Victorian Early Church Records DVD

I recently purchased a copy of the new brand new data DVD from Births Deaths & Marriages in Victoria called "Victoria's Early Church Records".  I eagerly put it into the DVD drive on my computer and tried to run it.  A command box flashed up on the screen and closed before I could see anything on it.

My computer is running a 64-bit version of Windows 7, so I tried it on my husband's 32-bit version.  Same thing happened.  I contacted the department who had created the CD and explained I was having trouble and they replied "There is a possibility that the DVD is having problems with the reasonably new operating system.  However it should work on the 32 bit version."  Quite apart from the fact that there is nothing new about Windows 7 (it was released in 2009), I had already told them that it didn't work on the 32-bit version either.  And someone else I knew also had the same problem with the 32-bit version of Windows 7.  Their only response was that we should return the DVD and get a replacement.  But that probably wouldn't work either.

Well I didn't want to give up so I have spent ages figuring out what was happening.  Here is the answer/solution:

1. The file launch.bat that automatically starts up is checking for the pre-requisites.  If there was a problem you will see an HTML page telling you that something is missing.  If you don't see anything then you can assume you have all the prerequisite software.

2. Then navigate to the CD on your computer via Windows explorer (or whichever way you like to navigate).  Go to the directory app.  In it you will find a file called DVDsearchgen.jar which you should double click.  This will start up the application as advertised in the brochure enclosed with the CD.

3. The search works ok, and you can select a record ok to see the details, but when you click the view image button, the image that is displayed is of low resolution, but it is displayed with a weird aspect ratio.  You have to fiddle around with the window to get an image that is at the correct aspect ratio (and therefore looks like legible English) and use the slider on the bottom of the screen to increase the size enough to read it.  You cannot make the window wide enough to see the whole line from the register or you will muck up the aspect ratio again.

4. There appears to be no way to print the image.

So, in summary, I think this is a very badly executed CD, which is disappointing as I waited a long time for it, paid a lot of money for it, and the data in it could be very useful to me.

AFFHO Congress Days 3 & 4

There was no time last night to blog about the day’s talks as it was the Conference Dinner.  So I will just cover some of the highlights of the last two days.

I went to a talk by Roger Kershaw of the National Archives of the UK about tracing convicts in the National Archives.  Disappointingly I realised almost as soon as he started that I had already heard this talk as a podcast as I recognised the name John Jobson.  The positive side is that it was so full of good information that I hadn’t deleted the podcast as I intended to listen to it again and make notes.  So now I’ve had the chance to make notes, and it was a good talk.

I also went to a second talk by Roger about the National Archives web site, and the new catalogue, which is available now, but is not the default way to search the catalogue, however it will be in a couple of weeks.  The contents of Documents online can already be accessed through the new catalogue, but the old way of accessing it will be turned off on the 23^rd of April.  The other thing that was new to me was their media centre.  I have long had a link to their podcasts from my iGoogle page, so didn’t realise this media centre existed, or that it contains videos as well as podcasts.

Another good talk was by Todd Knowles on the Tax Records of England.  He talked about estate duty records, hearth tax, window tax and many more.  Although I did know these records existed, I didn’t realise that they had been filmed and are available through the FHL.

But far and away the highlight of the conference for me has been Colleen Fitzpatrick’s talks.  I have already mentioned her talk on the unidentified child from the Titanic, but I attended two of her other talks.  One was Forensic Genealogy: CSI meets Roots.  This was about getting information out of old photos – looking beyond the clothes and the mount and discovering all sorts of interesting things.  This is the subject of one of her books which I bought, so I am looking forward to reading it.  The final talk of hers that I attended was The Curious Case of James-Jake Smithers-Gray in which she described the search for a man known only to his Australian children as John Henderson Grey.  They knew this wasn’t his real name, but with Colleen’s help tracked down his true identity (James W Smithers) and many of the details of his life.  It was the kind of story that if a novel had been written it wouldn’t have been believed.

The conference has been a great opportunity to catch up with many people, some of whom I see only rarely, and to meet others, who I will hopefully see again.  It has also been a great learning opportunity, with plenty of entertainment.

AFFHO Congress 2012 Day 2

This morning started with a Plenary session by Jenny Higgins of the National Library of Australia talking about putting your ancestors into their social context.  She focused on the resources that the National Library has which can help with this, both in the library itself, in its eResources and (of course) on Trove.

When we all split up to go to our various sessions I went to a talk by Lesley Silvester.  It was called “New Methods for Old Records”, and in it she talked all about the PhD she has been working on and how she has had to convince traditional historians of the validity of genealogical sources and their value in historical research.  Her PhD is concentrating on the poor of Norwich in 1570, and it was a great illustration of just how many sources can survive for research into the poor, as opposed to the well-off.

Suzanne Maiden then talked to us about marriage contracts & marriage settlements from pre-medieval to the 1850s.  And she really did mean pre-medieval – there was an example of a marriage contract from Babylon in 2200 BC where if the woman wished to end the marriage the husband could drown her in the river, but if he wanted to end it he had to pay her 10 sheckels.  No equality in Ancient Babylon then!  I suppose it was inevitable that covering such a long period of time and many countries, not just the UK and Babylon, but Greece & Italy, and ancient Persian marriage contracts woven into rugs, that the talk would not be able to go into great detail on anything.  That was rather disappointing.  As I have looked at English marriage contracts before, I didn’t really learn anything from this talk (well, I learnt about the Babylonian situation, but not about England and Wales).  I guess that’s the way it happens sometimes – it is important to have talks aimed at different levels.

