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http://www.FamNet.net.nz

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FamNet eNewsletter June 2012

ISSN 2253-4040

 

Quote: We live with a heritage from earlier generations and must seek to create positive legacies for those who follow us. When the old are not allowed to tell their story, the young grow up without history. If the young are not listened to, we have no future.
- Dr. Gunhild O. Hagostad

Contents

Editorial 2

FamNet in Schools. 2

Should you be Able to Add Scrapbook Items to Somebody Else’s Records?. 2

Also in this Newsletter 3

Stop Press. 3

From the Developer 3

FamNet in Schools – Experiences to Date. 3

Navy Requirements Cause Overhaul of “Documents” 4

Sharing Scrapbook Items. 5

Descent Groups. 10

Useful Web Sites. 10

From Janice. 10

From Tony Christiansen. 11

NZ Pre–1846 Databases. 11

From Sue. 11

National Archives England. 11

Archives Podcasts. 12

Online PDF Tools. 12

From Wayne. 13

Google Drive. 13

Portable Apps. 13

GENUKI 13

Group News. 13

Whangarei Family History Computer Group. 13

Kapiti Branch. 14

New Zealand Society Of Genealogists. 16

News and Views. 16

Feedback. 16

From Wayne. 16

New FamilySearch Feature – IGI 17

FamilySearch’s Family Tree: an Overview.. 18

WW1 Statistics. 18

Book Review.. 18

How We Were. 18

I Remember …... 19

Technology – or Lack Therof 19

Grandma’s Cookery Nook. 19

Community. 20

Ask an Expert 20

Help Offered. 22

Information Wanted etc. 22

Have Your Say – Letters to the Editor 22

In conclusion. 23

A Bit of Light Relief 23

To Unsubscribe. 23

Copyright (Waiver) 23

 

Editorial

image009.jpg From Sue Greene

FamNet in Schools

FamNet in Schools certainly seems to have struck a chord with the schools that we’ve approached. Pupils love working with FamNet to create trees: we have one pupil that has already created a tree back to their 4th great-grandparents, others whose tree view shows pictures of all their grandparents and most of their great-grandparents, and others who are already gathering stories from their grandparents. The only place where the “FamNet in Schools” idea hasn’t struck gold is with you, the normal FamNet users and newsletter readers. You must have been too much put off by Robert saying that he only wanted a few more pilots at this stage, and so apart from members of the Whangarei Family History Computer Group nobody else has so far come forward to help with this project. Do you want to be a part of the future of Family History? See Robert’s section for more information about this exciting project.

Should you be Able to Add Scrapbook Items to Somebody Else’s Records?

Currently the rules will only allow you to add scrapbook items to records for which you have “update permission”. That usually means only your own records.  Occasionally somebody else gives you update permission to their records.

 

We are considering a rule change that would allow you to add a scrapbook item to somebody else’s record, treating it as we treat Post-It notes:

·         The link would be highlighted with a yellow background, making it clear that this was “unofficial”.

·         An email would be automatically sent to the record owner advising him of this new link, giving him the option of accepting, rejecting, or ignoring it.

·         This would not be permitted if the record owner has specified “No Post-Its” in their profile. In practice this is rare, most people simply accept the default setting which is to allow Post-Its.

 

We have noted with some interest the developments at FamilySearch (see the article below) where they are combining records and allowing updating by anybody, like Wikipedia. Should we go the same way? We think not: that record owners prefer the idea that nobody else can update their records, and that allowing others to add Post-It notes and scrapbook items is as far as we should go.  But what do you think? Please let us know.

 

Also in this Newsletter

Robert has reviewed and rewritten FamNet’s “Documents” facilities.  Let us know what you think.  Also, if you are interested in a clan or a particular group of settlers, check out the new feature “Descent Groups”.  

 

Grandma’s Cookery Nook has proven popular but we’ve started to get related material that isn’t exactly cooking so we’ve started a new section “How we were”.  Here we’ll put not only the recipes of GCN, but also notes about the way our ancestors lived, our memories, and so on. Thank you to Gloria and Mary (Nana) Barnes for contributing to this section so far, hopefully the rest of you will also dust off your memories, dig through your cupboards, and send contributions for this section. 

Stop Press

Congratulations to Jan (Jan Gow, QSM) on her latest accolade, being elected a Fellow of the Society of Genealogists. Truly an honour: the number of Fellows is limited, and there are only a few Fellows from outside the U.K. As far as Jan knows, she’s the first from New Zealand.  

 

Back to the Top

From the Developer

image004 From Robert Barnes

FamNet in Schools – Experiences to Date

FamNet in Schools shows signs of being very popular, both with schools and with pupils. At Chelsea we were interviewed for the North Shore Times, and a week later an article appeared that included a picture of me with my granddaughter. I then approached two more schools attended by my grandchildren: one definite “Yes”, and the other seems very interested but we haven’t yet heard definitely.

