introductory session to indexing which was well attended by a representative body of members. A core group of six volunteers have commenced this task. We view this task as an ongoing one which may take several years to complete given the size of the collection.

In order to provide ongoing funding for the group it has been decided to publish a limited selection of the data to the public website so that further information about the resources can be sought through the group’s research services, or by visiting the centre for full access to the records indexed. The data fields include:

• Surname
• First name/Initial
• Date
• Business/ Organisation
• Town/Location
• Subject/Occasion
• Media
• Notes
• Source
• Shelf location

The data provided on the web includes these three fields:

• Surname
• First name/Initial
• Subject

Indexers have been provided with a range of templates in versions of Word, Excel, Writer and Calc along with a Google Form for those who may choose to enter data directly online. Not all fields will have data for each item.  Data is compiled into a master spreadsheet and stored in the Group's Google Drive and is also housed on local external hard drives.

In only one month of indexing almost 700 items have been added. These include newspapers articles that are not on Trove, local ephemera such as business receipts from the 1930s and much more. As more folders are indexed the data will be progressively updated. This new index is a valuable addition to the Group's research capabilities and will be a treasure trove of information for future historians and genealogists. If you had ancestors or relatives in this area, take a look at our newly minted local resources index or visit the Heritage Centre in Cooroy to learn more.

 This post first appeared on https://www.carmelgalvin.info/2019/05/a-pathway-to-indexing.html

How to use Google sites for Family History

Create a family site in the free Google sites

Have you been adding family stories to your blog? A blog is a great platform for sharing those stories and making cousin connections. 

A blog displays posts in reverse date sequential order so that the latest post appears first. One needs perform a search or use the tags or categories provided to find all the stories about one person or one family. The stories found will still be displayed in the reverse date order of their publication. 

Perhaps you have established separate pages for each family and published links to the blog posts about that family there. Have you found new photos and documents about a family and updated an older post? Even when updated the original publication date of the post remains so the new information may be lost in your archive of posts unless you republish that post.

Enter new Google Sites

This free platform gives you control over the order and display of your information. 

Some ideas why you might want a free Google site or several free Google sites.

• Aggregate all the information about one family
• Sites can be public or privately shared
• Easily add and share information housed in your Google Drive
• Upload pictures and easily move, reorder the layout on any page
• Share datasheets for viewing or editing by family members
• Add forms to gather data
• Embed streams from your social media
• ***Free and simple to create***

There are many other reasons you may want a website of your own. 

Here's one I made to help you get started. Family Site: How to create one in free Google Sites.

Do take a look and let me know what you think.

This post first appeared on https://carmelgalvin.info

Show and share it

Each August is designated as National Family History Month in Australia. A wide range of activities takes place across the various States as seen on this events calendar from the NFHM home page.

Various social media platforms provide an excellent place to find and connect with other family historians and researchers. These slides explore how people are using four of these platforms to connect with genealogists, have their questions answered, find relations and share family stories.

The presentation was given at the Heritage Centre at Cooroy on August 6th in conjunction with the Cooroy-Noosa Genealogical & Historical Research Group Inc and Noosa Libraries.

 This post first appeared on https://librarycurrants.blogspot.com

How to find and manipulate Google news archive information

As a family historian I aim to find as many records as possible for individuals. It is not always possible to visit repositories where copies of required articles are held or indeed to find them online.

I had located a death date for a Thomas Joseph Horgan on 8 December 1975 through the Ryerson Index. I searched in the Sydney Morning Herald archives narrowing by date for the notice but without success.  However I am aware that there a quite a few editions of this paper in the Google News Archive as I have used it several times to obtain information about other relatives.

Here’s the process I follow to locate and then transform an image into something useful. The Google news archive search function is usually not specific enough to locate particular information needed.

1. Select Sydney Morning Herald from the list of newspapers.

2. Enter the the month and year, this seems to be the most efficient method of getting to the required edition. An exact date sometimes only takes one to a near month.

The search bars in Google News Archive

3. Select the edition required – in this case I was interested in December 9

Individual editions detail - Google news archive

I then scrolled through the pages until I came to the page with the Death Notices. Oh no! the scanning had been done as a mirror image! No quality control applied....

