The 4th annual 24-Hour Genealogy Webinar Marathon is coming, and it’s on NEXT WEEK, for those in the northern hemisphere is on 13-14 April, for us down south, it’s on 14-15 April! Pop in for a session or two, or stick around for the full 24 hours – it’s completely up to you. And thanks to MyHeritage and Legacy Family Tree Webinars, the entire event is free.

It begins on Thursday, 13 April, at 5pm EST (US time), which translates to Friday, 14 April, 7am (Sydney time), and runs for 24 hours.

Over that period there are 25 presentations from so many well-known genie presenters, including some Aussies and New Zealanders, and the talks cover a wide range of topics.

To make life easy for you, I’ve put the whole schedule below, with both the US time, and the Australian (Sydney) time. But if you’re in a different timezone, use a timezone converter tool, such as Time and Date, or others similar.

Legacy Family Tree Webinars writes …

Just like every year, the entire event is completely free and open to all. You can attend just a few of the webinars that interest you most, or challenge yourself to attend all 25 lectures back to back! Live Q&As will take place during the lectures and there will be door prizes available as well.

Can’t make it in real time? No worries: all sessions will be recorded and made available for free during the week after the event. Beyond that, you can always find them and view them anytime when you purchase a membership to Legacy Family Tree Webinars.

Eastern Time (US)	Sydney Time (Aus)	Speaker	Title
Thu, 5.00pm	Fri, 7.00am	Michelle Leonard	Solving Unknown Parentage Mysteries with MyHeritage DNA
Thu, 6.00pm	Fri, 8.00am	Daniel Horowitz	Spanish & Latin American Records on MyHeritage
Thu, 7.00pm	Fri, 9.00am	Paul Milner	Liverpool: The Central Hub for Northern Europe’s 19th and 20th Century Emigration
Thu, 8.00pm	Fri, 10.00am	Janice Nickerson	The Secret to Finding Your Ancestors’ Stories
Thu, 9.00pm	Fri, 11.00am	Mevin J. Collier	The FAN Club Methodology, DNA, and Genealogy Lead Back to Lunatic’s Plantation
Thu, 10.00pm	Fri, 12.00pm	Thomas MacEntee	Genealogy A to Z: A Trivia Adventure
Thu, 11.00pm	Fri, 1.00pm	Gena Philibert-Ortega	Ancestral Ink: The Social History Behind a Tattoo
Fri, 12.00am	Fri, 2.00pm	Michelle Patient	We Remember: Researching, Remembering and Commemorating Those Who Served
Fri, 1.00am	Fri, 3.00pm	Fiona Brooker	Slow Down – Planning Your Research
Fri, 2.00am	Fri, 4.00pm	Kinga Urbanksa	Polish cemeteries online
Fri, 3.00am	Fri, 5.00pm	Fran Kitto	There is more at MyHeritage than family trees and photos
Fri, 4.00am	Fri, 6.00pm	Helen V. Smith	To Have but No Longer to Hold: Divorce in Australia
Fri, 5.00am	Fri, 7.00pm	Shauna Hicks	Australian indexes online for family history research you might not know
Fri, 6.00am	Fri, 8.00pm	Andrea Bentschneider	Different calendars in German genealogy
Fri, 7.00am	Fri, 9.00pm	Zbigniew Stettner	Using MyHeritage to research Polish family history and to find living relatives in Poland
Fri, 8.00am	Fri, 10.00pm	Natalie Bodle	Unearthing the Treasures in the Irish Registry of Deeds
Fri, 9.00am	Fri, 11.00pm	Judy G. Russell	When Enough is Enough
Fri, 10.00am	Sat, 12.00am	Nicka Smith	Giving Them Their Glory: First Kansas/US Colored Troops 79th Regiment
Fri, 11.00am	Sat, 1.00am	Lisa A. Alzo	Tell Better Family Stories with MyHeritage
Fri, 12.00pm	Sat, 2.00am	Jill Morelli	Scandinavian Moveable Feast Days Explained
Fri, 1.00pm	Sat, 3.00am	Ugo Perego	An Introduction to Investigative Genetic Genealogy
Fri, 2.00pm	Sat, 4.00am	Michael D. Lacopo	The “Forgotten” Immigrants: The Swiss to America
Fri, 3.00pm	Sat, 5.00am	J. Mark Lowe	Finding the Original Record When the Index is Unclear
Fri, 4.00pm	Sat, 6.00am	Cyndi Ingle	Off the Shelf: The Unexplored Potential for eBooks in Genealogy
Fri, 5.00pm	Sat, 7.00am	Elizabeth Shown Mills	Elusive Ancestors: Never Too Poor to Trace

—————–

So what are you waiting for? Head to the 24-Hour Genealogy Marathon page on Legacy Family Tree Webinars, and click on the talks you’re interested in and ‘register’. Remember it’s free, and if you don’t get a chance to watch them live, you still have 1 week afterwards to watch it free. Alternatively take out a Legacy Family Tree Webinars membership (it’s only US$49.95/year), and you’ll get to watch all of these whenever you choose, along with over 1900 others.

