ANZAC Day

As April 25^th comes around again, I find myself reflecting on the meaning of ANZAC Day to me.  And while we say the Ode today, I will be remembering not only my father and several uncles who served in WWII, and those of my family who went before them, but all of those men and women who have served.  I will remember especially those who did not come home and all of those who came home forever changed, as well as those who did not see fighting, but served in different ways both at home and abroad.

ANZAC has very much become a part of our national vocabulary.  The people who lived though that campaign were ordinary volunteers, just as Australia’s current veterans were ordinary volunteers.  They put their daily lives on hold to serve and protect us all, most with very little clear idea of just what they were volunteering for.

My family was extremely lucky, in both world wars, to have most of those who served not only come home, but come home fairly unscathed.  Once second cousin was killed in France in World War 1 ; one uncle died in the Merchant Navy in World War 2.  All the other relatives who served – my father, uncles and great-uncles - returned safely to their loved ones.  While they all had to live with the memories of the conflicts, they were mostly uninjured by their experiences and able to rebuild their civilian lives. 

So many others were not so fortunate.  Numerous Australian families endured the loss of loved ones on foreign soil, or the return of family members forever scarred by their service.  So many who returned faced a lifetime of ruined health or years of recovery and rehabilitation.  My family was lucky indeed.

I am forever grateful to all of you who have served and sacrificed on our behalf. It is a solemn undertaking to be ready to put your life on the line for your Country. One that is deserving of our gratitude.

Lest we forget.

RootsTech 2019

If you were unable to attend the wonder that is RootsTech, you may be interested in watching a number of the presentations from the comfort of home.  There are now an assortment of presentations and keynote presentations available to watch, free, on the RootsTech website.

Some of the RootsTech presentations available

One of my ambitions is to attend RootsTech one year when my work and general life schedule permits, but until then I have watched from afar, and plan to spend time over the next few weekends watching these presentations, taking notes, and applying them to my family history research.  There is a great range of topics and speakers, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Preserving Our History

Over the past few days the destructive fire are the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris has been much in the news, and the courage shown by firefighters, police and the general public in saving so many of the treasures inside has been widely reported.  The loss of such a historic landmark is tragic, especially considering it survived the French Revolution, both world wars and numerous other natural and man-made disasters.  It prompts me to consider, on the smaller and more personal scale, the preservation of my own family treasures.  While I have electronic backups of my data in place, what about the family treasures, paintings and ephemera, stories and general knowledge?  What can I do to preserve it all?

Firstly, over the next few weeks I plan to give the camera a workout and photograph all the family items I have in my possession.  Things like the figurines that belonged to my grandparents and great grandparents, the painting my father was given when he retired, and the little shell turtles I gave my grandmother after my first solo holiday when I was 17.  Treasures that I cannot copy but should disaster strike I would at least have photos of the items to keep.

Secondly, I need to write down the stories of each item.  I've written before about cleaning out the family home after the deaths of my parents, and how my sister and I simply did not keep things we didn't know the story of.  So many items we looked at with no idea of whether they were family heirlooms or trinkets our mother had purchased from the local opp shop, and several times we found ourselves wishing so much that our parents were still with us so we could ask all the questions the items we found created for us.  Why had this china cup been kept?  Whose was it and how long had it been in the family?  There were so many bits and pieces put away that we had no idea of the history of, and so generally didn't keep.  If my sister and I didn't know, there was no one left to ask.

I have spent months digitising photos, letters, diaries and even a few journals, like the ones my mother kept of long ago holidays.  My sister has created a wonderful little recipe book made of all the dishes our mother and grandmother used to make, with notes of why each dish was special.  Now it is time to do the same for more physical items - to photograph them and record their stories.  Because if no one in my family knows the story behind Great Aunt Mary's tea set - or even that the tea set in the shed was Great Aunt Mary's and not something picked up on a whim at a jumble sale - then they will have no reason to keep it, value it, and ultimately pass it on to another generation.  And that would be a sad loss of my family history.

New on FamilySearch

A major new collection now available free on FamilySearch are the Surrey Parish Registers. 

