Follow Friday - An accumulation of my weekly research - 2

Where did the week go??

This week I have had writers block and have spent most of my spare time searching the web, looking at blogs and sites that write about or provide information on the history of women.

 The focus of my research is not Womens fight for "freedom and rights", eventhough I do agree this is important, but more on their achievements, way of life, interests and escapades.

I was pleasantly surprised at the abundance of interesting blogs and helpful sites available.  Here is a brief summary of some of my interesting discoveries:

Blogs

Womens History Network,   http://womenshistorynetwork.org/blog/

Scandalous Women,  http://scandalouswoman.blogspot.com.au/ , What a great title, and amusing read.

Women's History Sources, http://womenshistorysources.blogspot.com.au/, This is a collaborative blog that serves as a current awareness tool for anyone who is interested in primary sources at archives, historic sites and museums, and libraries

Womens of History, http://womenofhistory.blogspot.com.au/, Dedicated to the women who have graced the pages of history, from ancient to modern times

Writing Womens History, http://writingwomenshistory.co.uk/, Weird, wonderful and random bits of women's social history.  (I have really enjoyed reading some of these stories, and look forward to reading more)

Websites

The Womens Library,   http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/thewomenslibrary/, is a cultural centre housing the most extensive collection of women's history in the UK

Notable Women Ancestors, http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nwa/grandma.html, stories and photos about everyday women.

National Pioneer Women's Hall of Fame  http://www.pioneerwomen.com.au/default.html, I like their slogan "History is her story too...".

The Australian Womens History Forum, http://womenshistory.net.au/

National Womens History Museum, http://www.nwhm.org/about-nwhm/.  I like the quote on their home page, "A better world awaits the generation that absorbs what women and men have to share about life from a joint perspective. Together, all things are possible."

This list is just the tip of the iceberg, if you have any that you sites that you have found interesting please let me know.

TROVE

In my last blog I spoke about the joys of assisting a friend into making the first steps towards researching her family history and how we used TROVE to search for some more details on her great great grandfather. Over the past few years I think I would have to rate TROVE as one of my most valuable research tools.

The National Library of Australia has developed TROVE as a free search engine that gives us access to a variety of collections in Australia and some overseas collections that relate to Australia.  These collections include Australian Newspapers, photos, articles, maps and books. No matter what your are researching, whether it be your family history, social conditions of a certain era, history of occupations, CWA recipies or sporting history as a few examples,  with just one click on trove.nla.gov.au you are able to find the most amazing collection of related material. The huge bonus to all researchers is that this information is free and accessible to all.

You can easily register as a user by going to this site https://trove.nla.gov.au/signup.  As you delve into the records you are able to tag articles of interest under you membership for later reference. Much of the TROVE content is digital and comes from libraries, cultural and educational institutions all around Australia.
When a researcher searches the site they are taken straight to the source, giving them immediate access to the information they are looking for.
As I look on family tree research as not only the collecting of the dates of birth deaths and marriages but also the collecting of family stories I find Trove to be one of the most valuable tools in my family research. There have been many occasions when I have used it to check a story that has been passed down in the family.  Often the discovery of a birth or death notice will provide that long searched for link to other members of the family or a place of birth.  However, what I find most exciting is that you are able to access stories about the towns and the times that your ancestors lived in, and some of the historical events that they lived through. 

Try your luck with TROVE.  The possibilities are endless.  Some of the areas I would suggest looking in are advertisements for sales of properties, family events, probate notices, court cases, obituaries, WWI and WWII notices or the names of towns that your families lived in. Small snippets from these types of searches have provided me with a rich source of information on where my ancestors came from, their occupations, life styles and important events in their lives.

TROVE also provides family tree researchers with the opportunity to share their discoveries and look for other researchers with similar interests on their forum.  If you are interested in using this resource it is very easy to register at this site  http://trove.nla.gov.au/forum/faq.php

I hope you find this resource as rich and rewarding as I have and please share your TROVING stories.

Happy Troving

The Excitment of Starting a New Family Tree

Jospeh Kaye,  http://photosau.com/Queanbeyan/scripts/home.asp

Last night it was my pleasure to introduce one of my friends to the delights of family research!!! 

She has been interested in her family background for a long time, but her busy life style had meant putting it on hold.  Having recently been to a short introductory course on starting a family tree she was keen to put what she had learnt into practice.  Knowing that I had been a family tree tragic for many years she sought my advice on some basic hints to get her on track.  

