Youtube Subtitles Suck But There Is A Solution

Posted by admin in genealogy, tech and tagged with Deaf, genealogy, hearing impaired, subtitles, youtube February 9, 2013

If you make any videos for online please consider people who are deaf or hearing impaired and put subtitles in your video. If you’re uploading your video to Youtube please don’t rely on the youtube subtitles. They really, really suck.

Here are some examples;

Bad subtitling

Bad Subtitling

Bad Subtitling

Amara.org

If you have a youtube channel you can create an Amara.org account and link your channel to it. Amara volunteers will subtitle your videos for you or you can do them yourself using their easy subtitling interface, Universal Subtitles, for free.

Connect your Youtube channel with your Amara account

My Youtube channel connected to my Amara account

It took me about 15 minutes to subtitle one of my videos. Here it is http://www.amara.org/en/videos/9eZi5is4dsZH/info/jesus-thank-you-for-the-cross/

There are also share buttons for Facebook and Twitter and an email button so that you can quickly and easily share your videos with your social networks. You can also get an embed code to embed your videos in your blog or web page.

Even if you don’t make videos or have a Youtube account you can still make subtitles for other people’s videos by joining a team at www.amara.org

Please consider subtitling your videos so that myself and others can utilise them to the full. Thanks

A New Way Of Searching Trove

Posted by admin in genealogy and tagged with genealogy, tips, Trove May 11, 2012

I found a new way of searching Trove which others may already know about but it was new to me so I thought I would share it. Hope it helps someone!

Searching All Newspapers In A State

Go to Trove website: www.trove.nla.gov.au

Click on “Digitised Newspapers and more”.

On the map of Australia click the state you want to search. In my case it is South Australia.

Click on the picture to see it larger.

Click in the box “Limit to South Australian titles”.

Click in the search box, type in your search and press enter.

Your search will show only results for South Australian newspapers. This can be repeated for all Australian states.

Thirteenth Australasian Congress on Genealogy & Heraldry Adelaide 2012

Posted by admin in genealogy and tagged with genealogy, Genealogy Congress 2012, hearing loss, heraldry April 2, 2012

I wasn’t able to make it to the first day of the Congress because I was setting up my art exhibition. Here are some of my notes and impressions of Day Two.

Day Two

I didn’t write any notes about Jenny Higgins’ keynote talk other than to say that she was a bit hard to hear and understand.

World War One Recruiting Poster

These posters were being given out by the South Australian State Records in the exhibition hall.

Ref No. GRG 32/16/9

I wonder if my Grandfather saw these posters before he joined up.

World War One Recruiting Poster

Scottish Research Online – Barbara Baker

For anyone who wasn’t familiar with the websites Barbara was talking about they could’ve come out of this session rather confused as she switched back and forth between slides of Ancestry, Family Search and Scotland’s People. There wasn’t always time to read the slides either. It would’ve been good to see everything about Ancestry and then move on to the next site.

I did pick up some tips and new places to search for my Scottish ancestors- http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/, look at Wills and the Coat of Arms Register on http://scotlandspeople.gov.uk/, http://www.electricscotland.com/, http://british-history.ac.uk/, http://www.happyhaggis.co.uk/ and to look at http://scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/ for the Farm Horse Tax records.

Horse Tax Record Book

Family Search Indexing – Stephen Young

The room for Stephen’s talk didn’t have much light on the speaker so it was difficult to lip read him. I enjoyed Stephen’s talk about all the records Family Search indexes and about how to help with the indexing. One tip that I noted was this:

“A farm labourer worked with animals and lived on the farm. He usually stayed there a long time. An agricultural labourer however worked in the fields, didn’t live on the farm and moved around from farm to farm or went to work fairs to gain employment.” I have a number of ancestors listed as ‘agricultural labourers’ or ‘ag labs’ as they’re known but haven’t come across any farm labourers in any censuses yet.

Fascinating Facts & Figures From Five Countries – David Holman (keynote)

I thoroughly enjoyed David’s talk as I’m sure many people did going by the audience’s laughter. David shared figures of the most common surnames and forenames in different countries. He also spoke about uncommon and funny names and combinations of fore and surnames. I didn’t write anything down because I was so interested and entertained by what David was saying.

David Holman

I had to leave early for work so I didn’t get to hear any more talks but did spend some more time and money in the exhibition hall. I’ll write a separate post about what I bought.

Definitions of Genealogical Words

Posted by admin in genealogy and tagged with family history, genealogy March 12, 2012

banns – a public notice or announcement, usually in church, of an intended marriage.

beneficiary – someone that benefits from something. It is often the person designated to receive proceeds or benefits from a will.

BMD – birth, marriage, death records.

census – a count of the population, usually includes various statistics about the population.

centenarian – someone who lives to be at least 100 years old.

Christian names – the first and middle name given to a child at birth or baptism. Also called the given name.

citation – 1) a formal reference to a source of information. 2) an official summons to appear before a court.

cite – to quote an authority.

codicil - a supplement to a will.

decedent – the deceased person.

deed – a legal transfer of title.

descendant – originating from an ancestor.

descendant chart – a chart that lists all the descendants of an individual.

dowry – the money or property that a woman brings to a marriage.

executor – the person responsible for carrying out the terms of a will.

hundred - an administrative subdivision that existed in southern English counties prior to the 1974. Also used in Australia.

intestate – a person who dies without making a valid will.

issue – a person’s children or offspring.

JP – Justice of the Peace.

nee - identifies a woman’s maiden name, from the French word for born.

posthumous - after death. Sometimes children are referred to as posthumous, which means the child was born after the father’s death.

probate - a copy of a legally valid will, usually held by a regional court.

relict – the surviving spouse in a marriage.

Soundex – a filing system used in old US censuses where the family name was filed by the sound it made. It was used to cross-reference similar sounding names such as Smith and Smythe.

testament – written instructions in a will as to the disposition of property and the body of the deceased.

testator – the person who made the will.

Adelaider Liedertafel

Posted by admin in genealogy and tagged with Buring Family, genealogy October 29, 2011

This is my great, great grandfather Heinrich Franz Rudolph Buring, known as Rudolph, in the centre of the picture. He was president of the Adelaider Liedertafel from 1904 to 1908. In the top right hand corner of the picture is Friedrich Armbruster, Rudolph’s boss. Rudolph went to work for Armbruster and Uhlmann in 1858 when he was fourteen years old. Rudolph’s father Friedrich Adolph Buring had died two years earlier in 1856. Rudolph later said that his boss Friedrich Armbruster was a father figure and roll model to him. Rudolph, having worked his way up from errand boy, went on to take over the tobacconist business in 1897.

Presidents of the Adelaider Liedertafel

Repairing Photos With GIMP

Posted by admin in genealogy and tagged with genealogy, gimp, open source October 22, 2011

I’ve been working on my photo editing skills using GIMP, a free and open source image editor, watching some howto videos and practicing. Here are the before and after photos. This was a simple repair, just cropping a photo can remove a lot of blemishes.