The parish records include baptisms, marriages and burials, potentially revealing details such as your ancestors’ dates and places of birth, marriage and death, as well as the names of their parents and spouses.  Including data from 1536 to 1992, the set consists of over 2.5 million records and were transcribed from the London Metropolitan Archives.

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

• Read all about it
  Discover your ancestors in newspaper archives
• DNA dilemmas
  DNA testing is transforming family history - we look at the challenges and rewards
• May day
  Exploring the tangled history of maypoles
• Finding Irish kin
  Break through your Irish brick walls with a 19th-century tax record
• Family hero
  A dramatic tale of surviving the Battle of Jutland
• Plus...
  The lives of ancestors who worked as general servants; tracing injured First World War veterans; using Ancestry's new family tree tags; and much more...

What's new on Trove

Over the past few months the people at Trove have added over 2 million more newspaper pages to their collection, taking the current total to a whopping 222,868,169 scanned pages online.  Here’s the list the titles they’ve released over the past few months, as well as those that are coming soon.

WHAT’S NEW

NEW SOUTH WALES
The Alfred (Sydney, NSW: 1835)
The Australian Sportsman (Sydney, NSW: 1848)
The Citizen (Sydney, NSW: 1846-1847)
The Currency Lad (Sydney, NSW: 1832-1833)
Hill’s Life in New South Wales (Sydney, NSW: 1832)
Mosman, Neutral and Middle Harbour Resident (NSW: 1904-1907, 1919)
New South Wales Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime (Sydney: 1860-1881)
The Sydney Daily Advertiser (NSW: 1848)
Sydney Punch (NSW: 1864-1888)
The Sydney Times (NSW: 1834-1838)
The Sydney Weekly Transcript (NSW: 1846)
Weekly Observer (Sydney, NSW: 1833)
QUEENSLAND
Toowoomba Chronicle (Qld: 1917-1922)
Toowoomba Chronicle and Darling Downs Gazette (Qld: 1922-1933)
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
The Egotist (Adelaide, SA: 1839-1854)
Messenger (Port Adelaide, SA: 1951-1954)
Port Augusta and Stirling Illustrated News (SA: 1871-1873)
Port Lincoln Herald (SA: 1839-1840)
The Portonian (Port Adelaide, SA: 1871-1873
Tribune (SA edition, published in Sydney: 1951-1964
Western People and Tumby Bay Times (SA: 1912)
VICTORIAElmore Standard (Vic: 1882-1905)
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Avon Argus and Cunderdin-Meckering-Tammin Mail (WA: 1925-1954)
Ballidu-Wongan Budget (WA: 1927-1941)
Blackwood Chronicle and South-West Mining News (WA: 1904-1907)
Bridgetown Advocate (WA: 1938 – 1950)
Bulong Bulletin and Mining Register (WA: 1897-1898)
East Murchison News (WA: 1901-1911)
Farmers Observer (Nambeen, WA: 1933-1935)
Geraldton Advertiser (WA: 1893-1905)
Gnowangerup Star (WA: 1942-1954)
Hedland Advocate (Port Hedland, WA: 1906-1912)
The Irwin Index (Mingenew, WA : 1926-1928)
Lake Grace Newdegate Cultivator and Dumbleyung and Kukerin Producer (WA: 1925-1930)
Morgans Courier (Mount Morgan, WA: 1904-1911)
Mount Morgans Mercury (WA: 1906-1909)
Mount Morgans Miner (WA: 1901-1903)
Narembeen Observer (WA: 1928-1933)
Narrogin Advocate and Southern Districts Courier (WA: 1904-1906)
South Western Times (Bunbury, WA: 1932-1954)
South Western Tribune (Bunbury, WA: 1930-1932)
Wiluna Chronicle and East Murchison Advocate (WA: 1924-1931)
Wongan-Ballidu Budget (WA: 1941-1954)
The Wyalkatchem Wheatsheaf and Bencubbin Banner (WA: 1922-1939)
York Chronicle (WA: 1927-1954)
INTERNATIONALBangkok Recorder (Thailand: 1865-1867)

