Dubbo And District Family History Society - Linda Barnes (5th March, 2024)

The Dubbo and District Family History Society is offering a four-week course on discovering family history. The course is open to anyone interested, with a few places still available. The first steps in uncovering family history involve gathering materials like birth certificates, marriage certificates, and trade certificates. Having a pedigree chart, or family tree, is also helpful. The internet has made the process easier, as it provides access to records and resources. The cost of the course is $7.50 for members and $15 for non-members. The goal is for participants to uncover interesting information they never thought possible. If you've ever been curious about the background of your family history, but you just had no idea of where to start on the path of actually finding it out, the Dubbo and District Family History Society are about to begin a new four-week course on discovering family history and it's open to literally anyone to inquire. To give us a rundown of what's planned, in studio joining us is the President of the Family History Society, Linda Barnes. Good morning. Good morning, Kagan. How are you? I'm doing very well, thank you. I understand the course is starting tomorrow. Yes, it's getting very close. We do still have vacancies in the course. What's the pickup of the inquiries and the interest been like so far? Oh, good, yes. We're usually limited to about 20, so we're getting there, but there's still a few places available. I'm curious, because I had absolutely no idea. What are some of the beginning steps involved in discovering your family history? Everyone has a lot of material, whether it's grilling granny or great aunt, or it's all those records that you may not think about, but there's your birth certificate, your parents' birth certificates, marriage certificates, trade certificates, all sorts of bits and pieces that will lead you on the right track, and that's the important bit. You don't want to have a twig on the wrong tree. Oh, right, because it could send you another direction which isn't the right place. That would be interesting. I'm guessing, as you were just saying, there are some essential bits of information that people need, or certificates to use as a foundation if they want to do this course. Yes, definitely. What I like to call as a roadmap is what's called a pedigree chart, which sounds rather grand but it's really just a family tree. If you have that in your possession, if you write one of those up, then anyone that comes to try and help you will find that quite easy because they can see what you've got and where you need to go next, and that's really important because that gives you, as I say, a roadmap to what you're trying to do. I'm guessing for anyone that would be looking to go back through their family history, it's a lot easier these days than say it was about 20 years ago. Yes, yes. Our society has been going for 40 years and I've been involved for 30 of those. You would have seen the changes over time. So I have seen the changes, yes. It used to be that you'd get very cranky with the postman because you'd have to wait for a certificate to turn up in the snail mail, or you'd be sitting looking at records for hours and hours to find. Now because of the internet, yes, it's a fabulous resource and it does speed up the process definitely. What's the sort of cost that people are looking at to take part in the course? Oh, it's $7.50 for our members and membership is $40 a year. And if you're not a member, it's $15. Right. Well, it sounds absolutely fascinating. I'm so glad you're running it and I'm sure people are going to find out stuff that they never imagined they could ever find themselves. I hope so. Well, that is the idea. Thank you for coming in and having a chat this morning. My pleasure, Keegan. Thank you for having me. Cheers.