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Merry Month of May Meme

Merry Month of May Meme

kira0030

Pauleen from Family History Across The Seas has proposed this meme which follows on from previous years.

Has your day-to-day life returned to how it/you functioned previously?

I am still mostly staying at home to avoid COVID because I have other health issues which could cause complications.

If your “new normal” is different from your “old normal”, can you share some of the ways it’s changed?

I am doing most of my voluntary work for Makerspace Adelaide from home now which I wasn’t doing before. The genealogy work I do for customers I’m still doing from home.

Do you think these will be long-term changes for you?

Yes I think these changes will continue for some time yet for me.

What personal benefits have you gained from the change of pace and experiences in the past two years?

I’ve been able to work on a major research project of my own instead of mainly doing work for customers.

What do you value most about your new normal?

Being at home means I’ve been able to do major de-cluttering of my house and now I can find things a lot better!

What is your view of in-person meetings (social or genealogy) and do you love or hate zoom meetings?

As I’ve said above I’m still staying away from in-person meetings where possible. I like zoom meetings.

What was the main activity and/or person that supported you through the unpredictable times?

My main activities are genealogy, crafts, listening to audio books and watching movies.

Has your community developed a new normal or just returned to the old one? What differences do you see, if any?

Most of the communities I’m involved in have returned to normal however I’m still feeling a bit isolated not being able to attend as many face – to – face activities as I would like to.

What I’m Doing During COVID 19 Isolation

kira0030

I thought I would write a bit about what I’m doing during this isolation time. I am self-isolating at home because I have pre-existing health conditions which put me at risk if I were to contract the Corona Virus.

I love crafts and have several on the go at the moment. I’m crocheting large and colourful pieces to yarn bomb the tree in my front yard. I’ll do another post with pictures when it is finished.

I’m doing some cross stitch along with many others as part of the Stitch and Resist project.

“Through the act of craftivism we hope to
make connections and community
make political statements
make important cultural objects
make a difference
and make change“

I’ve also been doing some traditional wet felt making.

In Progress
Finished Pieces

I’m not sure yet but I may try and make something which incorporates all three of these crafts. If it happens I will post photos.

Facebook, genealogy, my grandchildren and my pets are also keeping me occupied during this time. What are you doing to fill the hours?

January Genea Pourri

January Genea Pourri

kira0030

I have been inspired by Jill aka GeniAus and Alex at Family Tree Frog to write about what genealogy related things I’ve been up to.

Early in the month I started a new 6 generation pedigree tree for a customer.  These are some of the things I have found out so far:

  • one ancestor had a joint patent on the South Australian icon the Stobie pole with the inventor James Cyril Stobie 
  • another was instrumental in opening up the goldfields in Kalgoorlie/Boulder in Western Australia and was knighted for their efforts at home during World War I.
  • one was a postage stamp printer and their grandfather was a pioneering printer in Glasgow, Scotland.

I’m currently using a combination of Ancestry, Find My Past, Family Search, Scotland’s People, National Library of Scotland, Trove, Google Books/Maps/Newspapers, State Library of South Australia to research this family.

Although it’s an online tree that I’m building I still use a Family Group Sheet word processor document to record family members who I’m not sure belong in the tree I’m creating, so while I still have questions about them I’ll keep them in a document until I’m sure they belong in the online tree.

I maintain a Facebook group Saving Graves South Australia as well as the public page which goes with it Say No To Reuse of Graves.  There has been lots of activity lately as we were shocked to find out just last week that human bones had been found in a rubbish heap at Cheltenham Cemetery, South Australia.  Adelaide Cemeteries Authority has assured our members that they’re conducting an internal review of procedures.  We are encouraging our members to keep in touch with the ACA and follow-up on this event.

I have visitors stay with me from the couchsurfing.com website.  Just recently a lovely woman from England who is a military history buff stayed with me.  She had heard about a military museum on Yorke Peninsula and wanted to know if there was public transport to get there.  She was disappointed when I explained that there was no public transport and hiring a car would cost too much.  I decided to take her and we set off on our road trip.  It took us three hours to get there but it was well and truly worth it.  This large museum covers many buildings and contains not just military memorabilia but many historical artefacts and photos.

Bublacowie Military Museum

 

St John Ambulance Cadets

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I was going through a box of memorabilia tonight when I came across my St John Ambulance cadet certificates and badges.  I think I was missing a couple of service stripes for my years as a cadet.  I remember doing the drill and training but not so much the exams.  I loved the events that we went to to provide first aid support to the senior officers.  We went to agricultural shows, the Schützenfest at Hahndorf, South Australia and Christmas Pageants.  As it says in the Wikipedia link the Schützenfest was held in mid summer resulting in many cases of too much to drink, heatstroke and extreme sunburn for us to treat.

 

Our uniform was a white dress and black beret with a grey wool cape for winter.  It wasn’t very practical at all.  Thankfully in later years it changed so that women could wear trousers.  The below photos show cadets from another South Australian country town, during the time I was a cadet.  I couldn’t find pictures of my own cadet division online.

 

Preparing For The Researching Abroad Roadshow

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How do you prepare before attending a workshop or conference?  I haven’t always done this as well as I could have so this time I would like to be more prepared.  The two principal speakers are Chris Paton and Dirk Weissleder.  Chris will be speaking on the UK and Ireland and Dirk on Germany.  I have ancestors from all of these areas so their presentations will have significance for me.

It’s easy to look at a conference program and be overwhelmed by all the talks on offer.  I’ve done here what I’ve previously done with the OzComicCon program.  I pull out the main speakers and topics I am interested in. Below are the presentations from Chris and Dirk the key speakers.  This is taken from the Adelaide roadshow program.

Chris Paton

  • British and Irish Newspapers
  • Scottish Research Resources Before 1800
  • British Censuses and Substitutes
  • Irish Family History Resources Online

Dirk Weissleder

  • Primary and Secondary Sources on Genealogy in
    Germany
  • Introduction to European Research
  • The International German Genealogical Partnership
  • Archives, Libraries and Institutions for Genealogical
    Researchers in Germany

I will also review the information I have on my Scottish, Irish and German ancestors and make notes to take with me of surnames, era of dates of birth, and birth places/counties or parishes. Eg. Buring/Biering, Berlin, Prussia early 1800s.  Willison, Galston, Ayrshire, Scotland. Reid, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, 1800s.

What I will do next is prepare any questions, I might have, for the speakers.  It’s best to ask generic questions at a presentation and keep specific questions for one on one time. Eg. What might have happened to an ancestor if they disappear from records in 1840s in Germany?

Lots of other bloggers have mentioned the things to take to a conference so here are just a few: pencil, notebook, drink bottle, fully charged electronic gadgets, comfortable clothes and business or geniecards.

I’m looking forward to two great days of learning, catching up with friends and meeting new people.

DNA Results

kira0030

I woke up this morning to find that my DNA results are in and one person has contacted me already!!  I’m excited to get stuck in to checking out all the matches and following the leads they bring!  I chose Ancestry DNA because I’m already an avid Ancestry user and also because I can download my raw results and upload them to other DNA testing providers such as Family Tree DNA to get even more matches and interpretation tools.

Hopefully there will be more blog posts to come about my matches and the knocking down of brick walls.