Several pages in this issue had been scanned in reverse

4. I clipped the two notices and saved the image. [N.B. in most cases one can click on the headline to get a link to the section where the notice is published but this was not possible with the reversed image]

5. Open photo editing software. I used Photoshop but this can be done in most robust photo editors such as the free IrfanView or free online Pixlr editor Use Flip Image then rotate to make the text legible. I added some pixels to the canvas size and included the citation on the bottom of the image obtained.

6. The final product – blurry but legible

Clipped notices with citation added

7. Before adding this to my family history database I opened the image in Google Keep and used Grab the image text. This minimises the amount of typing I need to do but gives me plenty of exposure to analysing the text as as I look for the errors that may need correction.

Image in Google Keep - Grab image text

Transcription of notices – with Google’s help.

HORGAN Thomas Joseph.
December 8, 1975 at hospital of Glebe, dearly loved brother of Agnes (Mrs Daly)
and Mary, dear friend of Rheta. Requiescat in pace.
See Wednesday's Herald for funeral announcement.
HORGAN. Thomas Joseph.
December 8. 1975 devoted friend of all at Mount St. Margaret's
Little Sisters of the Poor, Randwick.

---

1975 Deaths, Sydney Morning Herald, 9 December, p.30 online in Google news archive,
viewed 15 June 2017.

This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com/2017/06/how-to-find-and-manipulate-google-news.html

Introduction to Family History

Heritage month

During May the local library has been celebrating Heritage Month with a range of events. On Thursday I attended an informative talk by Judy Webster on Ancestors who Moved or Vanished.

This week it is my turn to present a session entitled An Introduction to Family History. Last year I collaborated with the local heritage librarian on this session. Here are my updated, revised slides.

Essential Australian resources

Archives - States WA, SA, Vic, NSW, Qld, Tas, NT, ACT National - NAA

Australian Births, Marriages and Deaths WA SA , Vic NSW Qld Tas NT ACT

National Library of Australia - Family History guide, Trove
Each State library has a guide to researching your family history. Sign up to obtain a card for both your State library and the National Library of Australia to gain free access to their eresources.

Additional places to find lists of resources
CoraWeb Helping you trace your family history
Cyndi'sList Australia

Family History forms and charts Free from Family Tree magazine
Free forms and charts from Ancestry

There are a wealth of resources digitised online and so many more offline. Join your local family history society for some expert help and guidance.


This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com/2017/05/introduction-to-family-history.html

Hippo sized hints

Hazel hones our histories.
Hazel’s hints help.

What works as a title? I settled on Hippo Sized Hints for this post.
I’m practising what I’ve learnt today. Three word titles  - preferably with some contrast or a conflict of ideas. This was just one example of the hints and tips received by an enthusiastic audience at Cooroy Library this afternoon.

Hazel Edwards, an Australian author of over 200 books presented an entertaining and informative session on Writing a Non Boring Family History.  Anecdotes, book promotion, writing hints and techniques were interspersed with practical exercises each limited to 2-3 minutes. These were designed to ensure that family historians should concentrate on avoiding “chronological boredom.”

In small groups of three we took the role of an ancestor and were interviewed by the others to relate that ancestor’s story in the first person. This provided an excellent focus for revealing gaps in known information. Other exercises had us concentrate on including all five senses in describing a place or room of significance.

Whilst I will probably never aspire to actually publish a family history, I came away with some excellent ideas for improving my blog posts. By the way, I can’t ever imagine a hippo providing me with hints but the hippo is a very famous character in “There’s a hippopotamus on our roof eating cake”
Writing a Non Boring Family History is available as an ebook from Hazel’s online store.

This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com/2016/05/hippo-sized-hints.html

A year with Ancestry

What a wonderful prize I won at the end of National Family History Month in 2014; a year's subscription to Ancestry. As I had only been researching my family history for one year at that stage, I was doubly delighted.

I subscribed to the Ancestry and AncestryAU YouTube channels and watched many hours of instructional videos, spent endless days teaching myself how to search effectively using a wide range of strategies and variations in search techniques. My library background served me well with diverse database research skills developed over many years.

I used the card catalogue for Australia as well as the variety of search forms available. I investigated the contents and year coverage of a wide range of databases contained within Ancestry. No point in searching for something that is not there. The company certainly has a wealth of resources and if you are lucky enough to have ancestors from the United Kingdom, Europe, the USA or Canada there are currently more than 32 467 databases to explore with more being added and updated regularly.