Where does one start??  I felt it was important to just provide enough information to get started, so that she could have the experience of putting all the pieces together herself.  Over a glass of red wine, we settled into starting the initial stages of her family story.   Firstly, using the birth dates of her parents and grandparents, I showed her how to set up an online tree in Ancestry.

Then, as most of her immediate family were born in New South Wales (Australia), we looked at how to look up the births, deaths and marriages of her family  on in the NSW Historical Indexes for Births Deaths and Marriages. Using the indexes we discovered details of quite a few of her fathers family, including great aunts, great and great, great grandfathers and grandmothers, some of whom she could remember.  I could see the excitement glinting in her eyes as we started to unravel her family story.  Oh yes,  another family tree digger is hooked!!!!

Then, my friend jumped up and said  "I have so show you something!!"  After a quick rustle in her cupboard she carefully brought out a beautiful old family bible that had belonged to her great great grandfather, Joseph Kaye who had settled in the Queanbeyan district in  the late 1830's.  The inside covers were filled with faded ink inscriptions of family birth, death and marriage details.  This was a treasure that all family historians dream of discovering! 

 As we poured over the inscriptions inside the diary, I decided that we had enough information to check out one of my favorite family research sites.  TROVE!    Trove is a free online resource provided by the National Library of Australia, which provides anyone with access to digital copies of newspapers, images, maps, books and many more items.  After showing her how to set up her own account, we typed into the search box "Joseph Kaye" Queanbeyan and then selected the "sort by earliest" button.  We were immediately rewarded with a number of articles about her great great grandfather.  One article from 1844, not only gave details of his marriage, but also details of where his wife's family came from and the name of his company and business partner.

MARRIED.  

At Queanbeyan, on Tuesday, the 5th November, by the Rev. E. Smith, by special  license, Joseph Kaye, Esq., of the firm of Hunt  and Kaye, to Eliza, fifth daughter of the late  Mr. John Hunt, of Fishlake, near Doncaster, England.  

(1844 'Family Notices.', The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), 15 November, p. 3, viewed 10 July, 2012, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12417766)

 

Hours had ticked by and our bottle of wine was all but gone, and it was time to pack up for the night. However we both agreed it had been a very productive evening. As I wandered off to bed I grinned to myself,  "Another one has been hooked".

 

The Family Tree Grows

In the late 1980’s our family moved and all my family tree research was packed into boxes to be shipped off to our new home.  Over the next 10-15 years, though I still kept my eyes and ears open for new family information, I didn't have time for any serious research and so these boxes virtually, stayed sealed.  With two young boys starting school, and a family business, there wasn't a lot of spare hours for digging around our family tree roots.

It was interesting though, I had unofficially become the keeper of the family history.   Members of the family would forward on anything they thought I might be interested in.  Also when another member of the family started to delve into the family history, they would be referred to me.  So during this time, my boxes of family memorabilia grew, and gathered dust in our spare room. 

It was almost 15 years later when both my boys had left home and we had moved home again that I finally started to find the time to start digging back into the mysteries of my family tree.  By this time there were numerous online genealogy sites such Ancestry, Genes United and My Heritage. Initially I took a starter package with Genes United. I signed up and was hooked.  I started pulling out all the notes, old pictures  etc and entering the data into my family tree. We invested in a scanner and my poor dear husband scored the task of scanning the reams of photos and certificates.

The feedback that I received from my on-line tree was phenomenal.  I couldn't wait for the next instalment of "hot matches" to come through, so I could make contact with others researching similar trees. I was starting to acquire a large address book of family tree contacts and it was great to be able to share stories, documents and photos.  Over the next few years I invested in a couple of on-line genealogy site memberships, trying them out to see which I found the best.  Now I do my main research and record keeping on Ancestry, but have a number of other memberships with other On Line Family Research sites as I find that some offer advantages that others don't and it also widens my access to other researchers. A word of caution, memberships can become expensive so be careful to look for the option that best meets your needs and budget. 

However, despite my joy at the influx of new information on my family history, a dilemma was developing.  The more information, pictures and documents I collected the harder it was to keep it in order.  I needed to find a way to put all the information into logical order!!  this was not an easy task and I hope to share this learning experience with you in later blogs.