National Archives of Australia Announces Digitization Partnership

National Archives of Australia has just announced they will be partnering with commercial digitisation provider Micro Image to operate from the Archives’ new industrial scale digitisation hub.  Micro Image will undertake large-scale digitisation of at-risk items from the national archival collection.

In July this year the Australian Government announced an extra $67.7 million over four years to fund the National Archives’ Defend the Past, Protect the Future Program. This Program will see the digital preservation of critical at-risk collection material, including audiovisual content, before Deadline 2025.

The digitisation hub will also enable National Archives to significantly upscale its proactive digitisation capacity, ensuring more of the collection is digitally preserved and available online, for use by government and the community.

'We are very pleased to be partnering with Micro Image to launch this new capability. Use of commercial providers, in conjunction with our inhouse digitisation team, is a cost-effective and time-efficient way of digitising large amounts of the national archival collection. This will result in more records being preserved, digitised and made available online to all Australians, regardless of where they live,’ said David Fricker, Director-General, National Archives of Australia.

The NAA states that digitisation onsite reduces the risk of damage to, or loss of, irreplaceable collection material during transportation to an offsite provider. Complete with specialised digitisation equipment, the digitisation hub also facilitates the appropriate handling of fragile historic material that may need preparation and conservation, prior to digitisation.

‘Micro Image has a strong track record of providing quality and time-critical digitisation projects. We look forward to continuing our productive relationship with the National Archives, with our operations now based in the state-of-the art digitisation hub in Canberra,’ said Bruce Shaw, Managing Director, Micro Image.

Micro Image will commence operating from the National Archives’ secure onsite hub in early 2022.

RootsTech Connect Returns

FamilySearch announced recently that its free online family history event RootsTech Connect will return for a second year on 3-5 March 2022.

FamilySearch has hosted the RootsTech family history conference in Salt Lake City annually from 2011 to 2020.  In September 2020, in response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, it announced that the 2021 conference would be replaced by RootsTech Connect – a free, global online event in that was held in February 2021.

Steve Rockwood, FamilySearch International CEO, said: “After RootsTech Connect 2021, we realized that we could bring the joy of family history to millions of people, no matter where they are, through an online, virtual RootsTech experience.  As we continue to chart new territory with RootsTech, we plan to make the virtual event a regular part of the experience and look forward to all the new opportunities that will open to people everywhere.”

RootsTech Connect 2021 was attended by over one million people from 240 countries and featured online family history talks and classes, a virtual Expo Hall and message boards for visitors to chat to one another.

For 2023 and beyond, RootsTech said it planned to offer “a hybrid online and in-person model with content that is expanded and accessed throughout the year”.

So keep an eye on the website for future announcements of topics, talks and speakers, and be ready for another round of amazing talks.  Remember many of the RootsTech 2021 talks remain available to view on demand , so check out what is available.

Family Tree US Magazine

The latest issue of Family Tree US magazine is now available free online for Campaspe Library members via our subscription to Libby eMagazines.  

Inside this month's issue :

• A More Perfect Union - Study US history—and how your ancestors fit in with it—using our annual list of the 75 best state-focused genealogy websites.
• Group Think - These DNA tools pin your ancestry to a specific historical group of people. Here’s what they can (and can’t!) tell you about your family history.
• Ties that Bind - Organize your research for easy travel and sharing by creating family history binders. Here’s how to get started.
• State Research Guide - Featuring Connecticut and South Dakota
  
• Five Tribes - These tips will help you find your ancestors who belonged to one of the United States’ five largest indigenous tribes today: Navajo, Cherokee, Sioux, Chippewa and Choctaw.
• Shop and Save - Preserve your family treasures with these archiving tips and tools every genealogist should have.

 

Family Tree UK Magazine

The latest issue of Family Tree UK magazine is now available free online for Campaspe Library members via our subscription to Libby eMagazines.  

Inside the December 2021 issue of Family Tree:

• Dive in an unravel the mysteries in our bumper end-of-year family history quiz.
• Learn how to ‘interview’ your ancestors (yes even those no longer with us) – with professional researcher and blogger Susie Douglas.
• Learn about the diligent folk who have been responsible our birth, marriage and death certificate details since 1837.
• Rachel Bellerby reports on the latest news from the world of family history
• The impact of the Laki eruptions: Wayne Shepheard considers our ancestors and the events of pan-continental environmental catastrophe in the late 1700s
• Tales from the City of the Dead: Drs Anna Maria Barry and Fiona Snailham share stories from Highgate Cemetery – a place where social status could continue, even beyond the grave
• Paul Chiddicks rounds off a memorable year with a selection of stories with a family history festive twist
• Books & Gifts: Ideas to pop on your wish list or treat yourself too
• In the latest installment of Twiglets, Gill Shaw ponders on the poignant question of ‘Who survived to adulthood?’
• DNA advisor Karen Evans comes to the aid of a reader trying to solve a long-standing great-grandfather brickwall
• School records: Simon Wills reports on a selection of education related sources
• Spotlight on: Borders Family History Society has been helping people trace family for 35 years
• Diane Lindsay looks into an ancestor’s eyes and brings them to life in her inimitable way
• Your Questions Answered, Dates for your Diary this November, & Readers’ Letters

Irish Catholic Clergy Database

A new digital archive and database of the Irish clerical population from medieval to modern times has been launched out of Maynooth University's Arts and Humanities Institute. It's called Clericus.ie.

The first phase of the Clericus project focussed on students and faculty of St Patrick's College, Maynooth, historically Ireland's largest seminary and pontifical university.

Now in its second phase, the Clericus research team is expanding the range of the project to include datasets from the early modern period and Irish clergy abroad. Among the newest additions to the database are more than 1,500 Irish clerics who attended the universities of Paris and Toulouse between 1573 and 1792. Similar research will gather data from Lisbon (1587-1850) and Salamanca (1592-1638).

It is anticipated that the database will further expand in the future with more information from a variety of sources.

Remembrance Day

Remembrance Day, once known as Armistice Day, is one of our most important commemorative dates. On 11 November 1918, the guns on the Western Front fell silent, and the armistice with Germany to end the fighting on land, in the air and at sea was signed.

Each year on 11 November we pause as a nation at 11am for one minute of silence to honour all those who have suffered and lost their lives during wars, conflicts and peacekeeping operations.

For the second year in a row, Covid will impact our Remembrance Day commemorations around the country and the world, but like ANZAC Day many will still gather to remember and thank those who have served.

A wonderful resource for hosts of a Remembrance Day service, or those commemorating at home, is available from the Department of Veterans Affairs.  Through their ANZAC Portal, they have a free Remembrance Day Kitbag.  It includes the order of service, music, making a speech, the Ode of Remembrance, a brief history, suggestions for a personal commemoration, guidelines to making a paper poppy, and more.

So wherever you are at 11am this morning, take a minute to pause and remember those who have served to protect our freedoms.

Lest We Forget.

Digital Churchyard Mapping Project for the Church of England

The Church of England has launched a new project to map all its churchyards using laser equipment.  They have partnered with surveying company Atlantic Geomatics, who will map Church of England churchyards using backpack-mounted laser scanners, as well as photographing the headstones.  The resulting records will be published on a new website, where they will enable family historians to discover where their ancestors are buried.

Bishop Andrew Rumsey, lead Bishop for church buildings said: “This impressive national project will make a huge difference to those researching family history, as well as easing the administrative burden on parishes.  It will improve management of burial grounds, and make information more fully accessible than ever before, supported by additional services by subscription for those wishing to go further.  It will soon be possible to visit almost any Anglican burial ground in the country and see in real time the location of burial plots. For those researching at distance in the UK or overseas, the digital records will place detailed information from churchyards at their fingertips.”

The project aims to survey the majority of the Church of England’s 19,000 burial grounds by 2028.

The website, which is due to launch in spring 2022, will combine data on burials and biodiversity data on the plants and animals in the churchyards.  It is anticipated the site will provide free to access for Church of England parishes, with additional services available to subscribers. 

After a successful pilot project which mapped the churchyards of All Hallows Church in Kirkburton and Emmanuel Church in Shelley, both in the Diocese of Leeds, the programme has now successfully mapped the churchyard of St Bega in Bassenthwaite in the Diocese of Carlisle.

The live links to the records on these two pilot studies can be found here:

• Kirkburton
• Shelley

Who Do You Think You Are Magazine

The latest issue of Who Do You Think You Are magazine is now available free online for Campaspe Library members via our subscription to Libby eMagazines. 

Inside this month's issue

• Grow your family tree The Who Do You Think You Are? experts share simple tips to help you discover your roots
  
• Who's on Who Do You Think You Are? We look at what you can expect from the long-awaited Series 18
  
• FreeREG How you can search 5.3 million church records online for free
  
• Reader story Danielle Ford's grandparents survived German forced labour camps
  
• British war films How the cinema kept our ancestors going during the Second World War
  
• Plus: The best websites for Scottish ancestry, finding prison records, how to use free transcription software and more