 

Taking these groups is such a joy, the children are so enthusiastic. One boy “found some family notes in a box” and has created a family tree back to his 4th great-grandparents. Another has completed a tree with pictures of all of his grandparents and most of his great-grandparents. Some are starting to gather stories from their grandparents. Of course this is a family activity, and those doing best have parents and grandparents who are keen to join in and impart their knowledge, and discover more about their family. A couple of children are developing shared trees using FamNet’s permissions management (i.e. a Family Group) to allow other family members to contribute directly to building the tree: in one case a grandparent living in the U.K. is working with the pupil here in New Zealand. Another pupil has a grandparent in Timaru (or Temuka or somewhere down south – I forget where) who is “Spending two hours a day researching the tree for me”. I told Aden that he was demonstrating excellent management skills, getting others to work for him.

 

If any of you checked my initial leader’s notes, then check them again. You’ll see that the resource is growing as we learn more and I write it up. I’ve added a “Getting Started” document, but by the time that I had written it most of the children were past this stage of getting information from their family and were starting to ask about further research. This is where it gets more difficult of course. I have to keep reminding myself that the average age of this group is only nine!

 

At each club meeting we spend part of the time with a story: we ask one of the pupils to show us their tree and tell us about an ancestor. I also asked the group to identify when and how their ancestors came to New Zealand thinking that this might require a bit of research. Phillip held up his hand. “January” he said. He’s the one with the grandfather in the U.K. helping with his tree.

 

I’m having such fun with this project. There’s now enough experience that I’m happy to say “Go for it” to everybody, so please approach your local school and encourage them to participate. So far we’ve found that schools like the idea of a lunchtime club, as this doesn’t require them to rearrange their class schedules, but it may become part of their mainstream activity next year after their initial experience with the programme.

 

Here is the article from June 5th’s North Shore Times

Family Fun: FamNet founder Robert Barnes with his granddaughter Catherine Franicevic, 8, at Chelsea School’s Family History Club

 

 

Navy Requirements Cause Overhaul of “Documents”

Hold your hands up those of you who have used FamNet’s “Documents” tab? Thought so, hardly anybody! The problem was that it didn’t work properly. So because it didn’t work you didn’t use it, because nobody used it I didn’t put any effort into it to fix it up, so it didn’t work, so you didn’t use it …

 

The truth is that this was the first part of NZGDB that I wrote, before I knew very much about web site programming. About a month or so after starting NZGDB I basically put this part of the system to one side while I worked on the GDB itself. Since then “Documents” has languished unchanged and unloved by me and by you. Storing something as a document was a great way of losing it. It was available and could be displayed, even discovered through Google, but if you were looking for something about (say) “The Wellard Family Story” the chances of your finding it were negligible. Another “Island of Information”, like an independent web site, that didn’t relate to anything else. However that all changed when I started working with Michael Wynd at the Navy.

 

Following the article that was in April’s Newsletter Michael and I discussed how FamNet could host the Navy’s data. We were both enthusiastic about the idea of FamNet managing some of the Navy’s data, making it available and searchable from both the RNZN museum site and from FamNet, so we started looking at what data they had that was already in a digital form that could be put into FamNet. Immediately we struck a problem. In “FamNet can host your data” I had envisaged that the data would be in some structured form such as spreadsheets. It is relatively easy to take spreadsheet data and convert it to an SQL table, the kind of objects that are handled within FamNet’s “General Resource Database” section. But we quickly saw that much of the Navy’s data was in free form text –Word documents – and while Michael seemed prepared to work away at structuring these into spreadsheets that could be loaded into SQL this was obviously going to be a huge amount of work. If it’s a huge amount of work then it would be a long time before the data is available to you. We needed a better solution.

 

It occurred to me that we could use FamNet’s Documents facility if I fixed it up. Provided that I provided good ways of indexing their content, Michael could save his Word documents either in their native .doc format or, better yet, as html using “Save As Web Page”. If we could make this work we’d have something that was very useful to you and easy for him. So that’s what we’ve done.

 

Here is the first Navy resource, a list of CO’s of ships and stations. You can off course find this by clicking the [Documents] tab and looking it up by title, provided that you know that it exists: any document can be found by title or index. Once you open the document you can use the browser’s “Find” to locate people or other words within the document. However it is hardly practical to open every document in FamNet and search for a word or person of interest, so we’ve now provided the ability to look up a name and have the system return a list of documents that contain references to that name. Click the link “Search documents by person”. When any document is saved or edited an option now exists making it easy to record the names referenced in that document, either by locating them in the GDB, or by simply giving a name list.

