This week Patsy Daly from the GSV's DNA Discussion Group cautions us about the meaning of ethnicity as presently estimated by DNA-testing companies.

GSV is holding a Seminar on DNA for Family Historians on Saturday 11 November at which Patsy will present more information about the DNA-testing available, as well as case studies. You can book for this at https://gsv.org.au/activities/civi-events.html?task=civicrm/event/info&reset=1&id=684.

***

Your ethnicity?

The major DNA testing companies, AncestryDNA, FamilyTreeDNA and My Heritage, each offer an estimate of ethnicity in the DNA results they give to family historians.

Most of us measure this ethnicity estimate against the expectations we have, arising from our knowledge of our family trees.

But this is actually quite inappropriate, as an ethnicity ‘estimate’ is just that – an approximation or an educated guess. No company is able to calculate our ethnicity by following all our family lines back to a certain point in ancient times. More's the pity!

Our ethnicity estimate is based on our ancient origins – thousands of years before political boundaries were set. Consequently, a map of our ethnicity may cross current political boundaries. Indeed, even our ethnicity categories may overlap those boundaries.

Nor is there a link from the estimate of our ethnicity back to the family tree that is founded on family stories and written records of very recent times. In fact, our ethnicity is estimated by comparing our own DNA sample against a reference panel of DNA samples. As each testing company gains more experience and has access to a greater number of DNA results, our ethnicity estimates will be refined and changed. Don't expect your ethnicity estimate to be set in concrete.

Because each of the three major testing companies may use difference reference panels and use different procedures our ethnicity estimate may vary from testing company to testing company. In addition, testing companies may not yet have enough samples in their current reference panel to identify some non-European ethnic groups. For example, at present those with Australian indigenous ethnicity may only be identified at a higher level - as Micronesians.

An estimate of our ethnicity depends upon the DNA we received from our parents, but while our ethnicity estimate may be like that of our siblings, only in the case of identical twins is it precisely the same.

Overall, it is probable that our ethnicity estimate is only accurate at the continental level, so while it is interesting to see how nearly an ethnicity estimate matches our expectations it is, at this stage, probably more worthwhile to compare our ethnicity estimate with those of our DNA matches. It is in this comparison that we might find the answers to questions of relationships.

AncestryDNA https://www.ancestry.com.au/dna/

My Heritage https://www.myheritage.com/dna

Family Tree DNA https://www.familytreedna.com/

We posted notice on this blog on 30 June about the coming change from microfilm to digital records at FamilySearch. This has now happened. In this post John Blackwood from the GSV explains what this means and how to access the digital data.

***

FamilySearch, sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), is a source of genealogical information, being familiar to most of us long before the rise of the many commercial web sites.

With its commitment to make billions of the world’s historic records readily accessible digitally online, FamilySearch has discontinued its microfilm circulation service and replaced it with digital online access.

Some relevant points are as follows:

• All of the long-term microfilms rented in the past 5 years have now been digitized
• All of the long-term rented microfilms at the GSV will remain at the GSV, at least for the immediate future
• The remaining microfilms at FamilySearch are being digitized at a rate of 1,000 films per day, and are projected to be complete by 2020
• If researchers need access to a particular film yet to be digitized, they can express an interest to have it added to the priority digitization list by contacting FamilySearchSupport at https://integration.familysearch.org/ask/help
• Affiliate libraries (including the GSV) now have access to nearly all of the restricted image collections

The digital image collections can be accessed in 3 places on www.familysearch.org all under “Search”

• Catalog. Includes a description of all of the microfilms and digital images in the FamilySearch collection. This is where all of FamilySearch’s digitized microfilm and new digital images from its global camera operations are being published. A camera icon appears in the Catalog adjacent to a microfilm listing when it is available digitally
• Records. Includes collections that have been indexed by name or published with additional waypoints to help browse the unindexed images
• Books. Includes digital copies of books from the Family History Library and other libraries, including many books that were previously copied to microfilm

Before searching the digital image collection from home, it is strongly advised that you register with FamilySearch to establish a username and password. Simply click on “Free Account” at the top of the page at www.familysearch.org and follow the prompts.

This enables you to view some additional records and access “My Source Box” to sort and mark records for later use.

The following is an example from the parish of Findon, Sussex.

From the FamilySearch main page, first of all, sign in with your username and password.

Click on “Search”, then on “Catalog”. In the “Place” box, enter “Findon Sussex’ and click on “Search’. From the search results, click on “Church Records (6)”. Click on the title “Parish registers for Findon, 1557-1901”.

The magnifying class icon allows you to search the indexes. However, the camera icon may bring up three options for you to look at the images, viz

• Sign in as an individual with your user name and password (if you have not already done so). If you are already signed in, the images come up immediately
• Access the site at a family history centre
• Access the site at a FamilySearch affiliate library (such as the GSV)

If an image appears, just as with a microfilm, you will need to scroll through the images to get to where you think you might want to be.

