Genie Trips

The Advantages of Visiting

Guild of One Name Studies Conference 2016

I have divide this post into 4 types of trips undertaken by genealogists. There may be some overlap but I will discuss the subtle differences between them.

• Visits to Relatives 

The first rule of genealogy is to talk to the older relatives whilst you can, as they often know things that cannot be found in the official documents.
They also may have photographs that you have never seen or be able to identify people in any photographs you have inherited.
My latest visit uncovered unseen photographs and letters in the collections of an aunt and uncle and discovered by my sister when clearing my parents house. So even when you think you may have exhausted the family collections it pays to revisit.

• Visits to Archives

We will never be short of records in our local archive our main challenge here will be access to them. The popular collections like parish registers are gradually being digitized by the big companies but there are many more records being preserved that may never make it to the internet.

During my latest visit to Hampshire I was fortunate to be able to view some Poor Law records. They did not answer my research question but do contain interesting information.

Catholic records have been difficult to access as, in the main, they have not been deposited with local archives. Find My Past have added some records to their collections but only a limited number. When I perused the shelves in the Hampshire Record Office whilst awaiting some documents I had ordered I came across 3 books of particular interest to me. These books contained transcriptions of Catholic registers for Southampton. These books had only been published in 2015. They have helped me with one of my research conflicts and helped to confirm an uncertain birthplace.

If you can possibly get to the archive, do visit, prepare well before you go, especially if you may not get back for another visit. Consider what to prioritise and make full use of catalogues and the staff knowledge so that you can maximise your research time. Check out what devices they allow for copying records as this can vary.

• Genealogy Conferences

I will clarify what I would class as a conference as I wish to discuss different ways of imparting information.

In the UK we may have a day conference sometimes called a seminar where the participants attend for a single day of classes. The recent Guild of One Name Studies conference I attended was over a weekend starting on the Friday afternoon and finishing late afternoon on the Sunday. At this weekend conference most attendees were staying over although a few were day attendees as they lived nearby. 

Conferences are a way to educate oneself about particular topics which may be of interest but they are also a great way to network with individuals who share your interest. Face to face discussions outside of the formal classes can be as important as the classes themselves.

Tackling a new research challenge can be made easier by discussion with others who may have encountered a similar challenge.

I would say that, personally, I wonder if some of the local family history societies would attract new members, if they could organise an annual conference, for their members, with topics of local and general interest. Those living further afield might be attracted to visit the area for such an event and if interest was poor it could be opened up to the public. 

A cheaper alternative would be a video conference.This was discussed today in this Dear Myrtle Hangout.if you want to see all the comments view it by logging on to this page and go to the Hosting Virtual Meetings tutorials. 

• Genealogy Shows

In the UK Who Do You Think You Are Live is held in April. It is billed as the world’s largest family history show. This show started life as the Society of Genealogists event and was rebranded when the television programme hit our screens. Many long term genealogists will tell you it has changed format over the years. Some of the changes may be due to the venue which moved from London to Birmingham a few years ago. 

However the audience for these events has also changed.  

The main thing to distinguish a show from a conference is that, at least here in the UK, much of the venue is occupied by vendors and genealogy related societies. There is also a section of related stands to assist with understanding records that we use such as military or photo or artefact dating. There also appears to have been a move to include other charities within the hall (some attendees have queried why they are there).

Like the US Rootstech event there are also educational talks on offer both free (usually sponsored) and paid for (mostly in advance). However the events in the US tend to span several days and attendees will stay over the same as conferences in the UK whereas shows attract, in the main, day visitors.

Vendors offers will attract visitors to shows and/or conferences as will educational talks.

However I get the impression that the family history societies are struggling to attract new members and the work that volunteers have put in to creating indexes over the years is now being superseded by the appearance of records in online datasets. Some are updating websites but many do not have the resources or expertise to do this.  

What can our local societies do to continue being relevant to both existing and new members? 

Is attendance at a national event worthwhile?

I enjoy catching up with friends at these events but why do others attend and are the costs involved worth it?

