QFHS Snippets - Feburary 2013 Volume 13, No. 2
QFHS Snippets - Feburary 2013 Volume 13, No. 2
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Join us on 20 February for our first general meeting for 2013.
Have you booked your spot to play the Trout Game yet? Places are limited.
Learn about Family Search’s new family tree database.
Participate in State Library’s Access and Digitisation Survey.
Your contributions and feedback can be sent to us at: snippets@qfhs.org.au
Happy researching!
2013 Meeting Dates
Allow yourself the privilege of having a fun day in family
history and play the Trout Game! The game simulates researching an
English family (the Trout family) using eleven types of records.
The aim is to see if you can get back to the 1500s. Use the game
to see how good a researcher you are using basic research
techniques not involving computers at all and find out why you may
have brick-walls in your research.
The Trout Game will be played on Sunday, 19 May 2013 from 10am to
4pm at QFHS Library. Cost is $5.00 which includes morning and
afternoon tea (BYO lunch). To make your booking, contact Game
Master Ann Swain via email at: a.swain@bigpond.com or
telephone (07) 3352 5537. Numbers are limited and early bookings
are essential.
Queensland State Archives will be open to the public on the
second Saturday of every calendar month from 9am to 4:30pm. The
next three Saturday opening dates are:
Queensland State Archives are located at 435 Compton Road,
Runcorn, Queensland. For more details, go to: http://bit.ly/H4ubPc
For those who find it difficult to get to the Queensland State
Archives (QSA), there is a taxi service for researchers available
every Tuesday.
Information can be obtained at: http://bit.ly/JzSy5n
To book taxi travel to QSA, phone (07) 3131 7777.
ArchivesSearch Seminar
This seminar provides researchers with an introduction to the
searchable catalogue ArchivesSearch. It can be accessed online or
in the Public Search Room at Queensland State Archives. It will be
held on Tuesday, 19 February from 10 am to 11 am.
Getting Started Seminar
Learn about Queensland State Archives’ collection and how best to
find the information you are seeking. This seminar, presented by
an experienced reference archivist, will provide you with the
basics you need to start your research at Queensland State
Archives and will include a short tour. It will be held on
Tuesday, 19 March from 10am to 12 Noon.
To book your spot for either seminar, call (07) 3131 7777.
The publication will be launched by on 7 February at 10:30am by
Denver Beanland, former local and then state government
representative, as well as former Vice Mayor of the City of
Brisbane/ Deputy Mayor and former Queensland Attorney General.
Cradle to Grave – Toowong Council was compiled by Melva A. Welch
OAM. This new book is a cameo record of the elected and appointed
men who served Toowong's Local Government from its formation in
1880 until 1925, when the area became part of the Brisbane City
Council under the Greater Brisbane Act.
For more information phone, (07) 3371 5000 or email: tdhsoc@gmail.com
You are invited to attend a Commemoration Service of the
capsizing of the S.S. Pearl on the Brisbane River on 13 February,
1896. There was a loss of twenty-nine lives, with sixty people
being saved. It is hoped that as many descendants as possible will
attend to share the stories of their families.
For further information, email: pseto@bigpond.net.au
The February Guest speaker at the Guide Hut in Arthur Street,
Caloundra will be Qld Family History Society member Ms Desley
Schafer. Desley’s presentation will be “Pioneers and the
Hardships”. The date to diarise is Thursday, 21 February, at
1:30pm. Visiting members of the public are always welcome to
attend these talks hosted by our research group.
Further information on the group’s calendar of events, resources,
“Caloundra Clipper” journal, activities, and even a map to locate
us, is available on our website at: http://www.caloundrafamilyhistory.org.au/
For personal contact, phone Valerie on (07) 5437 3879, Roz on (07)
5493 1197; June on (07) 5493 2679, or you can email at: caloundrafamilyres@y7mail.com
The National Archives (NAA) of Australia is holding its annual Shake your Family Tree Day on Tuesday, 16 April 2013 at the NAA Brisbane Office, 16 Corporate Drive, Cannon Hill.
More information will be provided from the NAA website as it
comes to hand. Go to: http://www.naa.gov.au/
The Ipswich Historical Society Inc. recently launched its new
website which gives information about the Society and provides
details on its upcoming events and projects.
The aim of the Society is to collect, preserve, conserve,
interpret, educate, and display the social history of the Ipswich
region.