However, sadly for Scottish researchers, it would appear that digitized Scottish films can only be viewed at either a family history centre or an affiliate library.

*With acknowledgment to the FamilySearch News email dated 31 August 2017.

John Blackwood

***

Example from FamilySearch catalog:

The latest issue of Ancestor - the GSV's award-winning quarterly journal (vol 33 issue 7, September 2017) is now available. 

In this issue we have six substantial articles contributed by members. Jean Dart’s story is steeped in Irish history. Her feisty great grandmother managed to free herself from an abusive relationship and support herself as the matron of a protestant children’s home. Thelma Ragas investigates her great uncle who was a detective in New Zealand, fell foul of the police hierarchy and ended up opening his own private detective agency. Can you imagine sending a sixteen-year-old to a faraway country, all alone, to live in a strict environment on an Experiment Farm? That’s what happened to Prue Mercer’s ancestor, Harold Berrow.

The First World War casts a long shadow. We are still remembering those who paid the ultimate price. The difficulty for the family in establishing exactly what happened to their loved ones was compounded when inaccurate record keeping cast doubt on their fate, as happened in Margaret Cooper’s family.

Digging that little bit deeper often pays – you find information in unexpected places. For Sue Blackwood it was a Queensland ‘Old Insanity File’ that unearthed information, not about subject of the file, but about her husband, Sue’s great great grandfather. Darryl Grant reminds us that our ancestors did not always record the whole truth; a little extra digging may uncover some surprising facts about our ancestors that they may have deliberately covered up, or may even not have known themselves. Michael Woods found that references in Australian newspapers to his great uncle as a wrestler helped to trace him backward in time as well as forward.

'Digging deeper' reminds us of the great importance on not only relying on the international databases, such as Ancestry™and Find My Past™ for ancestral information. Nothing can beat a widespread search for information using the help of the GSV and diverse sources as illustrated above. There is no way the full story can be unravelled if you just stick to a computer at home or in a library. Make your family story interesting and complete!

As always Research Corner has some interesting tips – did you know that you might be able to find your ancestor’s name on a UK census prior to 1841?

Martin Playne - Editorial Team

GSV Members will already have received their copy as part of their membership. Others can get this issue, and much more, by joining now, or copies can be purchased via the GSV website http://sandbox.gsv.org.au

Have you listened to any of the GSV webcasts?

Membership of the GSV brings with it several benefits, many of which can be accessed in the comfort of your own home. The GSV webcasts, for example, can be downloaded and listened to at your convenience. In addition, many of these are accompanied by a downloadable PDF document outlining the content of the webcast.

At present there are over 170 webcasts available, covering topics ranging from the subject-specific (e.g. The history of Maldon and its gold discoveries; Women at work in Victoria: in public service and during war times) to research advice, covering Australia, New Zealand, England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Poland, India, Sweden, France, South Africa, China, the Netherlands and more; to general genealogical advice (Methodology, research techniques and citations; Preservation of books, photographs and paper based items).

Have a look at the range of talks available in the GSV CATALOGUE : search by putting "webcast" (without quote marks) in the Call No box.

Listen to a sample webcast: Research in Tasmania, presented by Meg Bate from the Catalogue - CLICK HERE

Apart from these webcast talks, there's lots more help for you at home as a GSV Member, on your family history journey.

Kath McKay

Much as I love my computer and the internet, some of my most precious family history knowledge has come from being able to seek out original documents.

In spite of searching for decades, previous family historians had not been able to find the marriage certificate of our great grandparents: an Irish coach maker and a young maidservant from Wiltshire. We knew they had about ten children in the 1860s and 1870s in Ballarat, but didn’t have a clear record of the children’s names, births or even number. Online indexes didn’t help a lot.

Then I had a little brain-wave. I knew that branch of the family were all Catholic so I contacted St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Ballarat to enquire about records. They eventually replied saying they had all their original records but none were digitised or indexed. However, I was most welcome to come and look for myself.

So one freezing July day I took the train from Melbourne to Ballarat. In the cheery Parish office, warmed by a fire in the hearth, I pored over the huge leather bound tomes brought out of the archives by the Parish Secretary. These are daunting books indeed, nearly a metre by half a metre and several inches thick. They record the births, marriages and deaths of the parishioners, documented in careful copperplate with pen and ink on parchment. I had a fair knowledge that the first child was born about 1860 and the last, my long-dead grandmother, in 1877. So I started with 1860 but it revealed nothing, nor 1861, 1862 and on through the whole decade. The Secretary cheerily brought volume after volume and the piles grew around me. She also kindly made me several cups of tea.

