Six years between blogs . . . .

Its been a very long time since I've blogged dear reader (if I have any apart from myself).

Time has marched on, and a new tool has entered the genealogy field. I say new - as it has been around for a while, and is only "new" to my blog.

DNA testing has created a huge learning curve and also an awesome opportunity to find out new information about your family. It is helping people validate their paper/traditional research. It is bringing up surprises as well as shocks for many.

The type of DNA testing most effective for finding family, is the autosomal test - or atDNA. Most DNA companies do this test. Other tests include the mitochondrial (mtDNA) or the YDNA. YDNA is effective for deep testing along the male line (DNA inherited and passed solely from father to son). mtDNA is from the X chromosome and can be inherited only from the mother - but both son and daughter receive a copy.

The test myself, my father and mother and my cousin have had done, is the atDNA through Ancestry. No shocks or surprises as yet, but it has yielded some measure of success already, in that I have successfully discovered a first cousin for my Scottish mother. A younger cousin lost to the mists of time and memory, from when my mother moved from Aberdeen to Edinburgh. Its nice as they are in correspondence via email now, and swapping family stories and memories.

I also found a second cousin from my father's Newfoundland line who has happily shared family photos. I do have some family mysteries to solve . . .

I've also been assisting customers at work, who don't know what to do when they get their tests results back, explaining how it all works, and generally just getting them started.

So far this has been me dipping my toes in - and learning as I go. And watching YouTube videos and reading . . .

Happy hunting

The cost of genealogical research - and potential data loss!

Revisiting my research and sorting it into order has given me a new perspective.

I had started to get my research into control, starting to scan documents into folders. Making electronic backups. This process has been very slow, as I work fulltime, have a family and also study.

Then my husband had a fall while carrying the laptop, and it broke.

Our laptop had our life on it – not just the typical household stuff, photos etc – but my husband’s work portfolio and all my family history research.

Data retrieval cost a pretty penny, but was necessary to do. As cheap as external storage drives now are, we simply hadn’t had the money to purchase sufficient storage to back everything up.

Fortunately, I had my family tree uploaded to Tribal Pages. I’ve always subscribed to the belief that I do not own my ancestors, so freely share my research with people who can prove a family connection. 

I know some people out there think that because they did the research, and paid for the website subscriptions and the BDM certificates that they don’t have to share. From my own experience, I do appreciate that the costs aren’t insignificant (both in terms of time and money), but to each their own, its just not a belief I subscribe to.

I have had some qualms however, when my sharing has meant that my research has been taken and grafted on to someone else’s tree without so much as the courtesy of asking my permission, nor even citing me as a source. It grates even more, when they’ve made numerous mistakes, so obviously don’t have the same research standards as me. But you can’t avoid plagarists, nor “name collectors” in this field unfortunately.

Anyway, I also had some family history research documents on another computer, and some were stored also on DropBox (cloud storage is fabulous!). And I also had my hard copy research. So I could have reassembled most of my research eventually, with only a little loss – but that would have taken time.

This disaster made me think. If we had a fire or similar disaster, what would I do? How much would it cost to replace everything I had? No doubt, the family history research would be the least of my priorities, but eventually, it would rise to the top.

The info stored on TribalPages would be ok. However, this website (714 names) contains only the results of my research. Its not the research, nor is it the evidence. The info contained here, is just the results of more than 12 years research, and collaborations with other family branches. And family history research is much more than just gathering names and dates.

In today’s prices it would cost me £9 to replace every certificate I have got.  At today’s exchange rate, that is $NZ18 per certificate. For each name verified during research, that’s a minimum of two certificates per name (sometimes three). Obviously, I’ve not been able to get a certificate for everyone on my tree – mainly just the direct line ancestors, but I have had to get some “sibling” certificates to support my research sometimes. And this for the four branches of my maternal line, and four branches of my paternal line – at least six generations back each! I haven’t done the maths, but I imagine the cost is not insignificant.

In addition to my certificates, I also have my labour and time. True it’s a labour of love. But I hate to think how much time I have spent. Sometimes information is quick to find, other times you can spend years and years off and on, looking for one small piece of information.

In my early days, I had to do the hard slog, looking through registers in public records offices. Visiting LDS Family History Libraries, looking through reels and reels of microfilms. Ordering microfilms on interloan from some other LDS Family History Library – can’t remember the cost per reel in those days.

More and more has become available online now, and I did subscribe to Ancestry to help with my research – a couple of hundred dollars per year, I think, at the time. 

Then I’ve also had subscriptions to websites to allow me to share the information with family in as user-friendly a manner as possible.  The current one, on TribalPages, costs me about $45 per year. There are most probably better ones out there, but this is the most cost effective, affordable one for me. TribalPages allows collaboration as mentioned previously, but it also offers the ability for people to create their own family tree graphic. Family have chipped in a couple of times.

Now, due to my job, I have free access to Ancestry and FindMyPast at work. However, to do the research for free, I’d need to stay behind after work – which I do, from time to time. 

Also, I can find some of my English information for free on the LDS’s FamilySearch site, which helps.

However, most of the information on these sites, are just indexes. Its not true to say its all online, because its not. Still have to order those expensive certificates. These websites just save you the cost of an airfare to the local public records office.

Unfortunately, the Scottish government now has a firm commercial grip on the information for my Scottish lines. I find ScotlandsPeople horrendously expensive, and it doesn’t allow libraries outside of Scotland to subscribe. 

ScotlandsPeople charge just to view the indexes, then you also have to pay to view the documents. So I’ve been unable to do any Scottish research for a long time because it is currently not in my budget.