 

These searches are also available from the [General Resource Databases] tab, where the “Documents” and “Document Names” tables provide alternative entries to the same search pages.

 

With this change Documents starts to fulfill its potential. Further improvements will follow: watch this space.

Sharing Scrapbook Items

Many of you know how easy it is to upload items into the scrapbook, and I’m seeing more and more GDB records with linked photos, certificates, other documents, web links, and so on. But what about items like a family photo that is relevant to many people? Do you have to upload it again for each of the people in the photo? Well you can, but there’s an easier way.

 

For example, here’s a family photo from 1916 that has been uploaded to the Scrapbook for Hannah OLD.

 

Now, to link it to the other people in the photo:

 

1.                  Open the scrapbook for Hannah OLD. (You might need to first click the [Edit] button to expose the other editing buttons like [Scrapbook], [More Facts], and so on).

 

 

2.                  Select the picture by clicking “Select” next to its title, “Family, about 1916”. The following panel appears allowing us to edit this scrapbook item:

 

 

3.                  Click the button [Link to Family]. This produces a list of the people most likely to be in a picture of Hannah OLD: her parents, siblings, partners, and children:

 

(This is from the test database, which is why the actual names are a bit odd)

 

4.                  Click the names from this list that are in the photo. The name is removed from the list, and the photo is added to the scrapbook for that record too.

 

5.                  When you have finished adding the people from this list you might want to add some other people. Click the button [Link to Others] to do a general search of the GDB for people like Jessie Campbell who are not within the Family list for Hannah OLD.

 

6.                  Finally, click [Finish this item] or [Finished editing this person] when you’ve finished.

 

Note:  you can re-upload the document, or use the process described here to link a document to several people.  Either way there is ever only one copy of the document, in this example named “9.bmp”.

Descent Groups

A couple of new tables, Descent Group and Descent Group Members, have been added to the system, to allow FamNet to provide a service to Clan Societies and anybody else with an interest in a particular group. Here’s how it works, using Wayne Laurence and Clan Gordon as an example.

 

1.                  Firstly we added a record for “Gordon” to the Descent Group table.

2.                  Next Wayne selected this record and clicked the link “Add Members”.

3.                  The “Add Members” dialog allowed Wayne to search his GDB records. He selected his earliest Gordon ancestor.

4.                  The system then added this record, and all the non-living descendents of this person, to the table.

5.                  Wayne can now put this link into the Clan Gordon web site to display these records.

 

We are hoping that others with an interest in Clan Gordon will put their trees into FamNet and then populate the descent group members table as Wayne has, so that this becomes a useful resource for Clan Gordon.

 

Currently there are two descent groups in the system, Gordon, and Palatines. If this idea is successful then there will be many more.  If you have an interest in a group such as a clan, a group who settled a particular area, arrived on a particular ship, etc. then create a descent group for them.  Let me know if you need any help.

 

Back to the Top

Useful Web Sites

If you know of web sites that you think may be helpful to others please either add them yourself, or email Janice Cornwell or Sue Greene

 

To find FamNet’s Useful Web Sites page: either

Click the [Community] tab on FamNet’s home page. Click the button [Useful Web Sites].

Or

Click the [General Resource Databases] tab on FamNet’s home page. Locate “Useful Web Sites” in the list of “Other Tables” and click this link.

From Janice

 

Useful Web Sites and How to Read Digital Books.

I have written before about the digitised books that can be found by using the Useful Web Links. There you will be able to link to history books and pamphlets which have been digitised. Some people might not realise that a digitised book or ‘eBook ‘does not need to be read with an eBook reader, it can easily be read on a computer. For example I can read in my own home a digitised book on a New Zealand subject that is a copy of a book held in a Toronto library. At the moment I am reading one such book on my Kindle, but I could just as easily read it on my PC or Mac or tablet or smart phone. It is wonderful to have access to so many books that have been digitised and held by overseas libraries, and would normally be hard to locate. Books are being digitised at a fast rate. These older books and pamphlets are written and published closer to the times we are interested in and they provide good background information for our family stories.

 

If you have a pdf reader such as Adobe Reader™ all you need to do is to download a pdf version of the book or pamphlet that interests you and then open it and begin reading on your PC or Mac. Of course you can read them on your phone, android tablet, iPAD or eBook reader but, you require different software to do this. A good explanation of the process can be found on this blog at FamilySearch Books Online – Free Borrow Purchase

 

Here is a sample of books listed in FamNet’s Useful Web Sites:

 

Canterbury Old and New 1850–1900  This is a souvenir of the Jubilee published by the New Zealand Natives’ Association Canterbury Branch. Knowing what we know about the devastation of Christchurch it is interesting to read about how Lyttelton, Akaroa and Christchurch were settled. There are some illustrations. It is also available to be read in many formats.