You can visit their website at: http://www.ipswichhistoricalsociety.org.au/
The Family History Nnub is a digital community notice board for
family historians in Queensland. You can use the Nnub to:
To learn more and access Nnub, go to: http://familyhistory.nnub.net/
State Library is eager to learn more about your collections, how
you provide access and where you are with digitisation. The survey
is running to the end of March 2013. Your responses will help them
to plan training, and promote and develop online catalogues,
websites and toolkits.
You can complete the survey at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2SPQBF7
The Maurice George Delpratt Collection (Acc: 28115) comprises the correspondence of Sergeant Maurice George Delpratt from Tamborine, Queensland, who was captured at Gallipoli and held as a prisoner of war in Turkey for three-and-a-half years.
The moving and informative letters and postcards (almost 200 in
total) were written to his family and donated by them to State
Library.
You can see images of and read the correspondence at: http://blogs.slq.qld.gov.au/jol/2012/08/17/new-acquisition-maurice-george-delpratt/
Jack and Ruby are back at the top of the list of most popular
baby names in Queensland.
For the top five baby names for boys and girls in Queensland for
2012, go to: http://bit.ly/UFPNXQ
A birthday is your special day to shine, but for one Victorian
family the celebration is a crowded affair. Four generations of
women from one family have all been born on 5 January, after baby
Sienna Wass recently arrived in an unexpected twist of fate. She
will share her birthday with her mother, grandmother and late
great-grandmother.
Read more at: http://bit.ly/Tfqn3Q
The aim of this annual Award presented by Tasmanian Family
History Society is to encourage family historians to present the
results of their research for others to read and enjoy.
The Award is for a book, however produced or published, printed on
paper, dealing with family history and must have a significant
Tasmanian content.
For more information go to: http://www.tasfhs.org/LilWatAward.htm
The Forgotten Times features untold and little-known tales from
Australian history, and articles by experts about researching your
personal history, family tree and all matters relating to
genealogy.
Go to: http://www.theforgottentimes.com/
A new web site details the search for the living male descendants of the 35 men who died on the Great Barrier Reef in 1791 during the wrecking of the Pandora. The intention is to find matching DNA (Y) signatures to sequences recently obtained from 3 skeletons recovered from the Pandora wreck in the 1990s.
The skeletons were studied by medical scientists and affectionately nicknamed Tom, Dick and Harry and subsequently kept in secure, climate-controlled storage at the Queensland Museum, pending developments in DNA research which would one day perhaps present a way to identify the three unknown sailors.
Consequently, there are now 3 good DNA (Y) ‘signatures’ from Tom, Dick and Harry for comparison and it is theoretically possible to match these signatures with signatures from living male descendants – if they can be traced genealogically of course! But finding ‘matches’ will provide a means to positively identify Tom, Dick or Harry.
This project will be a ‘reverse genealogy’ – it set outs with
identification of Tom, Dick and Harry as an objective. If your
family name is Bowler, Cullimore, Croy, Eglington, Fea, Mackey,
Millar or Stewart, one of these 8 men may be your ancestor. You
can also check whether your family name is among the other 27 men
who died in 1791 when the Pandora was wrecked.
You can learn more at: http://pandorawreckancestors.net/
Anyone interested in American history might enjoy this online
blog, entitled British Soldiers, American Revolution. It details
the experiences of many of the enlisted men who were part of the
British government’s effort to hold onto those thirteen rebellious
North American colonies.
It is possible you could find an ancestor listed in the British
Soldiers, American Revolution. Regardless of whether or not your
own ancestor is listed, reading the articles will provide great
insight into the harsh conditions these men endured and will give
a greater appreciation of the lives they led. British Soldiers,
American Revolution can be found at: http://redcoat76.blogspot.com/.
Fees for services provided by the General Register Office of
Northern Ireland are being increased. The fees are for birth,
death, marriage and civil partnership certificates, as well as
fees in relation to marriage and civil partnership formalities and
other services. The changes are in effect now.
You can read more at the GRONI web site at: http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/news-dec12-general-register-office-fees-increasing/
The Presentation of the certificate for Council of Irish Genealogical Organisations’ (CIGO) 2012 Award for Excellence in Genealogy has been made to the General Register Office of Northern Ireland (GRONI).
In making the Award, CIGO recognised that GRONI had completed the
digitisation of all Birth, Marriage and Death (BMD) records for
the six counties of Northern Ireland in 2011. This allowed for new
and more informative indexes to be created which can be searched
on computer within the Belfast-based Public Search Room. A new
Public Search Room was then set up with 22 PC positions for
researchers. CIGO recognised that this new computerised system is
extremely user-friendly and allows for many varieties of searches
of the indexes including 'wildcard' searches.
