Wednesday 11 December 2019

Meeting author Nathan Dylan Goodwin

While at a RootsTech London pre-conference dinner in October I finally got to meet genealogical crime mystery author Nathan Dylan Goodwin, whose books I have written about here. My father is a DNA match with his aunt, and while he has cracked the case and worked out the exact link, I don't recognise any of the family names.




My relative, Barry, lives near the setting of Nathan's books, so he gave me a guided tour of his local area and all of the prominent locations. We visited Rye together, the location of Morton's home, The House With Two Front Doors. It was a dream come true to visit Rye. It's long been on my list of places to visit, and to have Barry as my local tour guide was fantastic.

Barry & I in Rye
What's left of The Asylum, the setting of Nathan's most recent book

What's left of The Asylum, the setting of Nathan's most recent book

Hailsham Anglican Church

Hailsham Library

The Kings Head Cacklebury where Morton & Juliette had their first date

Tuesday 10 December 2019

History Week at State Archives Kingswood

In September a few friends and I attended a celebration for History Week at State Archives in Kingswood, NSW. This included a tour of their back rooms and kilometres of archival shelving.
The number of stories contained in this shelving is enormous.



















Monday 9 December 2019

Convict bonnet exhibition and book launch for They Sent Me North


Looking back over 2019 it has been a wonderful year for family history, with many conferences attended, my first trip to England for RootsTech London, and the launch of a book I contributed an ancestor biography to.

On 30th July, I went with Maria from the Genies Down Under podcast to the Lovett Gallery at Newcastle Library to attend a book launch and Blessing of the Bonnets as part of a worldwide female convict bonnets exhibition. There were over 1000 bonnets on display, lovingly made by a descendant of these convict women, or a volunteer.

Since 2007, Dr Christina Henri has been working on Roses from the Heart, the first ever memorial to the 25,566 women sentenced as convicts and transported to Australia from 1788 to 1853. Roses from the Heart invites people from around the world to make and contribute a servant's bonnet to symbolise the life of each convict woman. The link to Newcastle and the Hunter Region of NSW is a strong one, with many female convicts being sent there from Sydney. My ancestor, Sarah Morris, was one of these women, arriving with her daughter, Jane. Stories about these women and their lives were compiled into a book They Sent me North: Female Convicts in the Hunter. The night was a collaboration between the Newcastle Family History Society, Maitland and Beyond Family History Society, and the Raymond Terrace Historical Society.


Roses from the Heart




Cr Loretta Baker, Mayor of Maitland
Dr Ann Hardy, University of Newcastle



Left: Jane Ison, Newcastle Family History Society
Centre: Vicki Osborn, Maitland & Beyond Family History Society
Right: Dr Christina Henri, Roses From the Heart project


Melodie Woodford, Newcastle Family History Society

Vicki Osborn, Maitland & Beyond Family History Society

Jane Ison, Newcastle Family History Society
The bonnets were blessed by
Left: Rev Dean Andrew Doohan, Dean of Newcastle Catholic Church
Right: Very Reverend Katherine Bowyer, Dean of Newcastle Anglican Church





My convict's bonnet

My convict's bonnet was sewn by Roma from the Maitland & Beyond Family History Society. A huge thanks to Roma for her talent and generosity. Sarah Morris arrived on the ship Princess Charlotte in 1827. Her two-year-old daughter, Jane, arrived with her, so Roma has included a teddy bear motif around the bonnet to symbolise their shared journey to Sydney. I love that the bonnets were displayed on washing lines, highlighting that washing and laundry tasks were traditionally women's work.


Saturday 7 December 2019

RootsTech London 2019

In November I returned from a 2-week trip to England where I attended my first RootsTech extravaganza. I arrived the weekend before so I could spend a few days with relatives in Hailsham, East Sussex. The conference ran for three full days, and I squeezed in everything possible so as to maximise my time there. I was lucky and had won a free pass from John at Antecedentia.

Jill from Geniaus is an experienced RootsTech attendee and she organised a dinner the night before for us Aussies. Meeting a few other people was great, although I already knew most of them from previous conferences in Australia. It's great to catch up with genie friends anywhere, but especially in London. There were around 50 Aussies there, among the almost 10,000 attendees. At our conferences in Australia we're lucky to have 400 people, so this was like genealogy on steroids for me.

Jill & I at the pre-conference dinner
The conference was held at the ExCeL Conference Centre in London's Docklands area, which was an easy walk from my Canning Town accommodation. The Thames looked beautiful and calm each morning. ComiCon was on at the other end of ExCeL at the same time, and the range of costumes and the enthusiasm of those attendees was great to see.

View from ExCeL Conference Centre

View from ExCeL Conference Centre
The subjects were a mixture of basic and advanced family history, with a predominately UK focus, some European and Jewish strands, plus DNA of course. We could keep track of all our classes on an app, which had room allocations and a link to the handout as well. There were 11 classes in each timeslot. I started off by putting a star next to my favourites, but had to narrow it down to only one in each time, which was really hard. My clones will hopefully be operational by the next conference I attend.  I prioritised speakers that I had come all that way to hear, such as Jonny Perl, Maurice Gleeson, and Myko Clelland. At least one of the classes was oversubscribed and the extra attendees were not allowed to enter. I ended up choosing a basic FamilySearch talk, which was still great because David Rencher is a fantastic speaker. I still learned some things even after many years of family history research and conferences. To make sure this doesn't happen again the RootsTech organisers could ask us through the app to rank in order of preference the talks we want to go to, so they can calculate what size room is required.  

Keynote speakers were historian Nick Barratt (a favourite of mine), TV presenter Dan Snow, Olympian Kadeena Cox, and performer Donny Osmond. I'm a little (but not much) younger than his usual demographic of fans, so while he was speaking I took the time to look through the exhibition hall while it was relatively quiet. 

Exhibition hall 

My 3rd cousin, Cheryl, flew over just for the conference. Jill interviewed us and our main message was that the distance doesn't matter, just come anyway.



We tried to get as many Aussies in one place for a photo.....

Photo courtesy of Jill from Geniaus

Fellow UTAS alumni from the Diploma of Family History also gathered for a photo...

Regina, John, myself, Janet 
My 4th cousin, Penny, came over from Finland for one of the days, and I was thrilled to meet her, although we are both kicking ourselves that we forgot to take a selfie!

I would definitely come back for another RootsTech in London. I loved every single minute of my trip. One day I'll make it to RootsTech in Salt Lake City, when there's enough of a gap in more local conferences to attend, and a money tree starts growing in my back yard :)