 

Frontier Life Taranaki This book published in 1892 has maps and sketches. It is by Edwin Stanley Brookes. J.P.

 

Whitcombe's Pictorial Story of New Zealand The title is “The history of New Zealand, starting from the early Maori settlers to when New Zealand becomes a British Colony” or “Whitcombe’s Pictorial Story of New Zealand”. I will go to this book to get inspiration for New Zealand relevant clip art. This is a children’s book which does not have a publication date; I think it was probably printed 1930s to 1940s. See what history was taught to children then.

 

The City of Auckland New Zealand, 1840 – 1820  is preceded by a Maori history of the Auckland Isthmus published in 1922

 

Narrative of the Fighting on the East Coast 1865 – 1871 with a Monograph on Bush Fighting “Nga Pakanga ki te Tai Rawhiti me nga Korero mo Uenuku “ by Tuta Nihoniho” published in 1913. This has been digitised by the Auckland University of Auckland and is in Maori and English.

 

Tawa Flat History Article 4 This is not a book but an interesting article on Tawa Flat history first published in the local community newspaper Kapi-Mana News on 7 October 1975, pp12-13.

 

There are many more books available. Enjoy.

From Tony Christiansen

NZ Pre–1846 Databases

1. European Contacts with NZ pre 1846. (Visitors, sealers, whalers, missionaries, settlers etc)

2. Shipping Arrivals and Departures NZ ports pre 1846. (Ship names, ports, arrival and departure dates, captains etc.)

 

These databases contain in excess of 20,000 names and 2000 shipping movements and are growing all the time. If you have any interest in pre 1846 NZ contact me to check the databases. Visit our web site.  Also, all data is also updated periodically to FamNet.

From Sue

National Archives England

This month they are celebrating their naval records, with thousands available online to search and download. If you need help getting started, their navy personnel research signposts should help point you in the right direction. They explain which records are available, and how to search. When you’re ready to search, you can explore the records that they have digitised and put online. Their Royal Navy records include ratings' service records (1853–1923), officers' service records (1840–1920), and Women's Royal Naval service records (1917–1919). These all help to fill gaps in a naval ancestor's story that may have been lost over time, such as hair and eye colour.

 

They also hold files that record the movements of British and Allied merchant ships during the Second World War. If you know which ship your ancestor sailed on, you'll be able to learn where it was on a given date, along with its cargo and expected destination.

 

Their partners Findmypast.co.uk have digitised over 1 million of their Merchant Navy seamen records (1835–1857 and 1918–1941). These records give biographical information about individuals, and in some cases include photographs.

Archives Podcasts

Tracing merchant seamen, 1857–1918

This podcast looks at what records there are for this period, how to access them and what work is being done to make this period more accessible.

 

The Golden Stool: cataloguing Colonial Office records from 1900

Four volunteer cataloguers share interesting finds from Colonial Office records from 1900.

 

Medieval queens in The National Archives

Dr Jessica Nelson explores the role of the queen in medieval England, using records held at The National Archives.

Online PDF Tools

The following article is from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter and is copyright by Richard W. Eastman. It is re-published here with the permission of the author.

 

Do you need to create a PDF file? If not, how about modifying an existing PDF file? Perhaps you want to insert some additional pages or delete a page that is presently in the middle of an existing PDF file. If so, one online site can help you a lot. The PDF Tools web site will not only convert all sorts of documents to PDF format, it will also convert PDF files to Microsoft Word .DOC files as well as convert PowerPoint demonstrations to PDF, great for providing electronic handouts at a presentation or for making the presentation available online. The same web site will also:

·         Convert an Excel sheet into a secured PDF document

·         Convert a PDF Document to an online flip book

·         Convert a PDF document into an image

·         Convert a PSD file (a Adobe Photoshop Document file) into a PDF Document

·         Convert an HTML file into a PDF Document

·         Convert any file to a JPG image

·         Merge any Word, image, HTML, PSD, PowerPoint or Excel sheet into a PDF document

·         Unlock your password-protected PDF Documents (you must know the password in order to remove it, however)

·         Convert Facebook Photos to PDF Documents

·         The price for all this? Zero. NADA. Free. The PDF Tools web site does accept voluntary donations, however.

·         NOTE: Macintosh users already have software to create PDF files. It is included with every Macintosh system. However, the PDF Tools web site will still provide extra functionality not included with the Macintosh OS X operating system.

From Wayne

Google Drive

Many of you may have heard of Boxnet and Dropbox and are using them for collaborating. Google have made it possible for those of you who have a Google account; which includes Gmail, Calendar, etc. to have 5GB storage and the ability to share with friends and associates all around the world. Click on this hyperlink and view the video.

