QFHS Snippets - October 2012 Volume 12, No. 10
QFHS Snippets - October 2012 Volume 12, No. 10
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- About This Newsletter
- QFHS Gaythorne Centre
- QFHS Dates to Remember
- Queensland State Archives Saturday Openings
- Free Taxi Service to Queensland State Archives
- Huguenot Society of Australia, Qld. Branch - Date Claimer
- Caloundra Family History Research Inc
- Beh Family Reunion
- Childs Reunion
- Toowoomba Region Cemetery Search
- Sandgate Cemetery, Newcastle, New South Wales now Online
- Tasmanian Research
- Port Arthur Memories Revisited 20-22 October 2012
- Dunedin Public Libraries to Increase Genealogy Holdings
- U.K. to Scrap the Census?
- Historical Directories
- More 'Lad's Army' than 'Dad's Army'
- Digitisation of First World War Unit Diaries
- 1851 Census for Cornwall
- The War of 1812 - From the British Side
- German Researcher to Dig Up British WWII Bomber
- Index of Family History Notices in Greenock Newspapers 1800 - 1915
- Irish Genealogy Sector Must Unwind its Historically Twisted Roots
- New Magherafelt Genealogy Web Site
- New Rules for Research at Ireland's General Register Office
- Help Restore the Missing 18th Century Papers of the U.S. War Department
- Historian Highlights Roles of Black Civil War Veterans
- New York City Department of Records Posts 870,000 Photos Online
- Winnebago County, Illinois, Puts Genealogy Records Online
- Illinois State Archives Unveils New Electronic Database
- Online Encyclopaedia of Maine
- 250,000 Images Uploaded to Kansas Memory
- Bangor's Mount Hope Cemetery Online
- Coroner Connecting Families with Unclaimed Remains
- How to Find Your Ancestors: Look on Wikipedia
- King Richard III's Grave Possibly Discovered
- Genetics Can Reveal Your Geographic Ancestral Origin
- Can the Secrets of London's Plague Help Fight Modern Diseases?
- Using WorldCat to Find Genealogy Books
- A Handy Little Search Site
- Patricia Ann Mills-Spencer-Bemis-Adams Obituary
- The Popularity of Genealogy
- 19th-Century Beauty Tips
- Acknowledgements
Queensland State Archives will be open to the public on the
second Saturday of every calendar month from 9am to 4:30pm. The
next three Saturday opening dates are:
Queensland State Archives are located at 435 Compton Road,
Runcorn, Queensland. For more details, go to: http://www.archives.qld.gov.au/Researchers/Runcorn/Pages/Hours.aspx
For those who find it difficult to get to the Queensland State
Archives (QSA), there is a taxi service for researchers available
every Tuesday.
Information can be obtained at: http://www.archives.qld.gov.au/Researchers/Runcorn/Pages/FindQSA.aspx#taxi
To book taxi travel to QSA, phone (07) 3131 7777.
On Sunday, 25 November 2012: After a very short AGM at 2 pm, we will see a film - Weapons of the Spirit - about French Protestants saving Jewish refugees in WW2.
Everyone is welcome. Come by car, train, bus or ferry. There is
plenty of free parking available. We meet in the room next to the
library on the top floor of Toowong Village Shopping Centre at 9
Sherwood Road, Toowong.
Entrance is by gold coin donation. Join us for a 'cuppa'
afterwards.
The friendly members of the Caloundra Family History Research
hold a general meeting on the third Thursday of each month in the
Guide Hut, Arthur Street in Caloundra. Each month, the group
invites an interesting guest to entertain, educate and inform
their members. Visitors are always welcome from 1pm and the
invited Guest Speaker takes the podium at 1:30pm.
On 18 October, the guest speaker will be military specialist, Ian
Edwardson whose topic will be In Memoriam - Names Set in Stone.
Information on the group's calendar, resources, journal and
activities is available on their website at: http://www.caloundrafamilyhistory.org.au/
For more information, contact Roz Kuss on (07) 5493 1197 or via
email at: caloundrafamilyres@y7mail.com
Descendants of the Beh family who emigrated from Germany during
the 1850's and 1860's are invited to attend a family
reunion. The reunion will be held just outside Innisfail in
North Queensland on the evening of Saturday, 13 October and
morning of Sunday, 14 October 2012.
The address for the reunion is 2 Creigan Road, Fitzgerald Creek,
Queensland, 4860. This is approximately 6 kilometres north
of Innisfail on the Bruce Highway. After crossing the
Johnson River, turn right about 300 metres from the bridge.
The venue is the house near the group of large buildings adjacent
to the main road.