Who Do You Think You Are Live 2917 Celebrity 

From the Top - Explore Archives

This week the annual Explore Your Archives campaign launched here in the UK. Remember only a tiny fraction of historical materials have been digitised and made available online, so archives still hold many treasures genealogists need.  Learning to use an archive is really important.

I am prepared to bet that most of us were taught how to use a library sometime in childhood, but we learn to use archives as adults by trial and error. Libraries organise their books and other materials and have catalogues to help you find what you want. Archives also organise and catalogue their holdings, but do so differently.

Archives are organised using a hierarchy with several levels. Cataloguing archives, in four very easy steps illustrates the four main levels with rather natty photos. The levels are:

• Fonds or Collection
• Series
• File
• Item

Genealogists often focus on the single item, and forget the context in which it was created, used and preserved. Much valuable information about an item is in the higher catalogue levels, so explore them all.

Archivists start at the top level and don't always have the resources to fully describe lower levels.  The best way of discovering what an archive holds is to look at the fonds level. The National Archives (TNA, the UK one) has over 400 fonds, which is somewhat overwhelming. According to the published guide 'Tracing your Ancestors in the National Archives' these are the fonds most commonly used by family historians:

I would like to see a summary like this one posted on every archive's website and displayed prominently in every search room.  I am sure UK researchers are familiar with some of the contents of the fonds HO, RG and WO. Have you looked at other fonds, and other series within fonds?  Take a close look at RG 101.

Sadly, online archive catalogues do not make examining fonds level entries as easy as it should be. To display all fonds in Discovery, TNA's catalogue, use the Advanced Search. A search term must be entered so I used the wildcard *, meaning everything.  Then I scrolled down the page and selected 'The National Archives' under Held by, which brought up further options. I scrolled a long way further and selected 'Department' under Catalogue Levels.  TNA confusingly uses the terms Department for Fonds and Piece for File. Once you have identified a Fond of interest, you can search using the reference.

Now it is your turn. Have fun exploring an archive!

Reference
Bevan, Amanda. 2006. Tracing your Ancestors in the National Archives. The National Archives: Richmond. pp 4-7.

Where there's a Will....

...there's a way to get to the Truth.

A new found elderly cousin related the story of  her Grandmother's will last week, she was rather bitter that her mother and siblings were only left a pittance while one brother and a man who had befriended the old lady got the bulk of the estate.

State Records NSW (our State Archives) is situated in Kingswood which is 50 kilometres to the west of Sydney CBD. While it is good that there is plenty of parking (once you get there) and lots of room for expansion but getting to the archives is a pain. It just so happened that I was going to have lunch in our Blue Mountains last Wednesday, a trip that took me along the Motorway past Kingswood.

State Records is out amongst the gum trees on the edge of Sydney

State Records NSW do a great job and, with the help of an army of volunteers, they have a number of Online Indexes to their holdings available.

State Records Online Indexes.

Remembering that they have indexed many Probate Files so I did a search for the Grandmother's file and was lucky to find that it was available. While I was at it I also found a Land Title file for the Grandmother's property. One can pay to have the files copied and sent but at $AU30 each I could think of other ways to spend my geneabudget.

The Reading Room at State Records

As I have a Reader's Ticket for State Records NSW I was able to order the files to be ready in the Reading Room when I visited. After spending time with my friends over lunch I set off for Kingswood arriving about 3:15pm. As the files were waiting for me I was able to get straight to work. It only took me around 45 minutes to read and digest their contents and to photograph the contents on both my camera and mobile phone (Back ups are important especially when Kingswood is so far away).

The File contained affadavits, receipts, a copy of the will, details of properties owned and an inventory of household goods and personal effects.

So what did the Probate Packet reveal? The one brother and the man who had befriended the old lady got a few extra bits and pieces like a piano and some furniture  and some of the grandchildren got odds and ends but the bulk of the estate was divided equally in five shares between the four living children of the grandmother with the fifth share going to the children of her fifth (deceased) child.