After lunch David Holman started off with a Plenary session entitled “Fascinating Facts & Figures from Five centuries”.  It was a humorous look at surnames, given names and occupations, primarily from Cornwall.

Next I attended another talk by Lesley Silvester – this one about putting the lives of Londoners into their social context.  Lots of good sources were discussed, including one or two I hadn’t used.  Those that I had used were very good sites, and it is always worthwhile having them bought to mind again.

Final talk for the day that I attended was Dan Poffenberger, talking about his incredibly confusing and convoluted family.  Not really a lot to learn from this talk except for the importance of speaking to older relatives while they are alive, but very amusing.

AFFHO Congress 2012 Day 1

Day one of the 2012 Genealogy Congress in Adelaide and the talks have gotten off to a good start.  The first talk was a keynote speaker, Colleen Fitzpatrick, talking about finding the identity of the unnamed child from the Titanic.  A fair-haired boy aged about 2 had been amongst the bodies recovered and not identified.  A Swedish family believed it was their relative and therefore in 2001 the grave had been opened and it was found that all that remained were three baby teeth and a small piece of wrist bone.  From that they were able to recover mitochondrial DNA which proved that the child could not have been the boy in question.  After a long investigation they finally managed to identify the child and give him a name.  She was a very good speaker and it was a fascinating topic.

Next session I attended was by Dan Poffenberger about reading old writing.  He focused on Secretary hand, and first went through the letters of the alphabet and the forms they took at in that style of handwriting. He then showed an example of a will and worked through most of it practicing reading the writing.  Although I have done a lot of palaeography work before, I still got a lot from his talk.  Again he was a very good speaker.

The afternoon started with another keynote speaker, Daniel Horowitz, whose talk was entitled How we preserve and share memories in the Digital Age.  This started as a discussion of the history of recorded information and methods of digitisation and storage of data.  But it quickly changed to what was essentially an advertisement for MyHeritage.

Next talk was Chris Watts discussing records for British Merchant Seamen.  Lots of information, but some of the slides were flicked over too quickly to allow me to make comprehensive notes.  But he has written the book My Ancestor was a Merchant Seaman which is part of my library, so I can check that for further information.  The main thing I got out of the talk were the large number of different records that have information about Merchant seamen.

Final speaker for the day was Shauna Hicks, talking about Ancestors in church records.  She was focusing not on parish registers, but on other records like church newsletter/newspapers & church histories.  Shauna is always a very knowledgeable speaker and I always learn something from her talks.  This reminded me that I really must look for the Alway family in the records of the Baptist Church and Salvation Army in Victoria.

Certificate in Genealogical Research

It has been a while since I last put a post in here as I have been busy working on gaining my Certificate in Genealogical Research with the Society of Australian Genealogists.  But that is all done now and I received a New Years 'present' in the form of notification that I have been awarded the Certificate and am eligible to go on to do their Diploma in Family Historical Studies if I should so wish.

British Parliamentary Papers

I have just discovered a very useful new resource – the British Parliamentary Papers.  They are available through the eResources on the National Library of Australia web site (www.nla.gov.au) and are available to anyone living in Australia.  You need a library card to access the resource, and can apply for that card for free online.

You might think that British Parliamentary papers would be boring and of no relevance to Genealogy, but you would be wrong.  I found “Accounts of superannuations and retired allowances in public departments” for the years 1857 and 1863, and these gave me information I have been seeking for ages about my g-g-grandfather, Thomas Spiller.  Thomas was an Inland Revenue Office, or Excise Officer, in Ireland.  I knew he must have died before 1864 as there was no death for him in the Civil Registers, but could not pin it down in anyway.  Nor did I have any idea when he was born.

The 1857 return I mentioned contained a list of Superannuation Allowances granted, and among the list for the Inland Revenue dept for 1856 was Thomas Spiller, salary on retirement £100, age 53, period of service 26 years 11 months, cause of retirement “disease of lungs”, yearly allowance granted £53.

The 1863 document contained information about Superannuation Allowances ceased, and in it I found an entry for Thomas Spiller, died 10 Jul 1862.

So now I know he was born about 1803, and died 10 Jul 1862.  What a find.

UK Railway records on Ancestry

I love Ancestry.com, and it really is worth every cent I spend on my subscription.  The ever-growing list of new resources being added is so useful.

The two most recent additions I have been using are the records of the Post Office employees in the UK, and the records of the UK railway employees 1833-1963 which went up this week.  My husband’s grandfather and great-grandfather both worked for the railways.  Strangely, I couldn’t find any records for his grandfather, but when I entered the great-grandfather’s name (Frederick George Welch), several entries came up.  I clicked on the first on the list, expecting to find something like a list of employees with his name included, but instead a page from a book of retired senior staff came up, which included his photograph!  We had never seen a photo of this man before.  I called my husband (who has no interest in family history) to come quickly (he probably thought I’d seen another spider or something like that), and showed him the photo.

“So this is Grandpa’s father”

“Yes, that’s right”

“Yep.  I can see it.  I can see the resemblance.”

This entry had his dates of birth & death (although I already knew them) & a complete summary of his professional career

Entered the Service of the London & North Western Rly Company as an apprentice clerk at Aylesbury in November 1881.  He was transferred to Camden in 1882 and in March 1903 was appointed Goods Agent at that station.  In March 1912 he received a similar appointment at Broad Street, London, and in November 1914 he was made Assistant District Goods Manager in London.  He was promoted to District Goods Manager at Leeds in June 1920 & held this position until his retirement in June 1925

The moral of this story is to keep checking the list of recent additions to the ancestry site.  You can check this from home, even without a subscription, and then you know whether you need to go to a library that has access to Ancestry.com to further your research.