For catering purposes, if you will be attending, please contact
the host - Denis Dillon on: 0409 770 330
On 14 September, one hundred and sixty-four years ago, Thomas Childs and his family boarded the sailing ship "Fortitude" at Gravesend near London for the four-month journey to start their new life in Brisbane, Queensland. Originally from Somerset in England, the family settled on land at Newstead beside the Brisbane River. In 1864 Thomas purchased sixty-nine acres of land at Nudgee on which the Toombul Vineyards were established. Now part of the Nudgee Golf Course, six generations of the Childs Family have a special connection to this area situated in the north eastern suburbs of Brisbane.
You and your family are cordially invited to attend a reunion of Thomas Childs' descendants. The reunion will be held in the Vineyard Room of the Nudgee Golf Club, 1207 Nudgee Road, Nudgee from 11 am on Sunday, 11 November 2012. A light lunch (finger food), will be catered by the Club. Cost is: Adults $20, Children under 10 - $5. We urge you to bring any memorabilia of the Childs family with you.
Please RSVP by Sunday, 4 November to Trish Theaker (Thomas' great
great grand-daughter) via email on: theakergct @bigpond.com
Toowoomba Regional Council operates 19 cemeteries, 16 of which
are open for new interments.
See: http://www.toowoombarc.qld.gov.au/facilities-and-recreation/cemeteries.html
Search via: http://www.toowoombarc.qld.gov.au/facilities-and-recreation/cemeteries/deceased-search/advanced.html
This is a wonderful resource with photographs of headstones
available and GPS settings on how to find that grave.
Go to: http://www.sandgatecemetery.org.au/
Tasmanian Wills have been digitised and can be downloaded free of
charge.
Go to: http://www.linc.tas.gov.au/research/guides/familyhistory
On the weekend of 20-21 October, 2012, the Port Arthur Historic
Site is host to an event that will be of interest to those who
have visited, lived or worked at, and have fond memories of their
time there. You may have had ancestors who resided there.
For more information on the event, go to: http://www.portarthur.org.au/index.aspx?base=14931
The Dunedin Public Libraries and the New Zealand Society of
Genealogists (Dunedin Branch) have announced a formal partnership
to provide a framework for a single genealogical repository and
service that will be based in the Genealogy Room on the third
floor of the City Library.
Whilst the additional material will remain the property of the
Dunedin Branch of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists, it will
be made accessible through the Libraries' catalogue by the end of
the year.
The full announcement may be found at: http://www.voxy.co.nz/lifestyle/partnership-boost-genealogical-resources/5/135434
The U.K. government is looking into whether there are less costly
alternatives, with a view to scrapping the next census in 2021.
The government said the census was outdated and a "more effective,
less bureaucratic" survey was needed. However, the MPs also warned
that other methods of data collection may not be adequate and
might not be any cheaper. The last census, which took place in
2011, cost an estimated £480m.
You can read more in an article at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19669695
This is a searchable digital library of local and trade
directories for England and Wales from 1750 to 1919.
Have fun at: http://www.historicaldirectories.org/hd/
A project to digitise Second World War Home Guard records (Durham
only), undertaken by The National Archives UK, has revealed that
many Home Guard volunteers were too young to enlist in military
service, rather than too old as previously thought.
Details and name search at: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/news/755.htm
The National Archives UK is currently digitising part of the WO
95 record series, which consists of unit war diaries from the
First World War. The series is one of the most requested in the
reading rooms in Kew, and digitising it means the diaries will
become more accessible by publishing them online. The series is
extremely fragile, so essential conservation work is being carried
out while it is digitised.
The war diaries research guide explains the importance of these records for researchers at: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/research-guides/british-army-war-diaries-1914-1918.htm
You can read more information about the project at: http://www.genealogyblog.com/?p=21929
This new website is divided into districts and searchable by
surname.
Check it out at: http://webhome.idirect.com/~djtrounce/index%203.html
The National Archives in London contains a treasure trove of
documents from the War of 1812, including plenty about the men who
fought on the American side, not just the British. If your
ancestor was a prisoner of war of the British, he is almost
certain to be documented at The National Archives (TNA). The names
of the American prisoners from 1812 to 1815 are name-indexed,
however, this index is not online. Some of the records are simple
lists of names while others may provide more information, such as
a physical description. Men who were sick often have detailed
records available.
Audrey Collins of TNA recently gave a talk about the War of 1812
records available at TNA) and a recording of that talk is now
available online as a podcast at: http://media.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php/the-war-of-1812-from-the-british-side/
For background information and for pictures of some samples of the
records available, enjoy reading at: http://thefamilyrecorder.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-war-of-1812-from-british-side.html
In April, 1943, a German teenager watched a British Lancaster ED
427 bomber crash as it was shot down over Germany. The teenager
visited the wreckage the following day. The British always listed
the plane and its crew as "missing." Yet it wasn't missing at all.
