PORIRUA BRANCH Issue No 107 June 2019

Convenor’s Comments

As we start the 2019-20 year, I want to acknowledge the members who put themselves forward to serve on the committee. They are enthusiastic and are already working hard on your behalf. Please remember that any contribution of ideas and

feedback will be appreciated as the year progresses.

The committee, with key roles for the year, is:

Mary Beckett - Convenor

Alison Lavin - Secretary

Pat Liddell - Treasurer

Richard Edwards - Programme

Murray Foster - Publicity

Gill Knox Library - Liaison/NZSG Director

Jan Powell - Website/Social Media

Helen Swiney - Membership

You may note that we are missing a newsletter editor above. We are looking for someone outside the committee who would put their hand up to do this job. The newsletter only comes out every second month and the committee will support and assist with this role. Please give it some thought and if you can offer, or need more information, contact me or one of the committee. It is an interesting opportunity to learn lots about differing aspects of genealogy.

We are holding a Fabulous Finds and Terrific Treasures evening at the June 12 Branch meeting. Past sessions of this type have been fascinating and informative. So bring along your special items and tell about their history and how they have contributed to your family story. We will be sitting in an oval so all can see and hear more easily.

I look forward to seeing you at our meetings.

Mary Beckett

Convenor

Website: poriruagenealogy.org.nz �1

Coming up at Porirua Branch

Wednesday, 12 June

Fab Finds and Terrific Treasures

Bring along your genealogical gems for a show and tell session. Share your recent finds or treasures/heirlooms with the rest of the group.

Wednesday, 12 July

Omnibus

(Gill Knox and Jan Powell)

• Using the NZSG’s library book reader.

• How to use Discovery, the online catalogue of the records held by The National Archives in Kew, England, with over 11 million historical records relating to Britain and British history.

• Translating Latin documents online and using apps.

Wednesday, 14 August

Research Evening at Porirua Library Genealogy Section Using Porirua Library’s genealogy resources. Expert advice on researching online. Expert advice on using genealogical programs on your computer.

Bring your laptop and your research queries.

PORIRUA BRANCH Issue No 107 June 2019

Translating Languages into English

Martin Houlihan gave our branch a short talk to show how we can read documents written in other languages than English.

Here’s a summary of Martin’s notes about how to do translations:

It all started when Martin and his wife, Bev, found a headstone in a Dannevirke cemetery that Bev believed related to her family, a possible Danish connection. They needed to investigate more.

Martin did an internet search to see if he could find any relevant documents. Sadly, the results he sought were all in Danish, a language neither he nor Bev is able to read. They discovered that, on many of the sites, there was a button to click that

enabled the site to be translated into English. “Voila!” as he said. Unfortunately, not all parts of the sites were translated; for example, sometime the titles or headings (which one really needs to understand) stayed in the original Danish. What to do?

Enter: Google Translate. What you need to do, is copy the foreign language text, then paste it into the box on Google Translate, then choose the language to detect (that is, the language the original document is in). Hey presto, the English translation should appear in the column next to the text you pasted.

You need to be aware that, the translation often doesn’t “flow” in the same way as English, so it may be useful to copy the English version into a word document (save that document) then have a play around with the way the text reads, to make it more natural.

It was a really useful and interesting talk, Martin, thank you.

DNA, What’s All the Fuss About?

Michelle Patient gave a talk about DNA to our branch on 10 April 2019. It was a comprehensive talk that covered pretty-

Website: poriruagenealogy.org.nz �2

Other Branches

NZSG Kapiti

Jonathan Newport, Archives New Zealand, speaking on Land Records.

Kapiti Community Centre, 15 Ngahina St, Paraparaumu

Tue, June 25, 7pm – 9pm

Free to members, visitors welcome, $3.

Legacy Users Group

Saturday, June 29, 1pm – 4pm

Users of all versions welcome, bring your laptop.

