I don’t know if Clint Eastwood ever actually said this. When I saw it I thought “that’s right!”. There are no guarantees in genealogy. Or in life!

I am often asked “if I do ______ will it give me the information I need?” and the answer is always “I don’t know”. It might, or it might not. There are no guarantees in genealogy.

The toaster will come with a guarantee for a specified period. A subscription to Ancestry or FindMyPast or any other paid website will not. Nor will membership in a family history society. Nor a book you are tempted to buy. Nor a CD.

The record with the information you are looking for may be in there, or it may not. It may exist, or not. It may exist but not in the form/place/date you expect.

Even if it’s not there, that is information you can use as well. Think about the possible reasons that it would not be there.

The only guarantee I can give you is that if you don’t try anything new you won’t find anything new.

News of new online indexes, changes to indexes, and how to use the website in general is being issued on a continuous basis, and the changes they are making may mean finding your ancestor after many years of being unable to find him/her.

A recent example is the merging of the immigration indexes. Previously the assisted immigration indexes for NSW were divided into three separate indexes, with additional indexes for other geographical areas that were part NSW at the time. If, in your enthusiasm, you missed searching one of the indexes you may miss your ancestor altogether.

Now, all these indexes have been combined into one, although you can search the old indexes individually if you wish. If he’s there you can’t NOT find him! (unless your spelling is too specific).

You can have these newsletter sent to you here.

You can also have updates sent to your blog reader here.

And you can see the most recent newsletter here.

One of the projects currently available for indexing is the Sydney Cemetery Inscriptions, a collection of index cards for cemeteries including Rookwood, the largest cemetery in Sydney and probably Australia. Name, age, date of death and cemetery name is the minimum information that I have so far seen, although there is capacity for birth date,  parents’ names and spouse’s name.

FamilySearch indexing is the easiest to use indexing software I’ve ever seen. The screen is split between a digital image of the document being indexed and the form to be filled in. Many fields give a list of common names, placenames, etc, which help enormously if the entry is hard to read. There is a lot of help available, on the screen and on the website. The biggest advantage is that each batch is indexed twice, with a third person to adjudicate if there are any discrepancies, so you do not have the pressure of getting it perfect.

A batch consists of a variable number of entries to be indexed, depending on the document. These cemetery batches only have 12 or 15 cards to a batch that I have seen so far, so you can whip through one quickly. I used to index Irish Civil Registration indexes and they had 375 names to a page!

The sooner we get this indexed the sooner it will be available to all of us. For more information or to sign up click here.

The Australia and New Zealand class is taught by Kerry Farmer, a member of the Education Committee of the Society of Australian Genealogists who has given classes to community college groups for over 10 years.

I have seen the preparation and commitment that Kerry puts into all of her classes and seminars and I can highly recommend this course.

You can see more details of the class topics here.

They have just announced one, however, that may be relevant. Australian authors Denise McMahon and Christine Wild published a CD last year called American Fever Australian Gold, American and Canadian involvement in Australia’s Gold Rush which “was compiled from official records, archives, contemporary newspapers, and diaries.  It also includes material from letters written to or from the fortune seeker, from the gold fields within Australia, or from onboard ship”. 

The Society has extracted the names from the CD and published them as a searchable database giving, where possible, name, year of birth, parents, native place, and year of emigration. For example, Henry Charlton, born 1823 to Charles Augustus and Lenah (Golden) Charlton, was a native of Queenstown, New Brunswick and emigrated in 1852. Further information, such as the sources of this information, can be found, I assume, in the CD.

Even if you are not a member of the New England Historic Genealogical Society the CD may be worthwhile searching out if you suspect your ancestor came from the USA or Canada during the goldrush.

Source:

Fortune Hunters in Australia.  (Online database.  NewEnglandAncestors.org.  New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2009.)  Extracted from: American Fever Australian Gold : American and Canadian Involvement in Australia’s Gold Rush. CD-ROM. Australia: H. Denise McMahon & Christine G. Wild, 2008.