My ancestors are mainly from Ireland's southern counties and they migrated directly to South Australia in the 1840s and 1850s so while there are useful records in the Ancestry collections they are relatively few in number in comparison to other places in the world. Some of the records available for Ireland and South Australia I had already sourced elsewhere. I had much greater success with my husband's ancestors, some of whom arrived in Australia through NSW and Victoria.

I am very grateful to Ancestry Australia for sponsoring NFHM and awarding such a prize which has given me the opportunity to help many other family historians in the local library through my newly acquired knowledge. However it is time for me to say farewell to Ancestry for now, as I pursue diverse avenues for my research. For relative beginners like me, the wealth of resources compiled at Cyndi's list is an excellent starting point.

A family member recently asked "Is it really true that you just put in a name and let Ancestry guide you?" A seasoned researcher will know this is a simplification at best and quite misleading for a novice. Advertising is what it is - advertising, designed to sell product. The large genealogy companies do us a service by providing access to digitised resources but it is up to each consumer to evaluate his or her specific needs. Some companies offer conditional free trials, and for me a lucky prize afforded that opportunity.

Thank you Ancestry I am pleased that my local library and genealogy society both have subscriptions that I can use as and when needed. There is no doubt that at some stage when my genealogy budget determines I will be back.

For those looking for South Australian sources, some sites are compiled on my Pinterest board.

Follow Carmel's board South Australia Family history and Genealogy on Pinterest.
This post first appeared on https://librarycurrants.blogspot.com

The road rises up

As National Family History Month in Australia comes to an end for 2015, here's a wrap up of events held at Noosaville Library.

The program kicked off with a session to guide participants through the process of researching a WWI soldier or nurse, including finding military records, cemetery and battle information.

Particular reference was made to the local Adopt a Digger program which focuses on researching WW1 Diggers and Nurses from the local Sunshine Coast region of Queensland. Attendees benefited from the in depth knowledge of Jane the local heritage librarian and Bob, family history volunteer guru.

The second session was designed to introduce the audience to a wide range family history sites available on the Internet with emphasis on free sites, the major pay sites, portal and gateway sites, archives, libraries, newspapers and so much more. During this 3 hour session various search strategies were demonstrated. Needless to say such depth of material can only be a taster of available online records but for many participants this was their first exposure to a wide range of search techniques and resources previously unknown.

Week 3 brought out the genealogy equivalent of brick walls, not always solid and can often be knocked down with the right tools and approach. Bob detailed the "nitty gritty" of

• gathering information
• understanding the data
• using the laws of probability and averages
• examining the people found
• searching many sources with a range of strategies. 

He then illustrated in three case studies how he systematically searched for clues, families, connections, and approached problems from diverse directions to obtain results.

Today's session on Irish Family History is embedded below with links to a range of sites that Bob and I have both found to be useful. Seven of my great grandparents came to Australia from Ireland, possibly even the eighth, as yet unconfirmed. Many of my husband's ancestors are also Irish.

So at the end of NFHM2015:

May the road rise up to meet you,
May the records suddenly appear,
May the lost ancestor find you,
and appreciate your care. - Carmel Galvin, 2015

 This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com 26th August 2015

A June jaunt

A rainy winter morning was not enough to prevent an early start to Brisbane to attend Ireland to Australia: Searching for Ancestors seminar hosted by the Queensland Family History Society. After a trouble free drive of one and a half hours we arrived at Gaythorne in time to collect handouts and enjoy a morning concentrating on our Irish forebears.

First up was Mary King, the convenor of the QFHS Irish interest group. Her presentation Learning to think Irish in a new way focussed on a wide range of available resources. Her formidable knowledge of extant resources was accompanied by a handout of the slides, nine to a page which I shall peruse with magnifying glass in hand. She certainly managed to convince me to keep looking for a variety of alternatives.

A timely morning tea gave us a chance to enjoy a quick cuppa before Dr. Richard Reid's talks. 

His first presentation The great tide of emigration: 19th century Irish emigration to Australia focussed on the journey with illustrations of the parting of the ways and reflections on the journey actually undertaken by ancestors. His book Farewell my children provides more details on this story. The complete statistics used in his research are available online in the manuscript through ANU digital publications.