$2 door charge, including refreshments

NZSG Kilbirnie

Annual General Meeting followed by DNA Revelations

Matairangi Room, ASB Sports Centre, 72 Kemp Street, Kilbirnie

Thursday, 6 June, 10am

NZSG Hutt

TBA

NZSG Wellington

Kaye Batchelor and Ann Ball speaking on “Adventures with DNA”

Connolly Hall, Guildford Terrace, Thorndon

Wednesday, 26 June, 6.30pm

NZSG Wairarapa

Jenny Martin “Irish Brick Walls”.

Research Centre, 79 Queen Street, Masterton,

Sunday 16 June,1.30pm

PORIRUA BRANCH Issue No 107 June 2019

much all we need to know. We had a great turnout of people from our branch and from other branches in the region. From comments heard, afterwards, most people enjoyed the talk and gained a great deal of useful information and help.

Michelle said that DNA is useful for finding relatives, stories, photos, treasures, because it allows us to connect with other relatives who share the same DNA. DNA results will allow us to confirm or deny assumptions we’ve made in our research. We can use results to extend our own family trees, to push back in time, to overcome brick walls.

We need to be cautious in the use of DNA results as there may be skeletons uncovered that others would rather were not uncovered.

Michelle told us that autosomal testing covers male and female lines. Testing is scientifically accurate, but interpretation of results is variable.

Here are some of the links and books Michelle referred to in her talk:

•The Guild of One Name Studies https://one-name.org/

•The site that does auto-clustering for tests not at MyHeritage is https://www.geneticaffairs.com/auto_cluster/examples/autocluster_2nd_3rd.html

•MyHeritage has integrated the tool into it's website: https://blog.myheritage.com/2019/02/introducing-autoclusters-for-dna-matches/

•There is a video for the MyHeritage auto-clustering tool available: https://familytreewebinars.com/download.php?webinar_id=1052

•What sort of DNA Tests Are There? Louise Coakley’s explanation: http://www.genie1.com.au/blog/59-dna-test-types-available/

•https://www.bookdepository.com/The-Family-Tree-Guide-to-DNA-Testing-and-Genetic-Genealogy/9781440345326

•Local Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/NZDNAUsersGroup/

•The Family Tree Guide to DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy, Blaine T Bettinger

Uploading DNA to other sites:

"Test those in the generations above where possible ,they have more of your ancestors at-DNA than you do.

Current best testing options:

Website: poriruagenealogy.org.nz �3

Coming up Elsewhere

National Library

Fresh collections and fascinating finds on DigitalNZ

Tuesday, 18 June 2019, 12:10pm to 1:00pm.

Te Ahumairangi (ground floor), National Library.

In this presentation, Thomasin Sleigh will introduce a selection of freshly added collections, share some interesting finds, as well as discuss more widely the complexities of metadata, discoverability, and the ways in which online search is changing

Free to a Good Home

If you would like a microfiche reader, Alison Lavin has one that is available, free to a good home. Please let Alison know at lavinfamily66@gmail.com

PORIRUA BRANCH Issue No 107 June 2019

• Test at AncestryDNA

• Free transfer of raw data to: 

• FTDNA (join geographic projects)

• MyHeritage

• LivingDNA* (for FindMyPast subscribers)

• GEDmatch”

Keeping Safe Online

Bill and Annie Jackson, from All Over IT gave us an informative and practical talk about how to keep safe online:

People are regularly contacted by others who want to try to obtain information or money from them. Such people are fraudsters, commonly known as scammers. They are confidence tricksters, just like in the olden days of pedlars selling snake oil.

How do we know it’s an attempted scam?

Scammers will telephone or email us or post on social media.

•Scammers can be recognised because they will use lots of jargon to try to confuse us.

•They will tell us they are monitoring our computer and have found a problem, then will ask us to log in so they can “help” us.

So, what can we do to avoid being taken in?

Telephone

•Politely say, “No thanks”. Keep saying it, like a cracked record. Repeatedly. Say nothing else.

•Hang up.

•Leave the phone off the hook and walk away, if they phone.