Here in South Australia we have a term called Mad March, which basically means that there are so many events going on throughout the month of March around the state, that it really does get crazy, hence the term “Mad March“.

In reality I avoid Adelaide city during March as it is chaos, and just too busy for me … however tempt me with genealogy and that’s another thing, and now my February and March calendar is booked up.

From not having travelled much in the last year or more – suddenly I have three trips almost back-to-back over the period of about a month. I’m excited, but exhausted before it starts. But looking forward to it all.

First up I’m off the the United States to ROOTSTECH. It’s been three years since I was there, and I’ll be awesome to get back there and catchup with friends, meet new ones, have a big long wander through the exhibition hall (getting everyone’s autograph of course), and going to some talks as well. It’ll be a fun, exhausting four days of conferencing. Bring it on!

Shortly after I get back, I’ll be heading off on UNLOCK THE PAST’S 17TH CRUISE to Tasmania. It’ll be nice to not have to travel prior to heading off, as this one leaves from Adelaide, then goes and visits Kangaroo Island (that’ll be nice to visit there again), and then on to Tasmania and back. Cruising for 8 days with great genealogy speakers and friends on board, it’ll be a wonderful conference, and great to see the places along the way. I just hope I’m not too jet-lagged to take it all in.

And then shortly after I finish that, I’m heading off to Brisbane to help out at the BEYOND BMDs conference featuring Else Churchill and Alec Tritton. They are the keynote speakers from the UK who are on the cruise, but after finishing it, they are doing a mini-tour afterwards, and I’m heading to Brisbane to help out at the seminar there …

… and by then we’re pretty much at the end of March!

Like I said it’ll all be fun, but it’ll be busy, and I’ll totally be playing catch-up when I’m back on South Australian soil.

And I promise I’ll report on it all when I get a chance.

August has been a big month for me. As part of the organising team for Unlock the Past’s DNA Down Under roadshow, myself along with the others have been busy with the preparation and attending these events.

DNA Down Under truly was an event like no other in Australia. For a start it was an event that went to 6 Australian cities, 5 of which were full one-day events (Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra and Melboourne), and Sydney which was a non-stop 3-day event. It was also the first ‘DNA only’ genealogy conference to be held, and from the reaction, attendace, and comments – this is just what Australia needed. It catered to everyone from the “I haven’t even tested yet, what will DNA show me?” through to the very advanced genetic genealogy topics.

I made it to three venues: Brisbane, Adelaide and Sydney – so I know it all, right? Ha … I’ll admit I didn’t get to a whole lot of talks even over the three venues, which is the downside of being an organiser and exhibitor. Still I did manage to get to some.

Anyway there’s no doubt about it, there was a vibe to DNA Down Under that I haven’t noticed with other Australian conferences apart from the last Congress. People were so excited, they were counting down the days – and I don’t believe that they were disappointed.

UNDERSTANDING THE BASICS
Blaine Bettinger (aka The Genetic Genealogist), speaker, author, Facebook group convenor, DNA guru, and all round great guy – Blaine has an incredible knack to be able to teach everyone in a room the basics of DNA without losing them with scientific jargon. Not an easy task. There’s no doubt that DNA is a big topic, and I have sat through numerous DNA talks before, and I have seen many walk out at the end more confused. However these talks, not so. People were so excited because they now ‘get it’, and were so eager to learn more.

A quote I noted from the Blaine’s “Introduction to DNA” talk was “use DNA to confirm or support your research”. In otherwords DNA is not a replacement for traditional research, merely an added tool you can utilise, and a powerful one at that. He said that if a major new record set was to suddenly be discovered, genies would go crazy using it to add and verify their current data. That’s how you should think of DNA testing.

 

 

 

MORE TOPICS
Blaine was just one of a fantastic group of presenters who taught people about the various aspects of DNA and genetic genealogy including: the myths of DNA testing, how to interpret your results, how to use GEDmatch and DNA Painter, finding matches, using DNA to solve old family mysteries, as well and genetic genealogy standards and ethics and more! There was even a few special talks in different states: Perth was lucky enough to have the Producer of ‘Every Family Has a Secret’ show talk about that, while Sydney had talks from the Police Forensic Department, along with other talks on adoption, genomics and more!