Since the Grandmother died in 1944 the story of her bequests to family members has become slightly twisted. The lesson here is that while elderly relatives can be great sources of information it is wise to check the facts via other available sources.

Part of the Inventory in the Probate Packet.

Going Wayback

In a recent post on my GenAus blog I lamented that I had not kept files of all the websites I had developed over my 20 years on the World Wide Web. Quick as a flash one of my readers, Kylie Willison, reminded me of The Wayback Machine from The Internet Archive. Why didn't I think of that?

Wikipedia describes the Wayback machine thus "The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web and other information on the Internet created by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit organization, based in San Francisco, California. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet. The service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a "three dimensional index.".

So taking on Kylie's suggestion I tried to fins some of my old sites in the Archive but didn't have much luck as the search requires a URL and I couldn't remember the exact URLs of my sites. I'll have to go through some old emails and files and see if I can find them.

What I did remember was the URL for my GeniAus blog. Entering that in the Wayback Machine I discovered that it had first been captured by The Wayback Machine in January 2011 and had been "Saved 53 times between January 27, 2011 and September 5, 2015".  I often play around wiht the design and layout of my blog but forget to take a screenshot before I make changes. I intend going through all of those 53 captures and creating a personal archive of my blog changes. My blog is also captured by The Pandora Archive from The National Library of Australia so it should be accessible via one of these platforms for a long time to come.

First capture of the GeniAus blog by The Wayback Machine.

I wondered about my family site and found that "http://www.geniaus.net  has been "Saved 72 times between July 20, 2009 and October 2, 2015". Ain't that grand.

Of course, when I started writing this post my mind turned to the Worldwide Genealogy Blog and I thought I'd see what I could find in The Wayback Machine. I discovered that it has been "Saved 13 times between February 9, 2014 and September 6, 2015.

Here is the very first screenshot.

First capture of Worldside Genealogy Blog to The Wayback Machine

The post from February 9th about using Evernote for family history was from Diane Hewson in Australia.

Have you checked The Wayback Machine to see if your sites or blogs are being archived?

Capital Capers

This short post comes to you from Canberra, Australia's capital.

When I was here for Congress last month I was sorry that I didn't have enough time to do some research in our National Library and National Archives. A wedding invitation for this weekend gave me such an opportunity.

We arrived a day early on Friday and went straight to The National Library of Australia where a pile of books I had pre-ordered from the stacks was waiting for me. Michelle Nichols, one of my genimates, asked me on Facebook "Did you find interesting things?"  I certainly did but I didn't break down any brick walls.

Inside the National Library of Australia

I had ordered in a variety of resources. I got a few old books on Father Therry, a pioneer priest in Australia and some histories of the Catholic Church. I have an interesting priestly relative, Michael Harrington Ryan, who is my great (x2) great-uncle. I was hoping to find some references to Father Ryan in those books but I drew a blank. On my last visit to the library I did find a few snippets and I will continue to seek out more books to fill out his stories.

Hitting the books at the NLA

A few printed cemetery registers were also on my list. These were for towns in Australia (mainly NSW) where ancestors had lived. I was able to confirm several dates and places of death for second and third cousins from these so that was a successful exercise.As I go through these resources I take a copy of pages that mention the Curry surname for my CurryAus surname study.  I will continue this exercise when next I have a chance to visit the library.

There have been many Pioneer Registers produced for towns in rural and regional Australia. For this visit I ordered in a few I hadn't consulted. While I didn't find anything new on my family I found a few new Curry references.

Waiting for me when the library opens this afternoon are three files of biographical clippings that will hopefully give me some new info on one of Mr GeniAus' living cousins, an ancestral town and an in-laws ancestor.  Also waiting is a CD of cemetery inscriptions that has a few of my Pusells listed.

All of the items I consult at the library are given little red hearts and relevant notes in my library account.

Tomorrow I'll be at The National Archives of Australia when it opens. Hopefully waiting there for me will be some immigrations files and some World War Two service records. Having consulted these I will go back to the library to chase up a few references in microfilmed newspapers.

