Main Monthly Meeting - June 2004

Genealogy: Sleuthing the Past

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Monday 28 June 2004

7:30 PM

Manning Clarke Centre, Theatre 3

Australian National University

Have you ever wondered what living conditions were like in the time of your ancestors? Do you know who their siblings were and where they lived? Thousands of Australians practice genealogy to some degree, whether it is merely recording their immediate ancestors’ names or actually looking back centuries to record the history and conditions of their forbears. It can be an occasional hobby or a full-time occupation, depending on your motivation.

The PC Users Group (ACT) and the Computer SIG of the Heraldry and Genealogy Society together bring you two speakers for the June free monthly meeting. The first will be Cora Num, a qualified genealogist with 22 years experience and the author of Web Sites for Genealogists (now in the 8th Edition). Cora has a Diploma in Family Historical Studies and is a Fellow of the Heraldry & Genealogy Society of Canberra She will explain how to find out more about our ancestors from the web. In particular, she will be showing web sites where official information, such as registry information, wills, maps, or military service record, have been recorded digitally and are available online to researchers., The computer and the Internet as essential research tools, combined with the recent trend to convert official records to digital format, makes it so much easier to find and verify information. Visit her site http://www.coraweb.com.au/ for more information.

When you have collected all your information, the next problem is how to store and organise it. Our second speaker, Shane Baker, is a member of both PCUG and the Heraldry & Genealogy Society of Canberra. Shane will demonstrate The Master Genealogist. This software package can store massive amounts of data then rearrange it into whatever format you want. The database can be used to compare conflicting records, to extract the one category of information or to conduct searches for specific factors. Text, photographs, maps and more can be extracted as required for reports or planning a research trip. It can even be used to print a book, complete with bibliography, footnotes, references and index. For details of the software visit http://www.whollygenes.com/tmg5.htm.

If you are interested in genealogy, or merely want to see how it is done, come along to Theatre 3, Manning Clark Centre, Australian National University on 28 June 2004 at 7.30pm. It’s free and open to the public. Free door prizes for PCUG members. So bring your family, friends, workmates and any ancestral ghosts.