•Tell them you are from the New Zealand Police’s Fraud Squad.

•Ask for their phone number and offer to phone them back. They won’t allow that.

•There is no “Windows Support Centre”, even if they say there is.

• No internet provider, eg Spark, will contact you. If you didn’t phone them first, then it’s a fraud.

• No banks will contact you by email.

• “Audits” are a scam.

• Nobody had remote access to your computer unless you allow them.

• DO NOT open anything on your computer when talking to someone who has phoned you. Shut your computer down. Turn it off.

•Do not believe anything someone on the phone tells you about wiring problems, internet problems, or any such thing.

Website: poriruagenealogy.org.nz �4

Branch Noticeboard

New Books in our Branch Library

• Jonathan Oates, Tracing Your Ancestors from 1066 to 1837

• Simon Fowler, Tracing Your Army Ancestors

• Kathy Chater, Tracing Your Huguenot Ancestors

• Beryl Evans, Tracing Your Welsh Ancestors

Branch Resources

Please remember to return promptly any branch resources that you have borrowed so that other members may have access to them.

Transport to Meetings

If anyone is having difficulty getting to branch meetings and would like a ride, please contact one of the committee who will endeavour to find a member in your area to transport you to and from the meeting.

Newsletter Contributions Welcome

If you have an interesting story or a handy hint or anything that you’d like to share with Branch members, please let the Newsletter Editor know, contributions are always welcome.

PORIRUA BRANCH Issue No 107 June 2019

•NEVER allow remote access to your computer, ever.

•If you suspect an email is a scam, mark it as “Spam” or “Junk”. You will have to actually do this using the button on your email program or on the website you use to clear your email. If you just delete the email, future ones will keep coming. By marking it as Junk or Spam, your computer will recognise that in the future, and the problem will lessen.

•NEVER pay with a credit card over the phone or by email.

Email

•These will often start, “Dear Friend”

•They may talk about a “Credit Officer”, or a “Nigerian princess”, or “an inheritance”, etc

•They may claim to be from Netflix.

•They may claim to be from Paypal.

•Be aware that many such emails do look legitimate. They are not. Mark them as spam then delete them. If they are a real problem, the sender will make legitimate contact.

•If you’re not sure, click on, or hover over, the sender. Up will pop the full email address that the email has come from. You’ll be able to tell from that where it’s from. It will look fake.

•Usually in scam emails there is poor spelling. Always a good sign.

•If you are receiving email from yourself, ie your address, change your email password. Straight away.

•NEVER click on any links in an email, if you don’t know who the sender is.

•Ignore “message received” notifications, especially if you haven’t sent a message.

Website and Social Media

•Netsafe is an excellent website to check up on scams that are doing the rounds: https://www.netsafe.org.nz/

•Avoid competitions on Facebook.

•Avoid polls that require you to register.

•Regularly check your Facebook settings. Delete anything that you don’t want.

Website: poriruagenealogy.org.nz �5

Did you know?

Porirua Library, at Pataka, has “a comprehensive collection of materials for family history research, and computers which provide access to Ancestry and FindMyPast. The service is free and everyone is welcome.”

The collection includes…“a comprehensive range of material for family history research with a focus on New Zealand and British information: this includes microfiche, microfilm, books, magazines and access to digital resources like Ancestry, FindMyPast and the British Newspaper Archive.”

There is also…”a selection of materials that will enable you to get a good grounding in Māori whakapapa research and the staff can offer you guidance for Pacific Island research.”

1921 UK Census

This will be released exclusively on FindMyPast on 1 January, 2022. This census is significant because the 1931 returns were destroyed in the Blitz and there wasn’t a census in 1941. Because it was the first census since WWI, children were asked whether their mother, father or both were dead. It was also the first time people were asked if a marriage had been dissolved by divorce, or about their employment. But it also removed a couple of questions as well, such as the length of the present marriage, the total number of children born and the number still living.

Source: Te Awamutu’s Branch’s newsletter