By the time I got to the 1870s with nothing, I was beginning to doubt all I had believed about this branch of our extended family.

Then I found them! In the late summer of 1875, two little girls were baptised, one aged two, the other six. At last! I had found something! Then I turned the page and found the death record for the little six-year-old who had just been baptised days before. Most of the rest of the page and many after that, were taken up with deaths of little children – all from measles in an epidemic that must have swept Ballarat in those early days before immunisation.

Another few turns of the giant pages and there were the rest of them! Five children baptised together, boys and girls aged from 1 to 14 in one job lot! Another page turn and there was the death of the first baptised little girl, the two-year-old. This was followed quite quickly by the baptism of a new baby. Our poor great-grandmother was pregnant when she was nursing, then burying, two of her little daughters. Sad times indeed.

But I still had not found the object of my original search, the marriage of my great-grandparents. More volumes, more page turning. And, finally, in January 1877, after they have had ten children and lost three, this pioneer couple marry. We had been looking in the wrong decade!

A few months later, in April 1877, their new, and last, baby was baptised: a daughter, my grandmother.

Just another family story that was not handed down.

***

At the Genealogical Society of Victoria we help members plan their family history search. This post's author Kath McKay is a member of the GSV Writer's Discussion Circle. See sandbox.gsv.org.au for more information, or email gsv@gsv.org.au or phone (03) 9662 4455 for information about the Society.

Now that the GSV has moved closer to the Victoria's Immigration Museum we are looking forward to being closer!

GSV Members are invited to two days of complimentary admission to the Immigration Museum - 18 and 19 August.

Set in the beautifully restored 19th century Customs House, the Immigration Museum is the perfect place for learning about our ancestor’s journey to Australia, exploring Australia’s migration history, sharing personal stories, researching contemporary issues, and understanding our culturally diverse community.

GSV Members can celebrate Family History Month with free entry into the Museum on Friday 18 August, Saturday 19 August. Simply show your GSV membership card upon entry to the Museum.

Visit the Immigration Museum website for information about current exhibitions and activities. idc@museum.vic.gov.au

Open 10 am – 5 pm, 7 Days. Closed Good Friday and Christmas Day.      400 Flinders Street Melbourne

As a further service, the GSV is now taking bookings for DNA-specific consultations.

The focus will be on Autosomal  DNA (Ancestry DNA & Family Tree DNA,

Family Finder). 

Bookings can be made via http://gsv.org.au/consultations.html

Bring your access to your results (if you have them) and an ancestor or

pedigree chart (if you have one).

Cost GSV Members $30 Non-members $50

Friday bookings only

You might also be interested in the DNA Discussion Circle. The DNA Discussion Circle is for GSV members who would like to find out how DNA may assist them in furthering their family history. Your DNA can be used to confirm or establish links in your family tree as well as identifying your particular genetic origins. For more details, see

https://sandbox.gsv.org.au/special-interest-groups/dna-discussion-circle

Louise Wilson continues her musing on the journey of discovering family history. ***

The true essence of family history research is the journey – your own journey of self-discovery.

Let’s start with the genes you inherited. Most of us know less about our own genes than your average grazier knows about the genes of his cattle. You only have to watch one episode of ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ for that fact to be obvious. How many of us know the backgrounds of our two sets of grandparents – just four people? By the time we get to our parents’ grandparents, we are lucky to know anything at all. We might know only one story about our family background, and that story then tends to dominate our thinking, as if it formed our entire identity. We forget all the other forebears who’ve contributed to who we are.

The ‘ah hah’ moments are therefore quite thrilling if we set out to discover the full mix of ingredients in our personal cake. It’s no surprise to find the usual collection of general labourers, agricultural labourers, Cornish miners and female servants lurking in your background. In my case, some were convicts on the First, Second and Third Fleets. But I was very surprised that my genes also came from gentlemen farmers, innkeepers, artists, musicians, teachers, doctors, soldiers, clergymen, merchants, slave-owning sugar planters, bankers, mail coach entrepreneurs and turpentine factory owners, plus a solitary butcher, printer, chemist, engineer and circus proprietor. No wonder I found it difficult to choose a career. I wish I’d known this, when young. Such knowledge is powerful, perhaps giving permission to break away from family expectations. That eclectic mix of genes might explain why I eventually turned into the first writer in my line of the family.

Each generation that we step back permits us to make broader-brush discoveries. I was amazed to realise just how Anglo-Celtic I am. Three hundred years of an almost fully-completed pedigree chart, detailing eight generations of my ancestors, revealed only one forbear who did not originate in England, Scotland or Northern Ireland. He came from close by – northern France. As I flinch from the skin specialist’s spray can of liquid nitrogen, I readily understand and accept that my fair skin was never meant for Australia, although my forbears here date back to 1788.

