Thursday 14 August 2014

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.

8 comments:

  1. Fo a newbie genealogist you are making great strides, Carmel. But with your background could we expect anything less?

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Jill, I'm learning lots from all you geneagiants out there in family history land

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  2. Greetings from one genealogy indexing addict to another! :-)

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  3. Great responses Carmel and as Jill said you've been achieving heaps for someone who's been at the game for 12 months. I particularly like your idea of putting all your Trove finds into a timeline. I think one of the biggest advantages of starting genealogy in the digital age is being able to start your recording electronically from scratch....trying to capture my 30 odd years of research is daunting to say the least! Look forward to seeing how your research progresses and following up some of your earlier blog posts. Thanks for joining in the #NFHM2014 geneameme.

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    Replies
    1. Retirement offers great opportunities to pursue a new interest and keep the grey matter in gear. Thanks for your encouragement, I have a lot of catching up to do!

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  4. Enjoyed your answers. Not sure what you meant by PDFs not showing online. I use them for work so I might be able to help. Fran

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    Replies
    1. Hi Fran - I specifically meant my PDF documents uploaded to MyHeritage family site do not display online. Sorry, my post did not make that clear. :)

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