Campaspe Genealogy is back!

From Monday 1 June Campaspe Libraries reopened to the public in a limited capacity following Government guidelines and observing social distancing.  I hope everyone out there has stayed safe and well during the shut down and look forward to getting back to genealogy and a more 'normal' life over the next few weeks and months.

May has certainly been a very different month this year, and a challenging time for so many.  It is wonderful to be able to come back to work, see colleagues and people in the community, and start trying to rebuild after the shut down.

I hope the past weeks have not been too challenging for you all.  For myself, my garage is organised, several jobs around the house have finally been completed, and I have been able to spend a bit of extra time on genealogy during my time at home.

More to come!

Covid-19 Shut Down

Campaspe libraries and depots are closed until further notice, in line with the Federal Government’s direction for non-essential services.

This Blog will not be monitored during the closure.

I wish everyone out the the best during the closure and look forward to restarting Campaspe Genealogy when restrictions are lifted and I am back at work.

WDYTYA 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 RB Digital eMagazines.

Inside this month's issue

• DNA ethnicity
  
  
  What do the percentages in your DNA test result mean? Debbie Kennett explains
• Swedish mystery
  How genealogist Emma Jolly tracked down the British beneficiaries to a Swedish fortune
• The Home Front
  80 years after the start of the Blitz, discover how you can research your ancestors' lives during the Second World War
• Reader story
  Eight generations of Paul Darran's family have served in the Army
• Family Tree Maker 2019
  Back up your family tree to the cloud with leading family history software
• Plus...
  The history of department stores; tracing Italian ancestors; understanding Royal Artillery records, and much more...
   

Around Britain

• Shropshire
  Find your family in the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution

RootsTech Free Videos

Another treat for those stuck at home during the CoronaVirus pandemic are the many videos of presentations to RootsTech.  Dating back to 2015 and coming right up to the recent 2020 conference, as well as last year's RootsTech London conference, there is a variety of keynotes and presentations available to watch free from home.

RootsTech 2020 talks now available to view

So take some time to catch up on the latest developments in the field and learn new skills from a variety of experts during your time at home.

A huge thank you to the people at RootsTech for making these presentations available - there is certainly a wide variety to choose from and I will be taking advantage of having some extra time to develop my own skills and knowledge.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 12 - Namesake

In many families, we see the same names over and over.  Frequently children were named after parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and various other family members.  The same names just crop up time after time, and will often cause confusion for family history researchers.  Working out who is who can be extremely difficult when all a man's sons name their first male child after the child's grandfather - and suddenly there are 4 or 5 cousins with the same name all living in a small area.  This has happened to me a few times - most memorably I have 5 cousins named James Mulholland all born within 5 miles and 4 years of each other - and two of them married women named Mary!

Naming customs, while not cast in stone, were extremely common in many areas, and sometimes trying to find a name that does not link back to a member of the family can be a challenge.  Names also went through ebbs and flows or popularity, and often more frequently used names reflected current monarchs, newly born members of the royal family and popular celebrities of the day.

Another frequently used custom of the past - which can seem quite strange to us today - was using the name of a deceased child for the next born sibling of the same gender.  My 3xGreat Grandfather Isaac Green was actually the third child named Isaac born in the family - his eldest brother Isaac died at only 4 days old, his next brother was also named Isaac and died of diphtheria at 6 years old.  My direct ancestor Isaac was the next son born, the namesake of two dead brothers - and he lived to the grand age of 89.

Free Webinars from Legacy Family Tree

The wonderful people at Legacy Family Tree are stepping up to help make time spent in lockdown at home a little more bearable for all us genealogists by launching a month of free genealogy webinars during April. 

Throughout their free month, one Legacy Family Tree webinar from the membership library will be unlocked and available to watch for free, and there’s a seven-day rotating theme:

• Sundays – Methodology
• Mondays – DNA
• Tuesdays – Ethnic Genealogy
• Wednesdays – Technology
• Thursdays – Around the Globe
• Fridays – Beginners
• Saturdays – TechZone

For the first 10 days, the schedule includes:

• Wednesday, April 1: Privacy: How to Protect Your Information Online, presented by Judy Russell

• Thursday, April 2: Untangle the Web of German Websites, presented by Teresa Steinkamp McMillan

• Friday, April 3: Getting Started in Family History – 1- Home Sources, presented by Cheri Hudson Passey

• Saturday, April 4: Google Alerts: Get Notified of New Content on Google, presented by Thomas MacEntee

• Sunday, April 5: FAN + GPS + DNA: The Problem-Solver’s Great Trifecta, presented by Elizabeth Shown Mills

• Monday, April 6: Case Studies in Gray: Identifying Shared Ancestries Through DNA and Genealogy, presented by Nicka Smith

• Tuesday, April 7: Jewish Genealogy’s Other Side: Sephardic Research, presented by Schelly Talalay Dardashti

• Wednesday, April 8: Crowdsourcing with Social Media to Overcome Brick Walls in Genealogy Research, presented by Amie Bowswer Tennant

• Thursday, April 9: Introduction to French-Canadian Research, presented by Michael Leclerc

• Friday, April 10: Genealogy 101, a 3-Session Course in Beginning Genealogy – Part 1, presented by Peggy Lauritzen

 So check out a few webinars this month and see how much you can learn about researching your family history.  A big thankyou to Legacy Family Tree and all their wonderful presenters for making these talks available.

Try a Virtual Tour

As more and more of us are staying home during the current health crisis, many public spaces are offering virtual tours of their spaces.  From museums, galleries, libraries, even zoos - the number of places you can visit from home is growing.  So here are a few places you might like to have a look at to keep yourself and the family entertained over the coming weeks.

The British Museum
Search the collection online to view specific objects or find out more about individual galleries.  Or perhaps you would like to take a virtual tour of their prints or the Oceania collection.

The Hermitage Museum
Right now, the museum states they are preparing a large quantity of broadcasts that you can view on their YouTube and Instagram channels. So far they are only in Russian, but in the near future they plan to begin broadcasting in other languages too – English, Italian and more.

The Smithsonian Open Access
Open access applies to digital assets that are created, stored, or maintained by the Smithsonian. This might include text, still images, sound recordings, research datasets, 3D models, collections data, and more.

London Medieval Murder Map
Each pin on the London map represents the approximate location of one of 142 homicides that occurred in the City of London in the first half of the 14th century. Click on a pin to read the story behind the event.

Virtual Library Tours
I Love Libraries has virtual tours of some iconic libraries, such as the Library of Parliament in Ottawa, Canada, the Mansueto Library at the University of Chicago, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. and the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford. 

State Library of Victoria
I can't go past my home state library, with the SLV offering photos and images of many of their halls and spaces.  You can also take a tour of the history of the building.

Zoos Victoria
Watch the live cameras featuring the new snow leopard cubs (in both the nesting box and open enclosure), penguins, zebras, lions and giraffes.  As the animals go about their day they appear and disappear on the zoo cameras.