"Who do you think you are?" will be easier to know following a seminar held by the Casino and District Family History society this week.
Unlock the Past is a travelling roadshow around regional NSW conducted by two highly experienced family historians, Shauna Hicks and Rosemanr Kopittke.
The idea behind the roadshow was to give local family history groups the latest information on where to go to find information about their ancestors.
The women began by demonstrating two websites they are both involved in Unlock the Past - www.unlockthepast.com.au, and Find My Past www.findmypast.com.au
Shauna then showed members how to go about accessing digitised newspapers online. She used examples from newspapers from Australia, England, Ireland, Scotland and other countries to demonstrate the depth of information available.
"Keyword searching can help you find information on your ancestors beyond the usual Births Deaths and Marriage and funeral notices," Shauna said
Whilst Rosemary talked about the untapped resources hidden in Australian Government, Police and Education Gazettes.
"Mostly we consider them to be irrelevant and uninteresting," Rosemary said.
"But that is definitely not the case. The gazettes contain information about people we would never find in other records."
Whilst both women spoke about online resources they stressed that joining the local family history society is the best way of finding out about your ancestors.
"There is a common misconception as to what's availabe online," Rosemary said.
"However there are lots of resources still only available in archives or libraries and the good thing about a local society is that they have resources available and one of the most valuable resources is the people in the society which you can't get sitting in their pyjamas online at home.
"We want to encourage them to use different resources and to use local societies."
For more information about the Casino Family History Society contact the President, Barbara Hollis.