 

“Google Drive. Keep everything. Share anything.

Google Drive is everywhere you are—on the web, in your home, at the office and on the go. So wherever you are, your stuff is just...there. Ready to go, ready to share. Get started with 5 GB free.

Google Drive is available for:

·         PC and Mac

·         Chrome OS

·         iPhone and iPad (coming soon)

·         Android devices (ideal if you have a Smart phone)

 

Go beyond storage. Collaborate. Google Drive lets you do more than just store your files. Share files with exactly who you want and edit them together, from any device.

Google Drive gives you instant access to Google Docs, a suite of editing tools that makes working together better—even when your team mates are miles away.”

Portable Apps

I just got a FlyBuys catalogue and decided to use my points to get a 16GB Flash Drive to put my Portable Apps on as well as TreePad Lite and still have stacks of room for files. These apps are free; aye! Just a little bit of time learning how to drive them. “PortableApps.com is the worlds most popular portable software solution allowing you to take your favourite software with you. A fully open source and free platform, it works on any portable storage device (USB flash drive, iPod, memory card, portable hard drive, etc.) as well as local storage and cloud storage options. With millions of users all over the world and a full collection of open source software as well as compatible freeware and commercial software and partners in the software and hardware industry, PortableApps.com is the most complete solution for life on the go.”

GENUKI

GENUKI provides a virtual reference library of genealogical information of particular relevance to the UK and Ireland. It is a non-commercial service, maintained by a charitable trust and a group of volunteers. The UK and Ireland are regarded, for the purposes of this Genealogical Information Service, as being made up of England, Ireland (i.e. Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland), Wales, and Scotland, together with the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.”

 

120,000 More Scottish Memorial Transcriptions Added to Deceased Online

The following announcement was made at Deceased Online: Additional records for approximately 120,000 Scottish burials, mostly in rural burial grounds and cemeteries, are now available.

 

Back to the Top

Group News

Whangarei Family History Computer Group

 

image001 Contacts:

 Gloria: (09) 435 1217 barry.gloria@orcon.net.nz

 Wayne: (09) 437 2881 wayne@bydand.co.nz

 Pat: (09) 437 0692 whangareifamilyhistorygroup@gmail.com

 

On Saturday 16th June, we were pleased to have Robert Barnes, accompanied by Mary, at our meeting. Robert showed some of the new features and fielded some questions, which helped members to understand more about Famnet. We were thrilled to hear about Robert’s Genealogy in Schools project. At least one member expressed interest in fostering the project locally.

 

Members of our group expressed interest in the new “The Way We Were” section of the Newsletter, and some material has been forwarded.

 

Another 4 newcomers attended the meeting. Whew! We are growing like mushrooms!

 

The weekly “lesson sessions” in the Genealogy Room at the Whangarei Library on Mondays at 11.00am, (except on Public Holidays), have continued with a small number of Group members attending. One member was able after much searching, to identify a marriage record for an ancestor and ordered the certificate to help her in tracing that part of her family another generation back.

 

The Group has been advised that it won’t be able to use the venue it currently has for the Saturday meetings, but all is not lost. Two of the members, who happen also to be members of SeniorNet, have been successful in securing the use of the SeniorNet meeting rooms for us. Thank you Jayne and Gwen.

 

Another member has had some discussions with a group of enthusiasts who are keen to establish a genealogy section at their local museum. A meeting is to be arranged between the two groups with the purpose of WFHCG assisting the new group with their initial set-up.

 

Success in searching.

Gloria.

Kapiti Branch  

image015

Photo courtesy of Angela Vidal photography

Kapiti Genealogy’s 2012 "Why You Are You” guest is actor, presenter and publicist Dame Kate Harcourt. Dame Kate was born in Amberley, Canterbury and has a fascinating family history, much of which was told in a 1998 play "Flowers From My Mother's Garden" and which is about to be filmed.

 

She has appeared in numerous New Zealand theatre productions, films and TV shows and has also worked extensively in radio. In 1996 she was made a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her contribution to theatre. Dame Kate is the mother of actress Miranda Harcourt and Fair Go TV presenter Gordon Harcourt. She is NZ's oldest working actor and was recently awarded first prize in the Best Female Actor category of the 2011 Rhode Island International Film Festival, for her role as Grace, a spritely rest home resident, in the short Kiwi film Pacific Dreams. She is also remembered by many for her radio show "Listening with Mother", a programme for pre-schoolers.

 

Dame Kate can lay claim to two very large Scottish clans, the Cameron’s and the Macfarlane’s, and another Scottish family, the Fulton’s. Her English line comes from her mother through the Austin family who emigrated to Australia .

