Day Three of AFFHO Congress 2015
Sunday began with Kerry Farmer’s talk, Migration Schemes to Australia. Migration schemes were schemes where financial
incentives, often subsidised passage, were offered to encourage migrants from
the British Isles to come to Australia, instead of the US & Canada which
were cheaper alternatives. Different migration
schemes were in place at different times during the 19th & 20th
centuries. Different schemes had
different selection criteria to attract desirable immigrants - those with
certain skills, in particular age groups or in required occupations. The number & type of immigrant could be controlled
as needed by varying the assistance or incentive & the selection criteria. Kerry outlined some of the different
migration schemes that have been in place, both before & after federation –
who the immigrants were, why they were desirable at the time, what incentives
were offered, how the scheme was financed, and where to find further
information.
A Different
Kind of DNA Talk, presented by Colleen Fitzpatrick, presented
some information that I was already familiar with, however Colleen used some
analogies that really strengthened my understandings of DNA. The analogy she made between our DNA &
manuscripts that were hand-copied was probably the strongest – the more a
manuscript was copied, the more likely there was to be a mistake, just like
when DNA is copied from parent to child.
She also introduced me to cladograms, which are visual representations
of Y-DNA results that show how individuals are related.
Perry McIntyre’s second presentation was ‘The infernal villain will be sent away’:
Convict Case Studies from the National Archives of Ireland, Dublin. Perry told us about the Chief Secretary’s
Office Registered Papers in the National Archives of Ireland, which are the
equivalent of Australia’s Colonial Secretary’s Correspondence. This resource is currently being digitised
but most of the documents have been transcribed, meaning they are searchable by
keywords & names. To illustrate how CSORP can help us in our
research, Perry presented some case studies of people that came to the
attention of the authorities for their criminal activities.
After lunch I attended Pauleen Cass’ talk, Harness the Power of Blogging for Your
Research or Your One Place Study. To
illustrate how blogging gives genealogists unique opportunities to bring descendants
from a particular group of emigrants together, Pauleen presented two case
studies from her own research that focused on migration networks: one from
Ireland & one from Germany.