One of my father’s branches is from Newfoundland. Happily the Grand Banks website for Newfoundland has a huge team of enthusiastic researchers, who are indexing and providing information for FREE. 

FamilySearch have also scanned parish registers for Newfoundland, and also provide them for free. As they are not yet indexed, this does cost a time commitment however – as I need to go through each individual image and check for “my” names.

So all this thinking has really pressed home to me, I really need to digitize and ensure I backup adequately – in a coherent manner, so that if the worst happens, I don’t have to waste precious time reassembling my research.

I also need to succession plan. Who to pass the sum of my research on to, in the event of my death? I’d hate to think of future generations having to start again from scratch.

Waitangi Day Blog ChallengeYour earliest known New Zealand ancestor

Recently our Australian cousins have all been encouraged to blog about their earliest piece of research about an Australian ancestor in celebration of Australia Day (see Shelley’s blog at Twigs of Yore)

We think this is a terrific idea and have noticed that it has provoked participation from loads of people.

Waitangi Day, on February 6, is our national day.

Its intent is to celebrate a bringing together of the peoples of New Zealand and its usually a family day. Often we spend it on the beach, or maybe have a barbecue with family and friends.

We'd like to invite you to write a blog - post the link to your blog in the discussion board on our Facebook page.

If you don't have a blog, perhaps post your story itself within this discussion board instead. Just click reply.

Write about:

* How different is our life from that of your early NZ ancestors? (settler or Maori)

* What stories can you tell us about their lives?

or

If you are first generation New Zealander or maybe a new Kiwi, perhaps you might like to tell us of your first impressions of New Zealand, and your experiences, of settling in here; and how Kiwi traditions and culture differs from your own.

If you are on Twitter, you can follow the hashtag #waitangiblog for updates and alerts.

Please join us, we’d be interested in hearing your stories!

The Info and Library Industry Tweet-Up:- aka the power of social media

A few of us on Twitter: myself (@genebrarian), @seanfish , @catatonichic and @kowhaiAnne , had been discussing the possibility of a bit of a Tweet-Up, just to chat about the exciting changes in our professional lives, brainstorm new ways of using social media, and oh a whole heap of things we were excited about.

This idea has grown to a general more inclusive, but much broader invite to all who might be interested.

Event: Tweetup / MeetUp / We’re not eliteup
Venue: Auckland Domain, near the Band Rotunda. See number 24 on this map:
Date: Waitangi Day, Sunday, February 6
Time: 12 noon
Bring: yourselves, a picnic, a blanket, a musical instrument (if you are keen to join the jam session) . Its a family day, so partners and kids also welcome
Enquiries to: aucklibstweetup@gmail.com or follow #aucklibtweetup on Twitter
Agenda: Fun, socialising, (food?), a bit of "shop-talk", music - and a group visit to the Museum about 2pm for those interested

The only requirement for attendance is an interest in the information and library sector. You don't even have to be an Aucklander, just be able to get to Auckland Domain on that day. You don't even have to have had an official invitation, just see the event publicised somewhere.

What I find interesting about this process, is that each of the organisers have been using their own individual streams of social media to send the word out.

It started on Twitter: #aucklibtweetup and is being re-tweeted.

More info is available on @seanfish's blog here: http://banjosinthestacks.wordpress.com/aucklibtweetup/ and its being blogged here -and I've seen it being re-blogged elsewhere already!

A Facebook invitation has been sent out, with the idea that people being invited, "pay it forward" to others already not invited that are in their circle of FB friends. The FB invite also links to @seanfish's blog.

And its been announced on LinkedIn on my profile page  with links to the Facebook invite.

Hopefully, it will be a good day - with an opportunity to meet loads of my social media "friends" IRL (in real life).

I am looking forward to it!

Using Social Media

Why do you use social media? (you are here, so you do - whether you realise it or not!)  People use social media for all sorts of different reasons.

Some use it to converse and interact with people that they know very well. Either professionally or socially.

Some people use it to network with mere acquaintances. Some with people they do not know at all. Sometimes peoples motives for using social media aren't apparent.

The reasons I use social media are wide and varied. I use my personal Facebook account to converse and share with family and friends. I also use it to create Groups pages for my personal family history interests. I've had quite a few previously unknown family members and/or fellow researchers contact me as a result.

I manage a professional Facebook account (Auckland Research Centre) I use to promote my specialist subject and collection (family history) and my library.

My personal Facebook account has strict security controls, so that I can control who sees what exactly. The professional account has very few security controls - I want as many people to find and interact with us as possible.

I use my Twitter account (@genebrarian) for the widest reasons: to converse with friends and colleagues, network with professionals, to promote my library and collection and for my learning. There's an amazing amount to be learned by clicking on someone's link. I also follow people "for the hell of it". Their "Tweets" interest and inspire me.

I manage and write for the Kintalk blog for work, and I've just started this blog.

LinkedIn is still relatively new for me, I'm dabbling to see what I can get out of it.
I suspect I can learn alot from it, as well as network.

My personal and professional interests are not just family history and libraries,
they are also graphic design and print (my old career), marketing, digital preservation/digitisation, internet and the web, and yes social media. So I hook up with as many contacts on there as I can.

I also use delicious to store the many hundreds of useful bookmarks I find when trawling the internet. They are portable, I can access them from any computer any time, and I can share them with people - I can "follow" others with similar interests as me, so I can share their bookmarks too.

Its great how you can link with people from one Social Media account to another. Someone you follow on Twitter, you feel you get to know them, so you then feel you can follow them on LinkedIn etc.

I think the Social Media explosion is definitely a boon for us family historians - as evidenced by the amount of blogging (and microblogging) being done out there!