Reading Room at The National Archives of Australia

The National Archives of Australia

Preservation

Why we should all be concerned about preservation?

Yesterday (Tuesday 10th March) there was a fatal road traffic collision on the road that I use everyday to get to and from my place of work. Although, I was not an eyewitness, I saw the immediate aftermath from the other carriageway, whilst on my way to work and was shaken and saddened to think that someone was going to be hearing bad news later that day. 

Experiences such as these can bring home the uncertainties of life.

We all like to believe we will live in to old age but even the youngest of us should be aware that we only have a limited time in which to do things.

Geoff Rasmussen who hosts the Legacy Family Tree Webinars usually finishes with the saying "Life is short, do genealogy first". Would that we could all do this. 

If there is one resolution we should all have made this year it is this, I will endeavour to get my genealogy organized so that anyone can pick up where I left off.

Those who have taken up the challenge of Thomas MacEntee and embarked on the Genealogy Do Over are to be commended as are those who have not been in a position to need to take up the challenge. Many (including me) will have started with good intentions and other commitments have somehow got in the way.

Have we set ourselves unrealistic goals? Maybe

We all need to work at our own pace and the most important thing we can do is to leave something that our families will value rather than a jumbled mass of documents and unlabeled old photographs.

How do I know that what I have will be of use to others?

We have records and photographs that we have inherited (unless we are very unlucky) and those that we have found or created in our lifetime. 

We need to make it clear how these are important to our family and each of us will have our own way of doing this.

Computers and the associated technology can help us in storing and collecting our sources of information but we need to consider how easy it will be for others to access these in the future. 

So keeping up to date or finding ways to future-proof our sources is important however we store the information.

Family history programs can help us pull together the information we have found and display it in a format which shows our connections to our ancestors but they may not be supported indefinitely.

Whilst we may want to become paperless we must all consider how we back up what we have. 

Disasters can occur and we may lose what we have collected if we only have one copy or everything is in one place.

• Label things clearly
• Back things up
• Think about who will need access to your information

What legacy do you want to leave?
How are you going to pass your work on to the future generations?
Who gets your records? 

Can't I just leave my records to the relevant archive?

When Did You Last Visit an Archive ?

Much is made of the reduction of hours or closure of an archive and with a worldwide recession there has been great pressure on public services to reduce the cost of their services. On the back of this the paymasters will be looking at the footfall for these places.

National Archives will usually be safe as they have such large collections of interest to various researchers. However smaller regional or city/town repositories may not appeal to such a wide audience and the staffing costs will be an area where they will see reducing costs as a possibility.

So if you thought you could leave your work to the local archive you may have to think again.
Unless you have something unique which can stand the test of time such as a printed book you may find that much of the results of your hard work will become unusable or inaccessible.

Move with the technology and present your findings to the younger generations in your family. 
Consider how you store those unique items.
Make sure that somebody knows what you want to happen to your research.

How to research your New Hampshire Ancestor, even if you are nowhere near the Granite State

With permanent European settlement that started in 1623, New Hampshire has a long history.  It is also one of the thirteen original English colonies that revolted against King George in the American Revolution.  There are a plethora of documents, records and archives to explore if your American ancestry started in New Hampshire, or passed through here on their way to other states.  Here is a list of ways to access those resources from your home.

Places you can search online:

FamilySearch.org – This website has NH births from 1714 – 1904, Deaths from 1654 – 1949, Marriages from 1637 – 1959, several county probate files, and town clerk records.  Many are complete with scanned images.  There are 18,960 books that came up when I searched for the words “New Hampshire”.   All Federal Census records 1790 – 1940 (except for 1890) are available here. Their research wiki for the state of New Hampshire is: https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/New_Hampshire

Cyndi’s List of New Hampshire resources - http://cyndislist.com/us/nh/

The Lane Library, Hampton, NH- Hampton was founded in 1638 and has a wonderful collection of online resources that include many of the original seacoast communities in Rockingham County.  See this page for their genealogy page: http://www.hampton.lib.nh.us/hampton/genealogy.htm