The second talk There is no person starving here: Australia and the Great Famine in Ireland, 1845-1850 focussed on the conditions during the famine.

Richard's excellent presentations used a variety of illustrations from the National Library of Ireland Lawrence collection which can be filtered by county, town, subject and photographer. Another excellent source for information and images mentioned is the Illustrated London News which is available free through eresources with a National Library of Australia reader's card. It is easy to forget about the rich variety of resources freely available via the NLA and our State Libraries.

Reference to the poorhouses, the tumbling of cottier's accommodation and the conditions of the time were well documented and illustrated with references from the "Freeman's Journal" which is also available through the British Newspaper collection of the NLA's eresources.

The value of attending seminars and other educational opportunities can never be underestimated. Thanks to both speakers I have some new leads to follow and at Richard's exhortation will read another account of Irish history. The recommended title was The sharing of the green: a modern Irish history for Australians by Oliver MacDonagh.

To wrap up our June jaunt, my friend and I had lunch at the lovely Eden Gardens at Carseldine before the afternoon drive home.

This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-june-jaunt.html

Planning for research at the National Library of Australia

Visiting the library

This week I have the opportunity to visit Canberra for Congress 2015. Not only will I be able to listen to and learn from a great range of speakers, but I will also be in the vicinity of the National Library of Australia and will be able to use the physical resources housed there.
The extensive online eresources provided by the National Library can be accessed by all Australians by applying for a free library card. Trove which "brings together content from libraries, museums, archives and other research organisations" is also provided by the National Library of Australia and is free for anyone to use online.

Finding resources

To prepare for my visit I have searched the online catalogue for materials pertinent to my areas of interest. Resources can be booked in advance and are brought to the reading room for library patrons where they are retained for up to seven days. A maximum of 15 resources can be booked. A current library card is needed to log in and book resources.

My current research is focused on my great-grandparents all of whom were resident in South Australia in the period 1850-1930. My intention is to garner background material about the towns, communities and farmlands where they lived rather than individual facts about particular lives. If I locate information about any one individual or family that will be an added bonus.

I have located 12 likely titles ranging from local histories, commemorative brochures from various centenary celebrations, family histories and a district council compiled report. An unrelated lucky 13th resource I've requested access to, is a newspaper not online that I think has a photo of me in much younger years. The items requested are kept in a list that can be viewed when logged into the NLA's catalogue.

Taking notes

I have clipped the bibliographic details of each requested resource into a separate note on Evernote and then added some keywords underneath to remind myself of the sort of information I am seeking from that particular item. The permanent link is retained in the information about each note. This will keep my mind focused as I try to make the best use of limited time with such a richness of resources. The keywords are not intended to be restrictive and indeed it is possible that I may find none of them in this resource, but they do serve to make me consider the possibilities before viewing the book or item.

Here's a sample from one of my notes. Now when I have the book in hand I'm ready to take notes on my ipad without having to waste any preparatory time. Where permitted digital copies of relevant pages or sections of text can be added to Evernote and then merged to that title's note.

Advantages of this method of note taking:

• all notes are referenced with source details
• digital images of text pages from any one source are together
• tags relating to places and people are added as notes are taken
• the text and tags of all notes are searchable

What methods do you use to prepare for research when time is limited?

This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com/2015/03/planning-for-research-at-national.html

Unexpected rewards

What a rewarding experience I have had over four weeks. The regular family history/genealogy volunteer guru in our local library has been away enjoying a holiday break. When the call came for volunteers to fill his 3 hour spot each Friday morning, I hesitantly offered my time not knowing whether I had enough genealogical expertise to be of assistance.

Since then I've heard some heart-breaking stories and shared some delightful finds. It has been my privilege to assist. Here are a few highlights.

Case 1. A baby adopted out during difficult times in WWII in England now in her 70s was very pleased when we found the records of the births (with names) of two previously unidentified older siblings and her birth mother's death record.

Case 2. Trove came up trumps for a local seeking help to find details about a great grandfather involved in gold mining near Gympie, Queensland.

Case 3. The Discovering Anzacs site provided additional information for a woman who had with her a treasured World War I diary that belonged to her husband's father. Yes, the WWI veteran had a son at age 58. What a privilege it was to see that small diary written in beautiful script 100 years ago on some of the worst battlefields of the Western Front and to have the opportunity to provide some suggestions about conservation and digitisation.