 

In 1840 Donald Cameron and his family, from Srontian, set sail for New Zealand and settled in Port Nicholson. John Macfarlane from Letter, Menteith, Scotland arrived in Nelson about 1842. Both families were of good farming stock. These two Scottish clans paths were to cross in the Wairarapa and John Macfarlane (Kate’s great-grandfather) married Catherine Cameron (Kate’s great grandmother) at Kaiwharawhara in 1848.       

 

The Austin family originated from Boltonsborough, Somerset. Kate’s grandfather, Thomas Austin, arrived in Geelong, Australia in 1837, encouraged by his convict brothers to start a new life there! And the link to Dame Kate was through his marriage to a Cameron.

 

The Fultons were originally from Edinburgh. John Fulton arrived in New Zealand in 1850 and became a banker. He married a Macfarlane in 1881 and their son Gordon is Dame Kate’s father. Gordon Fulton married Winifred Austin in Geelong in 1919 and they came to New Zealand settling on a small farm in Amberley, Canterbury.

 

Totally confused! Then all will be revealed of this intertwining of families from the social upheavals of Scotland and England, stories of hardship, perseverance, cruelty, kindness, failures and successes.

 

Dame Kate features in Virtues from the past, sharing a journey through time with stories of her ancestors, her family and her life, as part of the Wellington Region's Family History Month in August. Shows at Southwards Theatre, Paraparaumu, Tuesday August 21 at 4pm and 7.30pm; and at Circa Theatre, Wellington, Monday August 27 at 7.30pm. There will be a display of Dame Kate's family history and career highlights at both venues.

 

Tickets on sale ($15) at Fibre Flair, Main Road, Waikanae; Unichem, Kapiti lights, Paraparaumu; Furnishing Affair, Raumati Beach; Moby Dickens' Books, Paraparaumu Beach; Life Pharmacy, Queensgate, Lower Hutt; Circa Theatre box office, Wellington or through the Kapiti Branch web site.

 

New Zealand Society Of Genealogists

On behalf of the FamNet team congratulations to Clive Palmer, Kapiti Branch, on his election to the NZSG Council. The NZSG has elected a whole new council. They have a big job in front of them; we wish them well in bringing some stability to the NZSG.

 

Back to the Top

News and Views

We invite contributions from FamNet members for this section: please email me (Sue) if you have any material.

Feedback

It’s always nice to get a bit of feedback and it would seem a lot of you had a look at Andrew’s blog.

 

Dear Sue and the FamNet team,

Thank you very much for mentioning me and my blog post “Why I Love The 1851 UK Census” in your May 2012 newsletter. I'd not been a subscriber to your newsletter, but noticed a sudden spike in traffic from your web site and tracked it back to you. Thank you to your readers for clicking through and helping to make May 2012 the busiest month ever on my blog.

With kindest regards, and happy hunting!

 

Andrew Martin: www.familytreeuk.co.uk Twitter: www.twitter.com/FamilyTreeUK Facebook: www.facebook.com/FamilyTreeUK

From Wayne

(We thought that this was a better fit here, as “News and Views”, than as “Useful Web Sites”.  Sue and Robert)

 

Genealogy or Family History: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Genealogy (from Greek: γενεά, genea, "generation"; and λόγος, logos, "knowledge") is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members. The results are often displayed in charts or written as narratives. The pursuit of family history tends to be shaped by several motivations, including the desire to carve out a place for one's family in the larger historical picture, a sense of responsibility to preserve the past for future generations, and a sense of self-satisfaction in accurate storytelling.”  An excellent overview for all to read.

 

Faststone

FastStone Image Viewer 4.6 Freeware. An image browser, converter and editor that supports all major graphic formats including BMP, JPEG, JPEG 2000, GIF, PNG, PCX, TIFF, WMF, ICO, TGA and camera raw files. It has a nice array of features such as image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping, colour adjustments, musical slideshow and much more.”

 

Think Like a Detective – Developing a Genealogy Research Plan

By Kimberly Powell, About.com Guide

“If you like mysteries, then you have the makings of a good genealogist. Why? Just like detectives, genealogists must use clues to formulate possible scenarios in their pursuit for answers. Whether it is as simple as looking up a name in an index, or as comprehensive as looking for patterns among neighbours and communities, turning those clues into answers is the goal of a good research plan.”

 

News – Ancestry.Com Said to Work with Qatalyst Partners to Find Buyers

Financial site Bloomberg is reporting that Ancestry.com is weighing a sale and working with Frank Quattrone’s Qatalyst Partners LLC to find buyers. Potential buyers mentioned in the article include Google Inc. and Facebook Inc.

