Thursday on the Cruise

Thursday I attended a talk by Mike Murray on DNA for the Genealogist.  I had listened to a talk on DNA by Kerry Farmer a few years ago, but since then the autosomal tests have come forward leaps and bounds, but they are still not going to tell you your complete family tree back to Adam and Eve.  Next was a talk  by Cora Num on Occupational Records, where she mentioned lots of useful places to get information about your ancestor via his/her occupational records, or at least built a picture of what that occupation was like.  Many of her examples related to South Australia, which was not as relevant to me, but a couple of things she mentioned that I must have a look at were that SAG has indexed Sydney’s Sewerage Plans (I didn’t make a note of the date), which shows the names of occupiers (or was it owners?) of properties, along with maps, and that State Library of NSW has Surveyor General’s Detail Sheets on their web site.  These don’t list names, but are still relevant as historical maps.

Next I spoke on Medieval Genealogy.  Had what I considered a very good turn out – 20 (which was the maximum that room can hold) – which I thought was very good as I think it is a rather specialist subject.

This afternoon was Rosemary Koppitke talking on Findmypast Australasia.  A few interesting records there that I must look at, like Victorian Monumental Inscriptions, Government Gazettes for most states, Police Gazettes and some Victorian Land Records, just to name a few.  Shauna Hicks talk about Trove came up with a couple of interesting things.  If you search for pictures through Trove or through Picture Australia, they will come up in different orders, so try both.  Also, searching the newspapers through Trove is faster than going to the Newspapers link.  Don’t ask me why.  Finally Allan Murrin spoke on Familysearch, comparing the old site to the new one.  A key point with the new one is that if you create a login (which is free, of course) and sign in, you will be given access to more records than if you come in as an anonymous user.