To read more, go to: http://bit.ly/138KuDq
The National Newspapers of Ireland (NNI) has adopted a new
policy. Any website which links to one of the 15 NNI member
newspapers will have to pay a minimum of 300 Euros, with the
licence fee going up if you post more links. Note that this is not
a fee to post an excerpt or some punitive measure for the copying
of an entire article. No, the NNI wants to charge for links alone.
It doesn't apply just to newsletters or web sites, the NNI wants
to charge the same fee to anyone who even posts a single link in a
Twitter message or any other message in any public place on the
Internet. That includes Facebook, all blogs, all web pages, and
perhaps anyplace else online!
For details see: http://bit.ly/ZUV3LM
A new e-booklet listing memorial inscriptions from the Moravian
Cemetery, Whitechurch, County Dublin, Ireland, can be freely
downloaded from: http://homepage.eircom.net/~seanjmurphy/epubs/
The Moravian Church, the Unitas Fratrum or United Brethren, is a
pre-Reformation Protestant Church which today has about 900,000
adherents worldwide. The Moravians established congregations in
Ireland in the 1740s and in 1764 they opened a burial ground at
Whitechurch, County Dublin. There are over 700 stones in the
graveyard; with men buried on one side and women on the other.
Inscriptions from 629 memorials dated from 1764-1900 are included
in the online booklet. The records of the Dublin Moravian
Congregation are held at Gracehill, County Antrim, and while they
have not yet been digitised, microfilm copies are available in the
Public Record Office of Northern Ireland in Belfast.
Finding those elusive East European ancestors can be difficult.
This article includes 13 ways to get started.
Written from a United States perspective, you should still find
something helpful here: http://exm.nr/WAe5TI
The Library and Archives Canada (LAC) Blog at: http://thediscoverblog.com/tag/census/ has
announced the release of a new version of the Census of the
Northwest Provinces, 1906 database. In 1906, the Canadian
government called for a special census of the Prairie Provinces
(Manitoba, and the two newly created provinces of Saskatchewan and
Alberta) in order to track the high rates of population growth in
Western Canada.
Previously, users could search only by geographical information
such as province, district and sub-district. It is now possible to
also search by nominal information such as name, given name(s) and
age for an individual.
The new Census of the Northwest Provinces, 1906 database is
available at: http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/1906/Pages/1906.aspx
Most families cherish family photographs taken years ago. Sadly,
many Jewish families from European countries were denied the
opportunity to preserve family photographs during the upheavals of
World War II. Now the Remember Me? Project is working to find old
photographs and even to identify the people in the pictures. More
than 300 Holocaust survivors worldwide have now been identified
through their childhood photographs.
The project is meant to identify the people in the photos, and to
record their stories in an attempt to broaden understanding of the
Holocaust and preserve the era’s history. Remember Me? has also
helped survivors reconnect with loved ones from whom they were
separated during the chaos of the war.
The Remember Me? project can be found at: http://rememberme.ushmm.org/
You can learn more about this project in an article at: http://hrld.us/Zk5wQm
The massive electronic database detailing the grave sites of the
roughly 400,000 people buried at Arlington National Cemetery is
now available online at: http://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/
Ellis Island, the historic point of arrival in the United States
for more than 12 million European immigrants, has been closed
since Hurricane Sandy hit New York Harbor on 29 October 2012, and
the damage to its museum and other landmark structures will cost
millions of dollars to restore.
Read the full article at: http://www.genealogyblog.com/?p=23930
The Trumbull County Veterans Service Office maintains an online
database of all Trumbull County residents who gave their lives in
World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Trumbull County Casualties website may be found at: http://www.trumbullcountycasualties.com/
Information on how to use the site is available at: http://www.trumbullcountycasualties.com/how-to-search
500 new Pennsylvanians will get the wrong answer to the question
"Who's your Daddy?" if they rely on their misprinted birth
certificates. A computer glitch caused the problem when the state
Division of Vital Records recently transitioned to new records
software.
Read more about the technical glitch at: http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/bizarre&id=8957576
This good genealogy search engine also offers a free newsletter
when you register.
Check it out at: http://www.genealogyintime.com/index.html
In a find that local Jewish groups have described as highly significant, Greek police said Thursday that hundreds of marble headstones and other fragments from Jewish graves destroyed during the Nazi occupation in World War II have been recovered.
The 668 fragments were found buried in a plot of land in
Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city, following a 70-year
search for the remains of graves smashed when the city’s main
Jewish cemetery was destroyed. Most of the gravestones found dated
from the mid-1800s up until World War II.