Linkpendium New Hampshire links:  http://www.linkpendium.com/genealogy/USA/NH/

New Hampshire Deeds Online http://www.nhdeeds.com/  dating from the 1620s to the present

NH Search Roots website http://www.nh.searchroots.com/

The Pelham Historical Society Online Library – from Pelham, NH, this is a wonderful, little known resource of local history records online http://www.pelhamnhhistory.org/library/onlinelibrary.html

Where to Write for New Hampshire Vital Records http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/w2w/new_hampshire.htm

Good books:

Documents and Records Relating to New Hampshire (known as the NH Provincial and State Papers) in 40 Volumes available online at http://www.library.unh.edu/diglib/bookshelf/NHPapers/volume.shtml  the links lead to Internet Archive, and you can read online (searchable) or download several versions of files.  These papers are the accumulated documents from the settlement of New Hampshire to the year 1800.

Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire, by Charles T. Libbey, 1928  available online at http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=3166&cj=1&netid=cj&o_xid=0001231185&o_lid=0001231185&o_sch=Affiliate+External  searchable and browsable with paid subscription

Genealogists Handbook for New England Research, 5^th edition, edited by Michael Leclerc, NEHGS, 2012

Index to Genealogies in New Hampshire Town Histories, by William Copely, 1988

The New Hampshire Genealogical Record, the journal produced by the New Hampshire Genealogical Society from 1900 to the present.

Social Networking  and Message Boards:

All Things History- Rockingham County, NH on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/200460270133276/

Descendants of the First Families of New Hampshire on Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/groups/NHFirstFamilies/

New Hampshire Mayflower Society on Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/groups/NHMayflower/

New Hampshire Roots at Yahoo  https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/newhampshireroots/info

NH Genealogy, Digging New Hampshire Roots on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/DiggingNHRoots/

New Hampshire Genealogy Network on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/205180789528062/

(don’t forget that many New Hampshire historical societies have websites and Facebook groups, and some even have Twitter accounts)

Societies:

American Canadian Genealogical Society    www.acgs.org

Association of Historical Societies in NH   www.historicalsocietiesnh.org

Manchester, NH Historic Association   www.manchesterhistoric.org

New England Historic Genealogical Society  www.americanancestors.org

New Hampshire Historical Society   www.nhhistory.org

New Hampshire Mayflower Society  www.nhmayflower.org

New Hampshire Society of Genealogists   http://nhsog.org

Order of the First Families of New Hampshire   http://offnh.homestead.com/

Strafford County Genealogical Society   www.straffgen.org

Places that can help you by fee:

American Canadian Genealogical Society – located in Manchester, NH, this is the largest resource facility for French-Canadian research in the United States.  See this webpage for their research services http://acgs.org/research/services/

National Archives at Boston, located in Waltham, Massachusetts.  The staff will provide reference assistance to you but also maintains a list of researchers for hire at this link:  http://www.archives.gov/research/hire-help/

The New England Historic Genealogical Society – Located in Boston, it is the oldest genealogical society in the world.  You can reach their research Services department at this link: http://www.americanancestors.org/research-services/

The New Hampshire Historical Society Library- located in Concord, NH, their research services can be ordered online and by telephone or mail.  For details see the page http://www.nhhistory.org/research-services.html or call the reference staff at 603-856-0641.  Photocopies are 35 cents per page for non-members and 25 cents for members, plus $7 for mailing or fax.

The Portsmouth Atheneum – This private library dates from 1817, and is the repository of hundreds of family papers, manuscripts, photographs, and ephemera from New Hampshire and New England.  It is located in Market Square in Portsmouth, NH, and the staff will do quick reference requests as time allows, and in-depth research requests for $30/hour with a 1 hour minimum.  See this link for more information: http://www.portsmouthathenaeum.org/collections.html

And…

Don’t forget your local Family History Library.  You can order microfilms from their website to be delivered to your local Family History Library, and you can look at them there for a small fee. If you need assistance, the volunteers will even help you to search for the records online and help you place your order.  

