GSQ would like to invite anyone interested in Genealogical Research to attend the

2nd and 4th Wednesday nights, via Zoom

If you cannot get to GSQ; or working during the day; unable to attend the other Zoom meetings; and just want a bit of help with your research, then the Wednesday nights might be just what you are looking for.

The 4th Wednesday of the month is for a Guest Speaker to talk in relation to specific topics.

Finding and Losing Joe Guidice: A sad, bad family history.

This presentation outlines how family history research can sometimes not be as rewarding as one might hope.  What begins with enthusiasm can end with disappointment.  Joe’s story is a case in point. I found him by chance, got deeply interested, then upset with how things turned out.  These things challenge us, but we must take it all in stride.  It was interesting research, and there is a bit of a brick wall involved.  Prepare to be fascinated.

Presenter:
Geoff Doherty

I must confess that I was born in Victoria, and that most of my Australian family history research is focused there.  My parents moved the family to Brisbane in 1963.  I am still a “newcomer”.

Employment-wise I have been a bank officer, a communications operator in the Royal Australian Navy, a 000 call-taker/dispatcher with the Queensland Fire Service and a cartographic assistant with the Rural Fire Service of Queensland, providing maps of their areas to Rural Fire Brigades and Fire Wardens. I also volunteer one day a week at a Community Used Book Shop at Salisbury.

I became interested in family history about 1993 after I met my wife Margaret, who has been researching hers since the 1980s.  I thought “If she can do it, so can I.” And the rest is history.  Interest in family history led to academia and I now hold a BA Honours degree in Ancient History, History and Using Computers.  Academically my main interest is military history.

I have attended many family history conferences here in Queensland, interstate and overseas and have also presented at some of them and have made some great contacts. Some conferences have been on cruise ships – a terrific concept.  The strangest presentation I have done was at the 1985 World Science Fiction Convention in Melbourne where I spoke about “How Time-travel stories can help with the study of History in High Schools”.  Truly.  Science Fiction and books in general is my other great passion.

I am a member of the Professional Historians Association Queensland and served on their management committee for many years and as Treasurer also.  I have been on the management committee of the Genealogical Society of Queensland and was their President for two and a half years.  I also served on the management committee of the Queensland Family History Society and was Secretary. I am a serial volunteer, it seems.  I must be as I am now Secretary for the Genealogical Society of Queensland!

The meeting is hosted by Ailsa Corlett, and it is a self help group in which you pose your questions or problems and others within the group offer their ideas, web sites, books and knowledge on where next you might go to find your answers.

Come and join us on Zoom.

There is no cost to attend, though a donation is always welcome. And Wednesday nights are open to anyone to attend, not just GSQ members, but you must send me an email.

Please send your name, email and any questions to wedpmzoom@gsq.org.au so that a link can be sent to you.
The link will be sent out on the Monday night.