tips on genealogy

[Alchemy (Clive)]

Originally Posted by mswhin63

I agree there are some false geneology information. I am fortunate enough to be able to verify all the information and with Ancestry.com.au / co.uk ... it has been easy to find and verify the information using census records. Even some of the geneology record are so strangely written that it proved difficult to verify without looking really closely to the handwriting.
.

you seem to know a bit about this sort of stuff, if someone was adopted..... could they somehow find enough information through these things ????

[seanliddelow (Sean)]

mswhin does perthlibarys have this information?

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by Alchemy

you seem to know a bit about this sort of stuff, if someone was adopted..... could they somehow find enough information through these things ????

You would be very lucky, Clive, to find anything too much on adoption proceedings through any of the online sites. With adoptions, as you may know, most of the particulars are usually kept secret and in any case, the person adopting out the child may not want any contact information to be forthcoming. You most likely bet would be to approach the state archives or the relevant government agency for those adoptions beyond a certain time period, say before 1960 or so. With later adoptions, you will have a hard time trying to get the information as the adopted child and the parent/parents who give their kids up are protected by law.

It can be a bit of a legal minefield.

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

Originally Posted by seanliddelow

mswhin does perthlibarys have this information?

Differnt parts of the library but not all inofmration is there. Some are in other location which is why most of my reaserch is online.

Fortunately most of my Australian side of the family is well researched already.

[seanliddelow (Sean)]

My faimlys 6th generation australian so it wont be hard to research them.

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

In most cases Australian documentation is fairly readily available, convict ships etc. I am ninth generation on one side of my family and 8th generation on the other side. I found it realively easy to get although a lot of time needed to gather the infomration. The resources are now starting to become more readily available on the internet.

I spoke to one of the library staff told me (some time ago) they were contracting out the scanning and interpereting of old documents through a tender process. I believe that has happened and the information is becomeing ready online. The contract takes time and money spent doing this task is the reason why the service to retrieve the information costs to the consumer.

I also believe they use handwriting recognition software to determin names as I found a couple of descepencies in the scans that I have seen. It is fortunate though that the search at least with geneology.com.au allows for similar spelling/soundings. It had allowed me to look at some scans to determin the real name. This part is the most rewarding part to do and makes the whole geneolgy search a bit fun.

[seanliddelow (Sean)]

Has anyone looked at the Australian newspapers digitization program?
It has papers ranging from 1803 in Sydney to national papers going up to 1955 (If it's newer they pay copyright). I searched my surname and found thousands of useful articles. It's also got family notices and shipping records with lists of passengers. In my state the papers go back to 1833 with the 1st issue of the Perth Gazette (The West Australians precursor). Other states have more coverage.

Another interesting record is old post office directories which may be available online like the above papers. In my state and perhaps other states there are police gazettes which may be available online. They go back 100 years and are useful whether they were convicted or were a police officer.

[el_draco (Rom)]

Originally Posted by seanliddelow

Has anyone looked at the Australian newspapers digitization program?

This is good. I do online searches for people. Useful resource

[asterisk (Geoff)]

Tracing your Family History:

1. - not cheap - no-one is giving away anything of any use for nothing.

2. - I concur with Carl - a good family tree program is vital. The further back you go, the bigger they get, and it is really easy to lose track. Mine has about 2020 names at present. I use Family Tree Maker - easy to use and input large volumes of data.

3. - dates - where possible try and get them. Approximations will do until they can be traced further. One of the branchs in my Tree started using the same 2 names from one generation to another, swapping them around each generation - you try keeping track of 5 William Kerrys and 4 Kerry Williams without birthdates!

4. Local library - these are free to use (mostly), and many have a Family Tree area with access to those costly databases. (thanks for reminding me, David)

5. On-line sources - I try and get as many different people to research, and buy access for the shortest time possible when using these.

6. Join a society - access to even more data, and occasionally someone else investigating the same family. Genes Reunited is also good initially, until you become the one the other beginners always contact.

7. Lots of patience and perseverence.

[AdrianF (Adrian)]

Join things like facebook, not everyones cup'o'tea but I have found several rellies this way.

Adrian