Genealogy Research in Spain

I’m a thirteenth generation American married to a first generation American.  My husband’s family is from Spain.  He was born in New York City while his father was working at the United Nations.  Not another member of his family was born in the USA, except for our daughter. Learning how to research his genealogy was something completely new to me! 

My husband grinning after finding an ancestor
in the church record books of Sinovas, Burgos, Spain

Working on my husband’s family tree doesn't necessarily mean that we have to physically be in Spain.  Here are several hints for working on Spanish genealogy. 

1.        All family research starts with YOU and then you work your way backwards.  Start with interviewing family members.  We’ve used snail mail (the US Postal service), email, and Skype to ask questions.  This can work with relatives in any foreign country.

A typical Libro de la Familia from Spain

2.     In Spain all families must register their births, marriages, and deaths in a “Libro de la Familia”.  Every family has a copy of this book.  These were started by the Ministerio de Justicia under Francisco Franco, and the practice continues today.  Each book shows the heads of households, marriages, children, etc. It is an invaluable resource.   There are additional pages for other civil registrations, orphans, widows, places of employment, residence changes.  It’s a treasure chest!

3.     From the oral history and the “Libro de la Familia” you will be able to discern where each family unit lived in order to search for church records.  The Catholic Church was the official church for most of Spain’s history, although you might find that some family members belonged to other religions.  Most churches have uninterrupted records back to the 1600s except in cases of wars, such as the Napoleonic Wars in Spain (The Peninsular War 1807 – 1814).  During this time period many church records were lost.

4.       In the case of lost records, don’t despair.  One of my husband’s paternal lines came from the village of Sinovas in the province of Burgos, where the records were destroyed during the Peninsular War.  The Catholic church records after 1814 name the parents and grandparents on the births, marriages and deaths so I was able to still go back another two or three generations to the mid-1700s with these families.

The marriage of Celestino Garcia and Joaquina Munoz, in the village of
Barba de Puerco, Salamanca, Spain 1 December 1877

5.   Many Spanish church records have been microfilmed by the LDS church.  You can find these films online at familysearch.org   If you are lucky these images have been digitized, such as the villages for my husband’s maternal grandmother’s side of the family in Salamanca province.  If not, you can view these films at your local LDS church’s family history library.

6.     After searching church records, other records to use include town histories, tax records, military records and other documents from Spain.  These are sometimes available through Family Search, and also online at the Spanish National Archives website  http://en.www.mcu.es/archivos/MC/AHN/   or the National Library of Spain http://www.bne.es/en/LaBNE/ArchivoWeb/    where you can search by surname, village or topic.

Good luck!  Buena Suerte!

Planning a long distance research trip

Several years ago I was lucky enough to plan and carry out a successful research genealogy research trip to Honolulu, Hawaii.  We live on the East Coast of the United States, and it is a long, long distance to Hawaii.  It was also my first trip to Honolulu, so I knew that I would have to plan some fun time for my husband and I.  It can be difficult to balance work and play during a genealogy trip, and an exotic locale like Honolulu makes the balancing act even more difficult.  I hope these tips help you plan a similar trip!  They worked so well for me that we repeated our Hawaii genealogy trip again last year.

I had been writing, emailing and using online resources for a long time to research my extended family in Hawaii.  My 4x great aunt had removed to Honolulu from Boston in the 1830s.  I had spent 20 years researching our connection to these Hawaiian pioneers.  By this time I had exhausted all the snail mail and email contacts I had made.  It was time for personal research time in the Hawaii State Archives, the Bishop Museum Library, and the cemeteries.  It was also time to walk in the footsteps of my great aunt and cousins, and I was looking forward to seeing their homes, churches, and (of course!) the island where they all decided to stay instead of returning to Massachusetts.

My recommendations...

