U3A course: Opening the Door to Family History
Topics
1. Starting from nothing; Certificates (and informants)
2. Creating an overview; Family tree software, shipping lists, cemeteries
3. Convicts and colonials; Newspapers (Trove), State records, British newspapers
4. Family migration; Goldmining; The effect of a death on a family
5. Short articles and longer stories; travel and family history
6. Migrants: a special case; National Archives; genealogy societies
Session 1: Files for downloading
Template: Profiles of couples (new file, 7/10/25): Word document so you can amend layout.
Alternative five-generations chart
Session 2: Materials for download
(New file, updated 7/10/25) Search Guide (Contains link to new Irish records (virtual treasury), and land titles)
Software for family history (Note: common providers, beyond Ancestry and MyHeritage)
Cousins defined (A useful map of the various terms used)
Session 3: Resources
These files cover a few topics. First is a brief introduction to researching family history at the State Library
Next: Irish history via the Ulster Historical Foundation (Northern Ireland, but remembering that this occasionally will include records from elsewhere in Ireland): Ulster Historical Foundation
And: Notes from seminar at State Library about researching the history of your house: six files in all. The first file is an overview of the contents. These files are the hand-out from the seminar.
