FAMILY HISTORY EXPO 2016

FAMILY HISTORY EXPO 2016
Fickling Convention Centre, Three Kings, Auckland
12th—14th August
 
REPORT ON  FAMILY HISTORY FAIR – By Sue SLIGHT:

I attended the lecture by Christine Clements on “What’s New on Ancestry” – a handout was given out which there are copies available today.
 
The main topics to start with click on “See All New Records” and this will show you what has been recently uploaded and depending on your subscription what you will be able to view.
 
Christine said depending on what subscription people hold is what you can view e.g. if you hold a subscription for Australia you will have limited access to information from England and America.  
 
Sometimes it pays to just do a search on New Zealand and you can see what different records there are e.g. Waikato Scheme – some people came via South Africa which you would not think to look for them coming that way to New Zealand.
 
If you find something that you want to go back to at a later date you can click on “My Quick Links” and this will save the find for you to go back to later.
 
Next Lecture was “NZSG Website” by Tracy Little.  Site went live while Tracy was on holiday in Malaysia and she started getting emails from Michelle Patient who was in Sydney at the time.  They managed to sort out a few problems before everyone started going onto the site the next day.
 
They have made it so that if a non-Society Member was looking on the website they could see what was available but if the link had a “Padlock” on it then they could not access the link but might think about joining in order to get more information.  New Login is your Member No and your same password as previous.  The links and headings have been made more user friendly so go and have a look.
 
The last lecture I attended was on the Sunday and it was on Royal New Zealand Fencible Corps.  This lecture went through how a “Retired Soldier” in England could volunteer to come to New Zealand to “Protect Auckland from possible attacks from Māori s”.  They had to sign on for 7 years and were given a cottage and an acre of land.  This would be Freehold upon completion of service.  Upon arriving in New Zealand they found that the cottages were not completed for them and they ended up living in makeshift shack before their home was completed, all of these houses were split in half so that two families could live in them but sometimes there were four families living in the houses.
 
There were four specific sites:
 
Onehunga which was described as “land above average and of good value” (I’m glad I live in such an esteemed area today)
 
Howick which was described as “Bleak, cold , scoria scarce”
 
Otahuhu its description was “Bleak, comfortless and poor soil”
 
Finally Panmure – “Better than even Otahuhu”
 
If you have a Fencible there is possible information on them at National Archives at Kew  due to their service prior to signing up – there was talk that some could be Chelsea Pensioners.
 
As usual Lorraine and I had a great time manning the “Māori Interest Group” table and seeing old friends from other tables and also both of us winning a prize in the Irish Interest Group Raffle.
 
Printed with Kind Permission—Thank you Sue & Lorraine—Editor