Last week I went to a Gould Genealogy/Unlock The Past talk at Mt Barker Library. One of the things discussed were the resources on the Unlock The Past website.  The resources page lists – Blogs, Book Reviews, eHandouts, How To Guides, General Interest, Guides To Records, Religion and Free Sample Files.

eHandouts includes links to Presentations from the Unlock the Past conference-cruise March 2011

Guides To Records – Government and Police Gazettes: Unlocking a major untapped resource by Alan Phillips (PDF),  The South Australian Government Gazettes with particular reference to Port Adelaide by Andrew G Peake (PDF), Directories and Almanacs by Graham Jaunay

Religion – Find Your Ancestors in Church Publications Part 1 by Shauna Hicks and parts 2 &3.

The Free Sample Files & Indexes page has a huge amount of information – Australian Men of Mark 1889, Australasian Medical Directory and Handbook 1883, Australian Handbook 1882, H.M.S. Buffalo and many, many more!

What a great repository of free information.  I hope you can all find something about your ancestors, or the times they lived in, here.

I’ve just joined the Genealogists For Families project, here are the details of what it’s all about;

Genealogists worldwide, and their friends and relatives, are working as a team to help families in low income areas. Our motto is, We care about families (past, present and future). Within six weeks the project had sixty members from eight countries helping eighty-eight small family businesses all over the globe – and the number increases daily.

Through Kiva, a nonprofit organisation, we make $25 loans that enable borrowers to expand their businesses, support their families and raise themselves out of poverty. When the loan is repaid, the lender can withdraw the money or lend it again.

To find out about team activities, follow this blog or subscribe to posts and comments. Join ‘Genealogists for Families’ and make a difference by helping families now and in the future!

It was fun looking through the different lending opportunities through Kiva. I chose to help a textile worker because I’m one also and I love textiles from different countries!!  This link goes to my Kiva page.

Maria Northcote has started a new genealogy podcast called Genies Down Under.  So far there are two episodes on her website to download and listen to on your computer or mp3 player or you can also listen to the podcasts directly from her website.

Maria speaks very clearly and also spells out names and website addresses which make her podcasts accessible to people with a hearing impairment.

The podcasts are chock full of information so I suggest you have a notebook and pen handy or type your notes as you are listening.  Topics covered so far are Cemetery Stuff for Genies and Free Stuff For Genies.

Here’s the podcast description:

By listening to this podcast, you’ll save yourself time and money, gather up some handy advice and get some help to make headway in finding out about your own family’s interesting past. And one more important thing … rather than just collecting names and dates during your family history research, this podcast will focus on some nifty little techniques that can help you to get to know your ancestors a little better, by reading between the lines of old documents and looking beyond the faces in old photographs.

I really enjoy how Maria introduces a topic, speaks about it and then summarises it before going on to another topic.  All the things she speaks about are clear and concise, no umming and arring and no rambling on either!!

Another thing I noted about the podcast is that Maria promotes using creative commons licenses on materials people are producing as well as genealogists using resources which have a creative commons license. I’m really glad that more people are promoting the use of creative commons licenses and licensed materials. I use a creative commons license on my teaching notes, blog posts, etc so that others can use and share these resources.  I think the more we can share the better!!  See my blog side bar  <—————

I’m looking forward to next month’s podcast already  🙂

William Chapman was my great, great uncle. He came to South Australia with his parents and three of his siblings, from England, on the Asiatic in 1849.

My Mum has had this newspaper clipping for as long as I can remember. Growing up I always knew that this was someone in our family. As the article says William was a letter carrier for 35 years. His father, also William, was a letter carrier for 39 years.