Instead, all the British had to do was to ask the right person,
the eyewitness. He always knew the precise location but word of
that location did not get back to British authorities until a few
weeks ago. Now German researcher Uwe Benkel will lead an
excavation to recover the Lancaster and, it's hoped, the plane's
seven-member crew Saturday morning from a field outside
Laumersheim, 10 miles west of Mannheim. If successful, the dig
will put to rest a decades-old mystery.
You can read the full story at: http://www.stripes.com/news/german-researcher-to-dig-up-british-wwii-bomber-1.189221
This fully searchable online index contains many fascinating
details about local births, marriages and deaths as seen in the
pages of the Greenock Advertiser, Greenock Telegraph, and other
local papers. It also includes an index of WW1 and WW2 War Dead
and lots more.
Enjoy searching at: http://www.inverclyde.gov.uk/education-and-learning/libraries/local-and-family-history/family-history/intimations/?galleryindex=2
Irish Times Business Editor John McManus has written a commentary
about the Irish National Library's efforts to digitise its
collections and make them available to everyone. Anyone
researching Irish ancestry will be interested in this article. For
anyone in the business of digitising Irish records, this is a
"must read."
The article may be found at: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2012/0924/1224324323188.html
The Magherafelt (Northern Ireland) District Council has launched
a new state-of-the-art website at: http://www.magherafelt.gov.uk
Information from over 60 graveyards is available on the site. The
web site developers visited each graveyard, took photos,
documented inscriptions and developed maps. Each graveyard has its
own page on the site including its history and a link to 'persons
of interest' buried there. Each headstone even has GPS
coordinates.
More information may be found in an article at: http://www.midulstermail.co.uk/community/new-council-website-goes-live-online-1-4253031
The General Register Office in Dublin has implemented new rules about General Searches and has increased the number of uncertified copies (photocopies) it allows each researcher to obtain on a daily basis from five to eight for those undertaking a General Search.
You can read more on the Council of Irish Genealogical
Organisations' web site at: http://www.cigo.ie/news.html
On the night of 8 November, 1800, fire devastated the War Office,
consuming the papers, records, and books stored there. Papers of
the War Department 1784-1800, an innovative digital editorial
project, will change that by making some 55,000 documents of the
early War Department available online.
Papers of the War Department 1784-1800 will present this
collection in a free, online format with extensive and searchable
metadata linked to digitised images of each document, thereby
insuring free access for a wide range of users.
The overall ambition, in sum, is to use the best technology of the
early twenty-first century to recover and make widely available
this vital record that was seemingly lost at the dawn of the
nineteenth century.
You can help. Start at: http://wardepartmentpapers.org/
Blacks fought in the Civil War, surprisingly on the side of the
Confederacy.
Details may be found at: http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/state&id=8795913
The New York City Department of Records has posted 870,000
photographs on-line. Culled from the Municipal Archives collection
of more than 2.2 million images going back to the mid-1800s, the
photographs feature all manner of city oversight.
Go to: http://jewishgen.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/new-york-city-department-of-records.html
The Winnebago County Clerk's Office has created a new website to
help give people access to them. It allows people to view the
information and get copies of birth, marriage and death
certificates without having to leave their own home. Under
Illinois State law, genealogy records are defined as:
The website is at: http://www.genealogy.winnebagocountyclerk.com/
A new online database describing the documents and records
maintained at the Illinois State Archives is now available. The
database, called Archon, is a searchable finding aid for use in
locating important historical information. It provides both a way
for staff to record descriptive information about collections and
a means for the public to view, search and browse that information
in a fully-functional website.
Archon's public interface shows the most current information that
is available to researchers because it is updated automatically
once records are received by the Archives. Once information has
been entered, it is instantly accessible, searchable and
browsable. The new electronic database can be found at: http://archon.ilsos.net/
This new web site might help you learn about the places and the
living conditions of your ancestors in the State of Maine. The
Online Encyclopedia of Maine already has more than 1,750 articles,
4,000 photographs and 100 videos with more to be uploaded.
The site is available at: http://maineanencyclopedia.com/
More information about the site itself can be read in an article
at: http://www.theforecaster.net/news/print/2012/09/11/former-state-archivist-harpswell-launches-online-e/134507
The Kansas Historical Society has announced that 250,000 images
of its collections are now uploaded to Kansas Memory, the
Historical Society's online archives of photographs, letters,
government records, and objects.
The website can be found at: http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/227377/page/1
With 30,000 interments since 1836, the 260-acre cemetery is
almost as populous as the living city of Bangor, Maine. The online
database has more than 28,700 entries, making it among the largest
genealogical databases online in the state.