#1- Appointments- don't leave anything up to chance

When planning a long distance research trip to a new place, it is important to schedule all your research day and to make specific appointments.  I made appointments to meet in person with all the people who had been helping me via email, including librarians, archivists, curators and cousins.  We made one major appointment for each morning, and decided that the rest of the day would be used for additional research or for just relaxing.  We had only one week, so cousins were scheduled for weekends when libraries and archives would be closed.  This worked out well.

Scheduling appointments also meant that I could ask "Will your archive be open until noon that day?" or "May I search your files until 5pm?".  Even if the website for a repository says it will be open, you never know about local holidays, staff vacations, or budgetary closures until you ask the staff right up front if their place will be open on the exact day you wish to be there.

#2-  Don't bring too much stuff!

Extra suitcases can cost from $50 to more than $150 depending where you are going, and paper can weigh a lot.  Nowadays your suitcase is limited to 50 pounds, or less if you are overseas.  I had to digitize as much as possible and download everything to my mobile devices, Evernote or flash drives.

If you collect things (papers, brochures, books, documents) along the way, consider mailing or shipping them home.  There was a US Post Office right across the street from the Hawaii State Archives in Honolulu.  I bought several "If it fits, It ships" boxes (for $10 they will mail whatever you can cram into the box).  Fortunately for me, Hawaii is part of the United States, so this was a real bargain.  Shipping can be expensive, but not as expensive as an overweight suitcase, or the price of an additional suitcase on the plane.

#3 - Involve the family.

We had a research plan that involved both my husband and I at the Hawaii State Archives.  I was in charge of getting the documents from the archivist, and he was in charge of photographing as much as possible from each file or box.  I decided I wouldn't sit and read, I would look at the digitized images later.  We were able to photograph nearly a thousand personal letters in one afternoon.  I placed them on the table and he photographed each one, and then I'd pick them up and repeat the process.  After I was home I found that nearly 2/3 of these letters were of genealogical interest to my family, written from Boston and New England to the Hawaiian islands between the 1850s and 1910.

Other than making a family member your personal photographer (not just for documents, but for scenes inside and out), consider a "personal assistant" who can not only navigate maps to each archive and library, but who can find a good place nearby for lunch, and a great beach on the way back to the hotel.  My daughter was our navigator during a different research trip to Nova Scotia, and she found at least two great side trips for each day that were always on our way between scheduled appointments, and she was great at finding a fantastic restaurant for the end of each busy day.

#4- Use your contacts!

It was great to meet "in person" with archivists and curators I had only met virtually online before the trip.  They were also very useful in helping me to get appointments with other people once I was on the ground in Honolulu.  I met several new genealogists, and also visited several other historic homes that I did not know about until I was there.  Don't be shy about asking about taking photos where they usually aren't permitted if this is a home from your own family tree!  The worst they can say is "no."

#5- Remember the climate and geography

Hawaii is a lot more humid and hot than where I live in New Hampshire.  Remember that items you bring home may be moldy or mildewed.  (We had this experience bringing home old family photos from Puerto Rico).  If a family member gives you an artifact, how will you get it home? We had a family member give us an old cast iron pot in Spain. Luckily it fit in the suitcase in the days before they instituted the 50 pound weight limit on planes! This would definitely take some different planning to get home today.

 Even though Hawaii looks like a small island, crossing to the other side might take a lot longer than you think due to mountain roads or small town traffic.  It is good to ask your contacts ahead of time how long they think it will take to get to their museum/house/library from your hotel.

#6 - Bring gifts

It is nice to present those who helped you in the past, or those who are about to help you, with a small gift from home.  Try to think of something from your hometown that is part of your local culture.  We usually bring small bottles of locally made maple syrup for librarians and archivists. This goes a long way towards breaking the ice in case you need to contact them again after you get home.  You never know if you will need more documentation in the future.

For meeting up with "new" cousins, something from your own family is nice- photos or a family tree chart showing your kinship are usually highly appreciated.  Don't forget to follow up with thank you cards and letters.  At Christmas and New Years I send back group photos of our cousins or our trip to the archives and museums, which is a nice way to stay in touch.

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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