Case 4. I knew nothing about PQ 17 a World War II convoy in the Arctic but was able to help the owner who had her father's original documents from his time on one of the ships in the ill-fated convoy. She was looking for a suitable home for the documents, so a simple Google search has provided her with appropriate contacts where she can obtain professional advice from either the Imperial War Museum or National Archives, Kew.  She is now looking forward to reading a variety of Internet articles with information about the convoy and intending to watch this BBC produced Jeremy Clarkson documentary.



Those of us with computer skills need to remember there are so many folks, not just seniors, who still do not have the confidence or skills to find the information they seek. Volunteering brings its own rewards.  Do not hesitate to share what you know.

This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com/2014/10/unexpected-rewards.html

Experimenting with visuals

Photo Mapo

The Photo Mapo app available for iPad and iPhone adds maps as a background for your photos. A description of 180 characters can be added to give context to the event or photo. This is a great tool to use for your holiday snaps.

The map location is found by the app if location services were turned on when the photo was taken. If not, one can simply search for the location and the data is added. In the app settings one can choose how much detail, metadata, is added to the map.

Using the app for family history

Recently I've been experimenting with some historical images. Here are three of the many layout variations available within the app using the 1907 wedding photo of my grandparents.
I searched for the exact location of the church in which they were married then added the description for the photo. In this case there is no time detail added to the map.

The location of the church was pinpointed exactly even though the surrounding town has now changed so much in the ensuing 107 years. In this final example I saved the image from Photo Mapo then opened it in Pixlr Express - available as mobile app or on web - to add the vintage effect as a more suitable match for the photo. 

If you do not have access to a map of a particular area in the era you need, this is one way to give your family pictures geographical context for your family history blog or book.

This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com/2014/10/experimenting-with-visuals.html

Leveraging libraries

Help from 66,000+

One effective way to use the expertise of librarians worldwide is to search through the LibGuides Community site.

This site enables search across the libraries which use the LibGuides platform to publish their online guides. Libraries across many countries have wonderful online resources not always obvious to those outside their region of influence.

A search for genealogy, heritage, family history and genealogy or any other term of interest will reveal a wealth of resources collated by librarians. A family history search reveals some of my favourite resources from the State Library of South Australia along with guides from dozens of other libraries.
Results display:

• a brief summary of the content of the guide 
• tags used
• the latest edited date 

Individual guides usually contain details of the library's online, print and database collections along with any other materials they house. There are often tutorials specific to individual sites or databases. Whilst a library login may be necessary to access some materials, one often sees references to little known resources, access to which may then be sought through a local, state or national library.

Tags are local to individual libraries so they often lead to other resources on that library's website. While there is no advanced search function there is enough variation in results provided by combining and altering the order of search terms.

The profile of individual librarians and their expertise is often displayed on individual guides sometimes with contact details.

Search by locality

To see which libraries in your area publish these online guides use Browse Institutions and use the drop down menu to select your region, state or country.

Happy searching!

This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com/2014/09/leveraging-libraries.html

Who served, when and where?

Military ancestors

Today I attended the fourth workshop this month provided by the Noosa Library Service for National Family History Month.
Bob, the volunteer genealogy expert ably assisted by the heritage librarian Jane, once again provided an excellent session, this time on finding one's military ancestors.

He addressed why one would expect to find some military among one's forbears, likely sources of information and then introduced the group to a wide range of sources.

How do you find out if you had military ancestors? Perhaps there are mementos, medals, family stories, photos or information on certificates and in newspapers.
Such a comprehensive topic cannot be summarised in a single post but listed below are some sources mentioned in today's session and some ideas for research.