New FamilySearch Feature – IGI

 All of the legacy IGI (International Genealogical Index) records will be available at FamilySearch. While many genealogists found the IGI useful, its mix of community indexed sources and community contributed records meant that not all of its data was equally reliable. This problem has been resolved by creating two IGI collections, both searchable from the IGI collection page:

 

Community Indexed IGI: This collection consists of sources that were indexed by the genealogical community from collections of vital and Church records. They are considered an excellent source of primary genealogical information. Unlike the old IGI, which put these sources all in one collection, on the new site each record has been organized into their respective collections (ex. England, Births and Christenings, 1538–1975).

 

Community Contributed IGI: This collection consists of personal family information submitted by individuals to the LDS Church. Some of these are source-like. But the collection they were extracted from is no longer known. Many represent conclusions of the submitter. The quality of this information varies. Duplicate entries, conclusions from secondary sources, and inconsistent information are common. Always verify contributed entries against sources of primary information.

 

Note: FamilySearch is in the process of completing the download of the records contributed by the community into the FamilySearch database. If you are looking for a name that you know was present in the IGI and cannot find it, it may have been in the portion contributed by the community and will be available on the new site shortly.

 

How to find IGI Records

To search for all published historical records about an individual, including IGI records:

Go to FamilySearch and search using the form on the main page. The results page will provide tools to filter and refine your search if needed.

 

Tip: It is best to enter a little information at a time. Entering too much information may return few matching results, as the search engine will look for only the records that include all the information you entered. No records will include all events, places, parents, and spouse. For example, a marriage record will have a spouse and a marriage date and place; a birth record will not have a spouse but will have a birth date and parents.

Note: You may search for an IGI batch number on the FamilySearch home page.

 

To search only for records that were part of the old IGI by name or by batch number, serial or sheet number, or film number:

·         Go to FamilySearch. On the left side of the home page, click All Record Collections.

·         In the alphabetical collections list, click International Genealogical Index (IGI):

·         Click on the collection you want to search. Choose one of the following:

Community Indexed IGI

Community Contributed IGI

Tip: In the Search boxes, enter the information you want to search by. Depending on the information that you know from the old IGI records, you can search by any of the following information: Name, Event dates and locations, Relationships, or Batch, Serial or Sheet or Film numbers. If these are options that they click, bold each of them. If they are not options, they need to be lower cased. You may refine this search, as you would any search for historical records, by adding more information to filter or narrow your search. Or you can add an event date or place, or a spouse, or parents.

 

Tip: Try a variety of search criteria. Enter a little information at a time. Entering too much information may filter out too many records.

 

Tip: To make sure you find the record you want, search both the Indexed and the Contributed Records.

 

Source: FamilySearch/Help, May 25, 2012, above title, by Steve

FamilySearch’s Family Tree: an Overview

Source: Shanna Jones, Genealogy Corner, Senior Sampler, May–June Issues 2012

 

Soon, FamilySearch will add Family Tree to FamilySearch, which is a replacement for new.familysearch.org. This has not been fully implemented yet as it is being beta tested and it is coming soon.

New. FamilySearch.org was a good system that has been beneficial in helping people document their genealogy and reduce duplication of research. However, it was designed with the premise that all opinions should be collected together on a person and that each user should own their contributions (my tree) and no one else could change them. That led to some issues with the system handling people called IOUS or “Individuals of Unusual Size” that were so big that they could not be combined. Many of the early Utah pioneers fell into this category and it created a problem.

 

Family Tree is an upgrade to new FamilySearch and it includes a different concept in collaborative genealogy research.

WW1 Statistics

This information was posted on the New Zealand Rootsweb list by Olwyn. I thought it worth repeating in our newsletter.

 

Almost 8,600 people died from the influenza epidemic in New Zealand in less than two months. At the Featherston and Trentham camps the rates were 22.6 and 23.5 deaths per thousand people respectively. Olwyn’s article includes material from the Evening Post, Ashburton Guardian, and much more, and is full of names.

Book Review

Due to Sue’s ill health and the lack of other contributions there is no book review this month.

 

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How We Were

A section for our memories and stories of the times of our ancestors. We invite reader contributions for this section

I Remember …

Yesteryear

Remember the days, when we were kids?

Our milk came in billies with tight-fitting lids

The boys wore short pants made from Dad’s old longs

We all ran barefoot, never heard of thongs

 

There were picnics on Sundays when church was over

And we lay on the grass with a strong smell of clover

We knew Uncles and Aunties, and most cousins too

Our dinners were simple, with vegies we grew

 

 

 

If we got into mischief in school or at play

Our parents and teachers stuck together, I say!

We couldn’t deflect them, we’d cop it, no doubt

Even the policeman knew Dad. He was always about

 

To pass our exams, we had to work hard

And when homework was finished there were chores in the yard

We had to play well, or no place in the team

No auto-promotion. Tough luck, it would seem

 

 

 

No TV or Game Boy, computer – what’s that?

