Genealogy 2014 - 2015: Successes and Goals

Mary Peacock (nee Hugill)

After today, someone else is taking over my '31st-of-the-month' time-slot. My previous posts were about sources and strategies for family history worldwide. Today I want to reflect upon the highlights of 2014 and my goals for 2015.

In 2014, unforeseen events (ranging from a back injury to moving house) meant that there were many disruptions to my usual genealogical activities. A health scare reminded me that spending quality time with family and friends is more important than being an educator, a genealogy professional or a blogger!

Genealogical highlights of 2014:   (links open in a new window)

1. Collaboration via CuriousFox.  I have been swapping information with a distant relative who contacted me via CuriousFox. She sent me certificates and other information for our PEACOCK and HUGILL ancestors from Yorkshire, and confirmed that my Mary PEACOCK (nee HUGILL) died 17 Feb 1900 at Stockton-on-Tees, Durham, England.


2. New data via National Probate Calendar.  I found many relevant entries in the National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations, England and Wales 1858-1966). For some, I've already ordered copies of the wills. Others are on my wish list, but in the meantime they gave me locations, death dates, occupations and relationship details that helped with research in other sources.


3. New data via FindMyPast.  Many record sets released on FindMyPast during 2014 revealed new information for my family history. For example:
   
   • 'British in India' collection has 5 pension fund documents for Mary PORTER (a widow in England) with names and exact birth dates (between 1811 and 1821) for her five children.
   
   
   • Yorkshire collection has records such as parish registers and Bishop's Transcripts for my many family lines in that county.
   
   
   • Trade Union records refer to my John William CORDUEX in registers of two different railway unions.
   
   
   • New South Wales will books 1800-1952 in which I have already found 13 records for my family (including some people who lived outside NSW). I expect to find more when I do a systematic search for all names in my family tree.


4. Newspaper notices.  In the York Herald, Yorkshire Gazette and Sheffield Daily Telegraph (digitised and available via FindMyPast and the British Newspaper Archive) I found obituaries and other items for some of my families including HUDSON of Barton-le-Willows and BATTY of Bolton-upon-Dearne.


5. HUDSON family at Crows Nest.  I added another generation to the family tree after finding clues in Queensland funeral records and cemetery burial registers.

My genealogy goals for 2015:

• Change my priorities.  Spend more time on my own research and less time on answering emails from people who expect everything to be free!


• Share my knowledge more efficiently.  (1) Write more mini-guides.  (2) Use my Twitter page more often (because it is a quick way to share genealogy tips and links).


• Organise my records.  Before scanning or taking digital photos of all my family history material, I need to write down a 'style guide' for naming and filing the images. I will use a modification of the system described by Nancy Loe (a.k.a. 'Sassy Jane') in Cataloging Digital Family Photographs and Records and Organizing Genealogy Research Using Archival Principles. My paper filing system has always been source-based, so Louis Kessler's idea of a source-based incremental fix will suit me perfectly.


• Use DNA for genealogy.  I need to become more familiar with various tools for analysing DNA results, and to persuade more of my distant cousins to do the FamilyTreeDNA Family Finder test for autosomal DNA and the X-chromosome.


• Plan my genealogy cruise presentations.  Prepare my talks well in advance of Unlock the Past's 'Barrier Reef' cruise in March 2016. (You can get AUD$40 discount by quoting the code UTPC-WEB06 when you book any Unlock the Past cruise.)


• Research the HUGILL family.  My top priority is to find parents' names for Mary HUGILL (born c.1813, Hull, Yorkshire) and confirm that George HUGILL (born Hull, later of Stockton-on-Tees) was her brother. (Perhaps the wills and probate documents that I've ordered will help.)


• Write about my ancestors.  Many of those posts (which I will put in Jottings, Journeys and Genealogy) will be quite brief initially, but I'll update them as my research progresses. Hopefully people who read them will contact me and help fill the gaps in my knowledge.

Someone else is now taking over my '31st-of-the-month' time-slot, but watch for additions to my own blogs, which include UK / Australia Genealogy;  Genealogy Leftovers;  Queensland Genealogy;  and Jottings, Journeys and Genealogy.
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You might also like:

• Use FreeBMD postems to find new relatives


• CuriousFox: a gazetteer and message system


• Widen the Search: a Genealogy Success Story


• Finding Genealogy Data in an Unexpected Country


• A Genealogy Indexing Addict in Australia

(This post first appeared on http://worldwidegenealogy.blogspot.com/2014/12/genealogy-2014-2015-successes-and-goals.html.)

A Genealogy Indexing Addict in Australia

Hello. My name is Judy Webster, I live in south-east Queensland (Australia), and I am an indexing addict!

I grew up on a sheep and cattle grazing property in outback Queensland, and I have been doing family history since the 1970s. My mother's grandparents came to Queensland from Germany and Prussia, but at the moment I am concentrating on my father's ancestors and their siblings in England and Scotland, plus a recently discovered Irish ancestor.

Agar headstone, 1794, Yorkshire

Most of my Scottish ancestors were in Argyllshire, and I suspect that siblings may have gone from Tiree to Canada. My English research mainly involves Yorkshire and the Greater London area (Surrey/Middlesex), but a few families were in Somerset, Durham, Lancashire, Kent and elsewhere. Others emigrated to Australia and settled in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. One of my ancestors may have been a Lancashire convict who was sent to Tasmania, but as yet that is only a theory.

I have started using DNA testing for genealogy, and I have already contacted one 'new' relative whose relationship we can confirm by traditional research. I hope my success rate will increase as more British family historians are tested.

After graduating from university in Brisbane, I worked for thirty-four years as a medical scientist in a hospital's Haematology and Transfusion Medicine departments. In the 1980s I switched from full-time to part-time work, did a Graduate Diploma in Local and Applied History by external study (University of New England, Armidale NSW), and established my own part-time business as a professional genealogical researcher and indexer.

Prison hospital register

I love working with unusual sources that overcome dead ends in family history. My Web site, www.judywebster.com.au, has about 130 pages with advice on sources and techniques for family history, and more than 53,000 names from my indexes to local, interstate and overseas folk mentioned in archival records. I also allowed FindMyPast to publish three of those indexes. As I said, I am an indexing addict!

Apart from my main Web site, I also write about my family and share research tips in... (links open in a new window)

• my seven genealogy blogs (UK / Australia Genealogy;  Genealogy Leftovers;  Queensland Genealogy;  UpdatesGenie;  Jottings, Journeys and Genealogy;  Yorkshire Genealogy;  Outback Story)
• Twitter
• Google Plus
• Facebook.

I am the founder and coordinator of the Genealogists for Families Project, which is a magnificent example of international teamwork. In 2011 we received an award for 'Best New Community Project'. After only two years we have more than 270 members in 13 countries (Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Germany, Netherlands, NZ, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Spain, USA and Wales). Many contributors to this blog are already part of the team, and I hope more of you will join us. Please take a moment to read about 'Genealogists for Families'. Together we can make a difference!

In my next post here I will talk about ways in which (perhaps unexpectedly) Australian records can help family historians in other countries. In the meantime you will find many research tips in my genealogy blogs.

I look forward to learning from you all as the year unfolds. It will be interesting to see what thirty-one people can accomplish by contributing to an international collaborative blog.
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You might also like:

• Genealogy 2014 - 2015: Successes and Goals


• Use FreeBMD postems to find new relatives


• CuriousFox: a gazetteer and message system


• Widen the Search: a Genealogy Success Story


• Finding Genealogy Data in an Unexpected Country