Types of military records that exist

• lists of officers and enlisted men and naval ratings
• Regular service records and militia records
• pension records
• various published lists - such as the annual Army Lists 
• Medal rolls
• promotions and awards citations in gazettes: such as London, Belfast and Edinburgh Gazettes all free online
• honour rolls
• books - early records of battles and campaigns
• casualty lists, missing and wounded
• Muster lists
• Attestation papers 
• Biographical records eg naval biographical dictionary, specialist books on individual campaigns or battles
• POWs of WWI Red Cross records now freely available 
• regiment and unit histories 
• Australian War Memorial digitised collections 
• Courts martial

Records that are available

• Pension records: exclusion period for service and pension records in Britain - 70 years
• Not all records mentioned above have survived  - WW1 and other casualties (Britain)
• Increased digitisation, some may be available only by application/request
• Some may be available but are not indexed
• Officers records may be more difficult to obtain

Location of Records

• National Archives- Australia, United Kingdom, Canada
• Military museums and archives, including museums of individual units
• Libraries e.g. British Library holds all the records of the India Office Library so military who served in India are detailed
• Publications
• Commemorative organisations eg CWGC and Lives of the First World War
• Family documents
• Government Departments
• General internet searches for units, battles, campaigns, periods of history e.g. British battles, Prisoners of war 1914-1918
• Armed Forces and conflict in Find My Past
• Military records in Ancestry

After learning so much in this session I was delighted this afternoon to be notified that I had won a 12 month subscription to Ancestry through their sponsorship of National Family History Month. All in all it has been a good month for learning and now I have a wonderful opportunity to further my research.

Other useful lists and blogs

Military Records guide - State Library of South Australia

Military medals - Shauna Hicks

Australian Colonial Forces State Library of Victoria
Australian Light Horse Research  - covers 1899 -1920
Find a soldier's will British Armed Forces 1850 - 1986

This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/who-served-when-and-where.html

Newspapers: A family album of stories

Finding your family in the news

Newspapers are a wonderful source of information for the family historian. In Australia we are so fortunate to have free access to hundreds of digitised newspapers through Trove dated from early white settlement until recent times. 

Below is a presentation about these newspaper sources. The notes that follow were prepared for the participants in the National Family History Month workshop at Noosaville Library.

Types of information found

Sale of farms and equipment

Land selection details
Newspaper article of husband seeking letters of administration after wife’s death

Probate notices

Engagement, Marriage, Silver and Golden wedding celebrations

Birth and death notices

Tragic accidents

Ownership of businesses

Social events

Details of jobs held

Prizes won and performances given

School concert details

Tips for thinking about search terms

Name variations

Think of the time - the war not WW1. Search  an event instead of name.
Search for husband to see referrals to wife search for Mrs. Horgan, Mrs J M Galvin sometimes with intials included, sometimes no initials.

View whole page to get other ideas related stories. Single name search “johanna horgan” what else can I learn when I view the whole page from 1880                                
· cost of loaf of bread, price of a pair of shoes, entertainment of the day - Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Think of combinations from known data e.g. name and ship
“o’leary dugdale” search led to 90th birthday article detailing arrival of couple with 3 children, then working in Adelaide, purchase of land at Salisbury and subsequent family of 12 children

Name search: ‘Andrew O’Leary’ signature of petition against introduction of convicts to SA
Surname and Town: O'Leary’s were big into ploughing matches around Salisbury and Dry Creek perhaps this is how Honora O'Leary met John Horgan (my great grandparents) in the early 1860s.

Best use practices

Use of limiters: whole country or state, dates, type of information
Saving articles – PDF, Image, Citing
Making lists
Tagging 

Text correction – improve search, leave a legacy pay it forward

notifications of new material

Choice of how to save, always include citation. Enlarge on page for jpg, PDF

Screen clipping tools

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Adding citations to images
Trove's tools

This post first appeared on Library Currants

National Family History Month 2014

NFHM2014 Geneameme

This challenge was posted by Pauleen at Family History across the seas.

1. What are you doing for National Family History Month?

• I have participated in Geniaus' NFHM Hangout on Air.
• I have attended 2 x 2 hour Branching Out workshops for family historians at Noosaville Library.
• I will be listening to Shauna Hick's webinar hosted by MyHeritage
• Next week I present a workshop at Noosaville Library on Your family in the news (Trove) and then I'll report it here.
• Blogging - Troveictionary and this meme so far.
• Following #NFHM2014 on Twitter and reading links from there.
• Reading my daily collection of genealogy blogs collated in Feedly.
• Skim reading these email subscribed geneadailies from Paper.li  Genealogy Geek and Australian Genealogists to make sure there's nothing I've missed through Feedly.