We had trolleys and swings on the tree by the track

We played games outside, ‘til daylight was spent

Then our Mums called us home, and we went, no dissent

 

Are kids’ lives much better these days, do you think?

For me, I’d go back, for sure in a blink

But we can’t so I’m grateful to know what I had

With siblings and friends, and a Mum and a Dad

Gloria White 2012

 

 

Technology – or Lack Therof

Today we take it for granted if we need furniture polish or shaving cream we just pop down to the supermarket. Read how our ancestors managed without supermarkets and just how resourceful they were. Making their own cure for borer, making cream for chapped hands for men and the housewife, curing 160lb. pig, and more.

 

Today’s New Zealanders would find it hard to understand how “British” we were.  In 1939 Prime Minister Savage declared war on Germany within hours of Britain doing so, and two days later declared “With gratitude for the past and confidence in the future we range ourselves without fear beside Britain. Where she goes, we go; where she stands, we stand. We are only a small and young nation, but we march with a union of hearts and souls to a common destiny”.  Imagine this being said by one of today’s politicians!   Yet this was not an aberration, this was genuinely the way that we felt in those days. I (Robert) used to get annoyed with my parents who consistently referred to England as “Home”, never mind that they had never visited Britain and they both had to go back 3 generations or more to find ancestors who actually lived there; yet for me too there was an almost personal feeling of betrayal when Britain joined the Common Market. In those days before television we looked to Britain, not America, for inspiration. News from “The mother country” was eagerly awaited, and we looked to publications like “Punch”, “The Illustrated London News”, etc for inspiration, and to Britain for most of our manufactured goods. You can get a sense of the times from advertisements: Gloria has sent us part of a page of adverts in “Graphic” a weekly newspaper which was bound in 6 months of editions which her great-grandparents had sent to them in Port Albert from around 1875. This and this are advertisements from a 1910 Punch. 

Grandma’s Cookery Nook

Most of us love jelly. How many of you can remember our mothers or grandmothers making it from scratch? Here are some jelly recipes to bring back those childhood memories.

 

These hints go through the procedures for boiling meat, boiling fish, frying and making sauces.  Can’t you just feel your arteries clogging up as you read the frying instructions?

 

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Community

Ask an Expert

Just thought I would share a recent Certificate I have ordered from BDM New Zealand. How excited was I to collect my mail from the letter box, only to find the Certificate shared little news. Do you think I would go close to having the least info provided on a Certificate?   Jo-Anne O'Dwyer

 

 

I agree with you Jo-Anne, not a lot of information.

However perhaps I can shed a bit of light as to why.

The first thing is the year of death, 1872.

Death certificates in New Zealand pre 1876 had very little information.

On the NZ B, D, M, web site under FAQ Data Collected it has the following statement.

What is a printout?

  • Generally a scanned image of the record.
  • It is in a typed format for an event from 1998.
  • It is also typed for earlier records which have been updated or corrected.

What is a certificate?

  • Is an official document containing registered information.
  • A certificate contains less information than a printout.

The copy you have is a certificate and not a printout though you do have to wonder if the printout would have had anything further.

I checked out the cemetery records for Motueka through KiwiCelts. There is a burial record for an Elizabeth Bishop however she is 18 and not 8. Which brings up more questions.

Is the burial record for Motueka your Elizabeth, and did the DIA transcribe the age incorrectly on the certificate?

Certainly some more research to be done.

 

 

Help Offered

Do you own reference books at home and would be happy to do lookups for members? Or are you willing to visit cemeteries, archives, etc. for others? Simply click here and add a record into the “Information Offered” table: we’ll put a note in the next newsletter, and at any time FamNet users can look up this table and make contact with you.

Like “Useful Web Sites”, we believe that a combination newsletter/table approach is needed. The newsletter can give you an instant “aha” and if it happens to coincide with your need it’s perfect, but you also need the table so that you can look up the list later long after you’ve forgotten which newsletter mentioned the subject that you needed help with.

Information Wanted etc.

Remember that you can post photos for identification, and information wanted requests:

Click here to post a photo

Click here to request help with some information

 We’ll post the photos and information requests in the next newsletter, and they’ll remain on display for at least a year.

 

There were no new photos at the time of sending the newsletter.

Have Your Say – Letters to the Editor

Just click here and then click the [Letters to the editor] button, then follow the on-screen instructions.

 

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In conclusion

A Bit of Light Relief

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Copyright (Waiver)

Feel free to redistribute this newsletter. If you publish a newsletter yourself you may include material from this newsletter in yours provided that you acknowledge its source and include a FamNet URL, www.famnet.net.nz

 

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