COMING SOON

NEW SOUTH WALESAlbury Banner (1881-1896); [Albury & District Historical Society; NSW State Government Regional Cultural Fund]
Border Morning Mail (1938-1942); [Albury & District Historical Society; NSW State Government Regional Cultural Fund
Daily Express (Wagga Wagga: 1919-1929); [Wagga Wagga & District Historical Society]
Mosman, Neutral and Middle Harbour Resident (1904-1907); [Mosman Historical Society]
QUEENSLAND
Toowoomba Chronicle (Sept. 1917-Sept. 1922); [State Library of Queensland]
Toowoomba Chronicle and Darling Downs Gazette (Oct 1922-Dec 1933); [State Library of Queensland]
SOUTH AUSTRALIAMessenger (1951-1954) [State Library of South Australia]
Port Augusta & Stirling Illustrated News (Feb.-Aug. 1901) [State Library of South Australia]
Portonian (1871-1873) [State Library of South Australia]
VICTORIAElmore Standard (1882-1905);[Bendigo Regional Genealogical Society]
Great Southern Advocate (1907-1913; 1919-1926); [Korumburra & District Historical Society]
Richmond Guardian (1907-1909;1915-1916) [Rhett Bartlett]
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
The Fremantle Advocate (Aug 1926 – Jan 1942); [Fremantle Library]
INTERNATIONALA Voz de Timor (1965-1975) [Canberra Friends of Dili and the National Library of Australia]

Genealogical DNA testing and the law

Yesterday in her blog, Legal Genealogist Judy Russell raised more issues with the use of Genealogical DNA by police in identifying perpetrators in major crimes (to read Judy’s blog post click here).  At the time when Family Tree DNA has decided to allow law enforcement access to its matching database for crime scene kits, a Washington State woman learned that her identity as a distant relative of a man arrested for murder in Iowa had been disclosed in one of the search warrants issued in the case. She had uploaded her data to GEDmatch.com where it was used to help identify the suspect, and as a result an arrest was made.  In the ensuing court case, her identity was disclosed – so the suspect and his legal team know her identity as the person who provided the DNA which was, at least in part, responsible for his arrest.

This had me suddenly sitting up and taking notice, and totally reviewing my opinion on the use of genealogical DNA by police.  While my attitude until now has been that if a distant relative of mine was a murderer, rapist or committed some other major crime and my DNA help to identify them, more power to the police.  The idea of that individual and their friends and legal team having access to my identity via the police search warrant, however, does not sit so well.  As Judy says “in that particular case, at least so far, no-one close to the suspect has decided to take any action against the unwitting relative whose test was the key to identifying the suspect” – but what protection would we have if they did??  While the possibility of someone seeking revenge on the DNA provider who helped convict them might be remote, protections still need to be in place.

There is also the fact that at this time, anyone doing a DNA test with Family Tree DNA has to actively opt OUT of allowing their DNA to be used by law enforcement, rather than choosing to opt in.  So people have to firstly be aware of the possibility of their DNA being used by law enforcement, read the fine print and follow through on how to opt out for law enforcement access.

There are other questions to be asked.  How long does law enforcement keep information they have obtained from genealogy databases? Are users whose information has been tapped by law enforcement or their proxies notified?  Is it required that the individual(s) who provided the matching DNA be revealed to the suspect and his/her attorneys or could the court order such information sealed?  There seems to be little, or no, protection for the privacy of the individual who tested their DNA for genealogical research after law enforcement becomes involved.  This information COULD be sealed and not disclosed. Identities of ‘confidential informants’ (the legal term) are protected all the time unless there is a compelling need for disclosure that can’t be met by any less intrusive means. The problem is that the police and prosecutors aren’t treating DNA matches as confidential informants and not ensuring that their privacy is protected.

Also, opting out closes off looking for DNA matches for service men and women’s remains and unidentified bodies.  It is currently all or nothing, and we are all – genealogical DNA testing companies, law enforcement and the general public – playing catch-up with the legalities.