Last Friday the North Sydney Genealogy Group and members of
the local community were treated to a talk on genealogy by Jo Harris. Jo is
an incredibly engaging and entertaining speaker and has an impressive knowledge
of family history. How do you best to
approach the subject, how to organise what you find and what are some of the
problems a beginner might encounter? Jo has for many years given talks and lead a
workshop on genealogy which is held by the Kuringai Historical Society in the
Sydney suburb of Gordon close to where she lives. http://www.khs.org.au/
Jo asks at the beginning of her talk, ‘How many people in
this audience have completed their family tree?’ After a prolonged silence when
only Stanton Library’s numerous crickets could be heard chirping did she
explain how surprised she would have been if anyone had said ‘yes’. Family history research is never ending. Not
only are there more records continuously being made available online. But the
further you go back the more people there are to investigate.
Jo said she realised the limitations of Ancestry’s Family
Tree Maker program when she had put more than 200,000 names in it and it
started malfunctioning. The record for
the largest family tree on Ancestry.com is 260,000 people.
During the talk we saw many of Jo’s own family photos,
memorabilia and family trees (the first drafts of these she calls ‘Mud Maps’)
that she has created over the years and we were treated to many personal anecdotes
of her own family stories and the interesting ways in which she discovered
them. Jo’s knowledge is incredibly extensive and she easily answered the
diverse questions which our audience asked.
I was amazed to learn that British family names starting
with a K, Q or C sound mostly originated from the isle of Man. This Includes
names like Kelly and Quayle. Any name that starts with Myle is a Manx name. The
talk was full of little genealogy tidbit gems like these.
A brief look on the internet tells me that Jo Harris was
named Kuringgai citizen of the year in 2008. She was one of the first women to
receive a radio operating licence. She is a well recognized HAM radio operator
from her home in Wahroongah and has played an important communication role in a
number of community crises. Her enthusiasm, generosity of spirit and intellect
are very impressive and an octogenarian as well! If she is giving a genealogy talk
in your area…don’t miss it!
(Unfortunately the photos I took of Jo Harris with Stanton
library’s camera didn’t come out so I hope the ‘word picture’ I have created
here will be enough-apologies)
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