THE ETHICS
Apart from everyone being able to understand the basics of genetic genealogy and DNA testing, one other thing that struck me were the ethics talks. The topic wasn’t new to me as I’ve heard the amazing Judy G. Russell talk on the topic, but I think it was an eye-opener to so many, with so many facets to consider.
– we need to inform testers of the risks BEFORE they test
– we should get consent from testers in writing
– we cannot transfer data to a different site without their consent (ie. take an Ancestry DNA test, but then also upload those results to GEDmatch and/or MyHeritage DNA)
– if you are managing a test for someone, before testing ask if they want to know about any ‘surprises’ or ‘unexpected results’ if they show up
– respect the wishes of those who don’t wish to test
– respect the privacy of those who have tested (ie. don’t share their results with others)
and a whole heap more!!

Louise Coakley spoke on the topic at most of states, while Blaine covered it in Sydney. Thanks to both of them, many have gone away much wiser and now understand the potentional ethical and legal ramifications of what DNA testing can mean.

THE PANEL DISCUSSIONS
The last talk of both Day 2 and Day 3 in Sydney were panel discussion. The first was on DNA Ethics and again this brought up lots of interesting (and thought provoking) questions (and answers) from the panelists.

The second panel discussion was on DNA: A Look at the Future … again very interesting, and as someone said, it’d be interesting to have that recorded and play it back in 1-2 years time, and see what has and hasn’t happened in the ever-changing DNA world.

 

THE CONNECTIONS
One of the best parts of a genealogy conference is meeting friends – old and new. This happened to some degree at the one-day events. After an intese day of learning, some stayed and had dinner together, but it happened a lot more in Sydney with three days for people to catch up! And of course there was the geneablogger photo is Sydney.

THE WRAP-UP
You know you’ve been to a good conference when everyone leaves absolutely exhausted, but also so disappointed that it’s over. There’s no doubt that was so many of us at DNA Down Under – particualarly after Sydney. But you also know it’s been a conference when people are asking when’s the next one. To that one I say … maybe 2021 … so stay tuned!!

There’s so much more I can say about the conference, but plenty of other bloggers have written as well, so take a moment to read those if you get a chance. But here’s just a few photos from the conference.

LINKS:
Genetic Genealogy Tips & Techniques Facebook Group – click here
The Family Tree Guide to DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy – click here
Shared Centimorgan tool – click here
International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG) – click here

 

May is the month that all South Australian history-lovers and genealogists look forward to, as it is South Australia’s History Festival, which really is just a month-long history-fest!

And this year we get a whole month PLUS a few days, as the History Festival kicks off this coming weekend, (Saturday 27 April) with the Open Doors weekend which gives you a choice of 50 places to check out.

This is then followed by over 700 events from 400 organisers held all over the State throughout May.

Every year is BIG, but even before this one has begun, the organisers have announced that this year’s history month is offically the BIGGEST EVER.

South Australia’s History Festival is presented by the History Trust of South Australia, and began its life as South Australia’s History Week back in 2004, and changed to a month-long event in 2011, and what a great move that’s been. Though seriously a month STILL isn’t long enough to cram in all the events I want to get to, but I won’t complain, as I know we’re very lucky.

Anyway the program that is jam-packed with events, covering all corners of the State, and there’s oodles for the genealogy and history buff to enjoy, and even those not so much into history as well.

There are tours galore (bus tours, guided walking tours, self-guided tours, even ghost tours), open days, seminars, displays, workshops, exhibitions, book launches, workshops, treasure hunts and so much more … even an escape room!

This year I’ve booked in for 10 events, and am looking forward to those. I have some archive tours, a few talks, a day seminar, a book launch, an escape room, and a treasure hunt too. As I’ll be cramming these around my day job, I have had to stop looking at the program, as there is just too much I want to go to. But 10 events isn’t too bad an effort, and I’ll write about all in due course.

One great thing about the South Australian History Festival, is that it really is State-wide and not just Adelaide. You’ll find oodles of events on in the Adelaide Hills, the Barossa, the Peninsula’s, and even on Kangaroo Island, all of which all so many more people to learn about the history of this beautiful state of ours.

My advice to you if you’re in South Australia, do yourself a favour, check out the South Australian History Festival website, and I bet you’ll find something you’d love to go to. Browse by date, or type of event, or simply search and see what you come up with.  You’ll find something, I guarantee it.

All 700+ events are listed there, and they have a planner so you can keep track of what you’re wanting to attend. I find that very handy indeed!!

Anyway, for more on South Australia’s History Festival, check out their website, and elsewhere on social media!

Web: www.historyfestival.sa.gov.au
Facebook: www.facebook.com/HistoryFestival
Twitter: @historyfestival
Instagram: instagram.com/historyfestival
Hashtag: #SAHistoryFest