You can find more details about the site at: http://bangordailynews.com/2012/09/23/living/family-ties/bangors-mount-hope-cemetery-has-28000-plus-listings-online/
Bangor Mount Hope Cemetery's website is at: http://mthopebgr.com/
The Walla Walla, Washington County Coroner has in its holdings
more than 300 cremated remains; all of which have been unclaimed.
The Coroner's office is looking for relatives of the deceased.
You can read more, including a full list of the names of all
unclaimed remains, at: http://www.kvewtv.com/article/2012/sep/18/coroner-connecting-families-unclaimed-remains/
Suggs, 51, whose real name is Graham McPherson, is the frontman
for the band Madness. He was three years old when his father
abandoned the family. Suggs was brought up by his mother. In
recent years Suggs decided he wanted to know exactly what became
of his father. Like many people, he looked online and found the
information he was seeking, although in an unlikely web site:
Wikipedia.
You can read more at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/music-news/9495121/Suggs-I-learnt-of-my-fathers-death-on-Wikipedia.html
Archaeologists searching for the grave of King Richard III say
they have found bones that are consistent with the 15th century
monarch's physical abnormality and of a man who died in battle.
The remains are now being examined to enable DNA to be recovered
to aid identification.
You can read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/12/king-richard-iii-grave-discovered-uk_n_1877290.html
While your DNA is unique, it also tells the tale of your family
line. It carries the genetic history of your ancestors down
through the generations. Now, says a Tel Aviv University
researcher, it's also possible to use it as a map to your family's
past.
Researchers are giving new meaning to the term "genetic mapping."
Using a probabilistic model of genetic traits for every coordinate
on the globe, they claim to have developed a method for
determining more precisely the geographical location of a person's
ancestral origins.
You can read the details in an article in Medical News Today at:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/249159.php
The Black Death killed tens of millions of people in the 14th
century. Now a DNA study holds promise that it might study the
ancient disease to better understand modern infectious diseases.
Between 1348 and 1351, the Black Death - or bubonic plague killed
up to three in five people as it spread rapidly through
pre-industrial cities, unchecked by sanitation or modern medicine.
Scientists now have sequenced the entire genome of the Black Death
using DNA extracted from plague victims.
You can read more in an article at: http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/20/13979938-black-death-can-the-secrets-of-londons-plague-pits-help-fight-modern-diseases
WorldCat is the world's largest network of library content and
services. It is an online library catalogue that lets you look up
items in libraries around the world. The items available include
books, electronic documents, journals, microform, and audio and
video recordings.
Best of all, WorldCat is available free of charge. WorldCat
libraries provide access to their catalogues on the Web, where
most people start their search for information. By using the
WorldCat.org catalogue, you can search the collections of
libraries in your community and thousands more around the world.
More details in an article at:
http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2012/09/using-worldcat-to-find-genealogy-books.html
This site is for names and helps you build a better Google search
for finding web pages mentioning your ancestors. Check it out
at: http://randymajors.com/p/ancestorsearch.html
The following excerpt is from an obituary written by genealogist
Patricia Ann Mills-Spencer-Bemis-Adams. We should all think about
getting our own obituary written.
On August 27, 2012, I, Patricia Ann Mills-Spencer-Bemis-Adams, left this world for what I hope to be Genealogy Heaven. This is where I hope to finally have all of my genealogy questions answered. I was born to John Wesley Mills and Dorothy Nesbeth Reed August 11, 1938 while living at 91 Gresham St., Ashland, Ore. At the age of one year, we moved to Portland, Oregon, as daddy had a job at Swan Island Ship Yards. By the time we moved back to Ashland in 1945, we were a family of six. I attended the first and second grades in Multnomah, Oregon, then third grade through high school in Ashland.
You can read Patricia Ann Mills-Spencer-Bemis-Adams' full
obituary at: http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120923/NEWS04/309239997/-1/NEWSMAP
Today, genealogy ranks second only to pornography as the most
searched topic online. According to a January 2012 report by
market research firm Global Industry Analysts, an estimated 84
million people around the world spend anywhere from $1,000 to
$18,000 a year in search of their ancestors. Visitors to online
genealogy sites are mostly white women, aged 55 and older, who
browse the Internet from home.
You can read more at: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-09-20/ancestry-dot-coms-genealogical-juggernaut
It is amazing how hard great-grandmother worked at being
beautiful. When Barkham Burroughs wrote his Encyclopaedia of
Astounding Facts and Useful Information in 1889, he devoted a full
chapter to the "secrets of beauty." Here are some excerpts:
You can read more 1889 beauty "hints" at: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/140115