What other health record do we inherit? My grandmother, an unlikely feminist, loved to tell her granddaughters that we descend from a long line of strong, independent women. Fanciful? No, my research proved her right. In her father’s family, from 1790, successive fathers and sons died of illness aged 52, 45, 62, 37 and 43. Their widows, left to raise the children, all lived into their eighties.

Health issues of a different kind were the focus of the powerfully-told and very moving episode of ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ where Susie Porter discovered recurring patterns of serious mental illness in her hitherto-unknown female forebears. Susie gained sudden insight into her own black moods and was never going to be the same person again.

Your family history research can change you and add great meaning to your life.  

At the Genealogical Society of Victoria (GSV) we help members explore and write about their family history. This month’s author, Louise Wilson (www.louisewilson.com.au), belongs to the GSV Writers’ Discussion Circle. For more information about the GSV, see sandbox.gsv.org.au, or email gsv@gsv.org.au, or phone (03) 9662 4455.

In case you missed it …

On September 1, 2017, FamilySearch will discontinue its microfilm distribution services.  (The last day to order microfilm will be on August 31, 2017.)

The change is the result of significant progress made in FamilySearch’s microfilm digitization efforts and the obsolescence of microfilm technology.

• Over 1.5 million microfilms (ca. 1.5 billion images) have been digitized by FamilySearch, including the most requested collections based on microfilm loan records worldwide.
• The remaining microfilms should be digitized by the end of 2020, and all new records from its ongoing global efforts are already using digital camera equipment.

Digital images of historical records can be accessed today in 3 places on FamilySearch.org under Search.

• Records include historical records indexed by name or organized with an image browse.
• Books include digital copies of books from the Family History Library and other libraries.
• Catalog includes a description of genealogical materials (including books, online materials, microfilm, microfiche, etc.) in the FamilySearch collection.

From: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/callings/temple-and-family-history/familysearch-microfilm-discontinuation?lang=eng&_r=1

16 June 2017

SCANNING & INDEXING PROJECT REPORT

The GSV scanning and indexing project is progressing thanks to all the hard work of our volunteers. Below is an updated summary of what we have achieved so far. But each week more is added so check back.

Family Histories

498  documents have been scanned, checked and the catalogue has been updated.  These digitized records are available to GSV members within the GSV Research and Education Centre.

Genealogical index of names (GIN) - 2017

Bostocks Creek State School register no. 2893 1890-1909 index

Royal Victorian Trained Nurses Association. Register of members [nurses] February 1922

Cemeteries Database

We have now indexed 564 cemeteries making a total 788856 records in the GSV Cemeteries database.

Note: if the library catalogue location states

CEMETERIES DATABASE. The  images are attached to records in the Cemeteries database and may be viewed online.

 INDEXED IN CEMETERIES DATABASE  : The cemetery had been indexed and our scanned document is only available at the GSV. Check the instructions on the catalogue

Cemetery indexes with images (mostly transcripts) added 2017

Beeac cemetery : previously Ondit and Cundare public cemetery : headstones 20 June 1870 - 27 November 1981

Black Heath (Sailors Home) cemetery headstones and receipts 11 May 1879 - 31 March 1930

Cemetery tombstone transcription series pt 8: Woods point, Victoria [14.9.1866 - 12.2.1966]

Coburg: brief history of cemetery and plan

Deaths and burials at Casterton

Deep Lead cemetery register & headstones 19/4/1859 to 19/1/1992

Edi Upper private cemetery

Eurambeen & Eurambeen East private cemeteries: headstones 2/3/1866 - 12/7/1977

Freshwater Creek: St David's Lutheran church cemetery headstones 16/7/1867 to 1/7/1973

Jericho cemetery transcriptions 1868

Jindabyne (NSW) Soldiers Memorial Cemetery headstones 1919-1985

Kialla West cemetery register 1886-1985

Maddingley cemetery register 23/4/1863 - 14/11/1958

Maldon early burials (church burials) 1854-1856

Mornington cemetery headstones to 1951

Moroco Station, Mathoura NSW headstones 21/12/1853-28/8/1900

Mt Koroite Coleraine, Vic: private burial ground of the Young family

Noradjuha cemetery register and headstones 1891-1979

Omeo cemetery memorial inscriptions 13 July 1872 to 21 April 1980

Pine Creek Cemetery NT headstones -/9/1894 - 4/9/1970

Port Fairy (Belfast) cemetery 3 Mar 1904 - 27 Feb 1970

Rupanyup cemetery register 1914-1980 & headstones 1875-1990

Walkerville cemetery headstones 1899-1924

Warringal (Heidelberg) cemetery headstones: Roman Catholic (section M), General (Section N) 1853-1912

Yarra Glen cemetery headstones May 1864 to 16 Jan 1983.

***