Search and comment

Tech Help - Search a site

Most sites and blogs have a search bar embedded which will search for content only on that site. The search bar is usually near the top of the page but on some blogs it will be found in the side bar. Some searches will highlight the search word on each page, some will just give you a list of pages where your search term can be found. Examples are provided in the slideshow at the end of this post.

Once you have located the page use Find on page, CTRL-F (Windows) or CMD-F (Mac) to pinpoint the exact information you seek. This individual page search box will list how many occurrences of your search term appear on that page and you can use the down arrow next to the search term to find the next occurrence.  In the example below, the word 'user' was located 8 times on the page searched.

Comment on a post

Most bloggers appreciate comments as it lets them know that readers are reacting to their work. There are a variety of comment forms but one usually needs to provide a name and email address or login with Google or one of many other services. This ensures that your comment is not a machine generated comment and is not spam. The writer of the blog can see your email address but it is not published on the site.

In many cases one also needs to fill in a Captcha code which is simply used to ensure that you are human. If the captcha is difficult to read, generate a new code with the refresh button provided or click the speaker icon to have it read to you.

Search and comment

This post first appeared http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/search-and-comment.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

You may also be interested in these articles
Adding citations to images
Trove's tools

This post first appeared on Library Currants