2. What do you hope to learn in NFHM?
How to improve my research and recording of my family's records and stories.

3. Do you research at a family or local history library?
So far just the local library.

4. Do you do all your research online?
Nearly all of it, especially if one counts in downloaded ebooks and PDFs. Since I started this research only a year ago,I've not yet had the opportunity to visit any relevant archives,cemeteries etc.

5. What’s your favourite place to store your family tree?
Currently I've been using My Heritage Family Tree Builder as I can share the associated online site with my siblings and their offspring but I'm considering trying out Family Historian. I would like more sophisticated reports and better media management than I presently have. PDF documents do not display online.

6. If offline, which genealogy program do you use?
As above - I do like that it has a mobile app so I can have data with me anywhere.

7. How do you preserve your family stories for future generations?
I've started a family history blog at Earlier Years and this NFHM focus has reminded me to "get on with it!" I also have a shared Dropbox folder for my siblings and their offspring to contribute documents and photos.All data and documents backed up to Dropbox and external hard drive.

8. Have you any special research projects on the go?
Not so much a research project as an indexing project adding the WWI soldiers from the Cooee SA! project to my Trove memorials and then linking the original Trove articles to individual profiles in Discovering Anzacs. I do hope this may improve the chances of other family historians finding these ancestors.

9. What is your favourite family history research activity?
Piecing together stories of the time by reading the newspapers of the day. I also like to share and teach how to find information, so I enjoy leading sessions for other learners.

10. What is your favourite family history research place/library etc?
Home

11. What is your favourite website for genealogy research?
Trove - I have found so much there, lots of BDMs, celebrations, shipping lists, farm sales and more. I like being able to make lists for families and sort them into date order, gives a quick timeline to put folks in context.

12. Are you part of a Facebook genealogy group? If so which one?
County Kerry Genealogy, and have "liked" so follow quite a few other genealogy related pages as well as archives and libraries.

13. Do you use webinars or podcasts for genealogy? Any tips?
I like recorded webinars as one can then choose to selectively watch - i.e fast forward, rewind as needed.

14. Do you use social media?
Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Librarything, Scoop.it

15. What genealogy topic/class have you learnt the most from this year at a  webinar/conference/seminar? 
How to structure and use research logs.

16. Do you have a favourite research strategy to knock down your brick walls?
Look and look again.

17. Have you used DNA testing for your genealogy?
No

18. Have you made cousin connections through your DNA tests? 
n/a

19. Do you have a wish list of topics for NFHM 2015? 
There is much to choose from so I'm delighted with what is on offer now.

20. What do you most love about your family history research?
Finding unexpected and interesting stories.

Troveictionary

Dear family historians and genealogists,

Humour and fun played a large part in my family upbringing. My mother was a word-lover and was quick with repartee and rejoinder. My brother continually did his best to outwit and out-word her often with hilarious results. The rest of the family did our best to disparage and better his offerings, meagre though our efforts were.

It is in this spirit of family fun that I offer you the inaugural, unofficial Troveictionary for National Family History Month 2014. #NFHM2014. Many of us who have sailed in the good ship Trove place great value on this free source of information from the National Library of Australia. The work of those who continue to support and grow this resource is appreciated. Thank you trovekers and troveors! (see below)

Your additions, corrections and suggestions for further edits are sought.

Trovefully yours,

Carmel.

Troveictionary

retroveal n. information sourced from Trove

to trove v. to seek information in Trove

troveable adj. able to be found in Trove

trovearium n. nurturing environment for Trove products, home of the family API with progeny @TroveBot, @TroveNewsBot. queryPic, Trove traces with new family members regularly added. AskTrove is a new member of this family.

troveatorium n. houses working spaces for Tim, Paul and the trovekers
trovectionary n. sweet unexpected finds

trovee n. beneficiary of Trove information

trovefully adv.

troveia n. tidbits of information seemingly useless but great for pub nights or as conversation starters

troveial adj. (see troveia)
troveient adj. well suited for inclusion in Trove
troveite n. one addicted to Trove

troveitis n. addictive disease prone to strike late at night

troveker n. a data worker, manager, librarian within the troveatorium
trovel v. to dig around in Trove

troveller n. an information digger a.k.a. family historian

trovement n. repository for found information

troveor n. major contributor to Trove
trover n. seeker of information
trovesty n. misleading OCR errors

to be continued.....by readers troveadour, trovester, Trovember