More details are available at: http://www.genealogyblog.com/?p=23736
Staff Sergeant Zoltan Dobovich's family knew he died in the crash
of a B-17 in the Alps on the Italian-French border in 1946. The
family also knew remains found at the crash site the following
summer were buried in a common grave at Arlington Cemetery under a
tombstone listing the names of all eight Army Air Force officers
and airmen killed. However, they did not know whether any of the
body parts recovered then or in subsequent decades as the glaciers
on the Mont Blanc range retreated belonged to the radioman from
Bucks County - until now.
Recently, the military was able to conduct DNA testing that
identified some of the remains as those of Dobovich.
You can read more about this story in an article at: http://bit.ly/WTVRL0
A teenage girl is suing the state of Iceland for the right to
legally use the name given to her by her mother, after it was
banned by the government. The problem? Blaer, which means "light
breeze" in Icelandic, is not on a list approved.
Iceland has official rules about what a baby can be named. In
Blaer's case, her mother said she learned the name wasn't on the
register of permitted names only after the priest who baptised the
child later informed her he had mistakenly allowed it.
You can read more about Blaer’s plight at: http://bit.ly/ZYBkKV
By the time Thanksgiving arrived, members of a San Carlos family were wondering what happened to a letter carrying a precious piece of their history.
The letter, which contained a 1938 telegram that was the “opening
page” of a family love story, was mailed in early November but
never arrived. They feared it was lost until they learned they’ll
get back the memento after its strange voyage through the postal
and criminal justice systems.
Read the full article at: http://bit.ly/12bZq4W
Do you believe you are descended from Louis XVI? If so, proof may soon be available although only if you have an all-male line of descent. A DNA report may soon be available. A team of scientists have said they believe an old gourd contains the blood of the French King.
The monarch was killed by guillotine by French revolutionaries on
21 January 1793. The team of experts from Spain and France has
published its findings in Forensic Science International journal.
You can read at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20882305
Which search engine is better, Google or Bing or Yahoo? Now, one
web service searches all those sites and more simultaneously.
Soovle is one simple-to-use search vehicle that will utilise the
power of the following websites at once:
In short, Soovle.com is a customisable search engine that
provides the search suggestion features of the best providers on
the internet. It combines the power of all of the above web sites
into one easy-to-use package. Soovle.com always can provide a lot
of information about whatever you are seeking. Try it.
Soovle can be found at http://www.soovle.com/
Help and instructions for how to use the site are found in the
“secrets” link in the upper right-hand corner.
Kerry Scott has written this interesting article regarding the
internet and the pitfalls researchers may face when copying and
pasting data from online family trees onto theirs.
Check it out at: http://bit.ly/W16vzS
Two Bosnian sisters who lost track of each other almost 72 years
ago met for the first time with the help of Facebook although they
lived only 200 kilometres apart. Tanija Delic, 88, and Hedija
Talic, 82, had not seen each other since 1941.
Read more about the sisters’ reunion at: http://bit.ly/Xa3yuK
A United States man has been reunited with his sister 65 years
after the siblings were separated in foster care thanks to a
seven-year-old friend who searched Facebook. Clifford Boyson, of
Davenport, Iowa, met his sister, Betty Billadeau of Missouri, in
person recently.
Read more at: http://bit.ly/Tfru3B
Amy Tanner Thiriot has written an in-depth guide describing recent changes made to FamilySearch.org. She writes: The Church genealogical database NewFamilySearch (NFS) has been frustrating for so many people, particularly those who do actual genealogical research and care about accuracy. NFS allowed people with no particular skill to upload sketchy aggregated online family trees (usually culled from Ancestral File, Ancestry, and RootsWeb) and have their data look as valid as the correct information.
Family Search recently released a replacement for NFS. It is
called Family Tree.
You can read the remainder of Amy Tanner Thiriot’s article at: http://bit.ly/13jkAgy
Amateur genealogists beware - researching your ancestry doesn't
always turn up heroes and royalty. It may turn up a felon, a
bigamist or another unsavoury character. Roughly 1 in 5 of those
surprises are negative. The bombshell may be the discovery of
someone up the family line who engaged in illegal or immoral
activity.
When you look at what your ancestors did, you don't get the glory
and you don't get the blame. It just means you have a colourful
story to share.
Read more here: http://on.wsj.com/Wbd1Ty
This list was categorised by GenealogyInTime Magazine. Enjoy
reading the top 100 at: http://bit.ly/135ng10