Well, the Internet being what it is, it should come as no surprise that someone’s already taken the initiative to come up with one!

GENEVA, the Calendar of GENealogical EVents and Activities, is a joint project between GENUKI (the virtual reference library of genealogical information for the UK and Ireland) and the Federation of Family History Societies (an association for genealogical societies with a  interest in England, Wales and Ireland). It lists dozens of special events, fairs, talks and other activities in the United Kingdom and Ireland, with a link to each event’s website or web page.

The list’s compiled by Malcolm Austen for GENUKI and the FFHS. At present the focus is heavily on England and Wales, but the calendar’s open to events all over the world – “just as long as they pertain to UK & Irish ancestry”, as Malcolm says.

So if you’re gripped by genealogical Wanderlust, or if your local society has an event that you’d like to publicise – or even if you’re planning an event and are keen to avoid clashes with other events nearby – why not visit the GENEVA website?

GENEVA – online calendar of GENealogical EVents and Activities

ScotlandsPeople, the official online source of data from civil registers, parish records, censuses and wills and testaments  for Scotland, is a partnership between the General Register Office for Scotland, the National Archives of Scotland, The Court of the Lord Lyon (responsible for coats of arms and heraldry in Scotland) and Internet service providers brightsolid. You can access over 50 million records dating back to 1855 for deaths, 1553 in the case of births and marriages, and 1513 for wills and testaments.

Registration at ScotlandsPeople is free. So are detailed searches of the indexes, although you’ll have to pay to view or download census or register entries and document images; it costs £6 to view 30 entries in the statutory registers, the old parish records or the censuses (these credits last for 90 days), £5 to view one will or testament, and £10 to view a coat of arms.

You can find out more from the ScotlandsPeople website:
http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/

Held on Saturday 27 June between 10am and 4.30pm at Knavesmire Exhibition Centre at York Racecourse – just a few minutes’ walk away from York Railway Station, if you’re travelling by train – this well established annual event (this year’s Fair is the fourteenth) offers exhibits from over 70 different organisations.

As you’d expect, many of the exhibitors are from Yorkshire or neighbouring counties. But there are plenty of others based all over Great Britain, from the Aberdeen & NE Scotland Family History Society to the Somerset & Dorset Family History Society.

The event is sponsored by The Genealogist:

It’s just £4 to get in, and under-14s are free, so you can make a family trip of it – and with a fully licensed bar and cafeteria, refreshments won’t be a problem either.

So why not treat yourself to a day in the historic City of York this summer?

Find out more at the Fair’s web page:
http://yorkshirefamilyhistoryfair.com/

The collections offer a rich research resource for scholars, researchers and genealogists and include a virtual online library.

http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/specialcollections/collections/methodist/

You can browse six journals online:

• Gentleman’s Magazine
• The Annual Register
• Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
• Notes and Queries
• The Builder
• Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine

Visit their website for more information:
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/ilej/

The excellent Access to Archival Databases facility has a vast number of subjects. By no means all of them are directly relevant to genealogical research, but a fair few are. Here are the best examples, but there are others – and it’s worth keeping an eye on the list from time to time to see what else is being added:

• Germans to America Passenger Data File, 1850-1897
• Famine Irish Passenger Record Data File, 1846-1851
• Italians to America Passenger Data File, 1855-1900
• Russians to America Passenger Data File, 1834 – 1897

(NB Poland was divided between the German, Russian and Austrian Empires in the 19th century, so if you have Polish ancestors who emigrated during that time you may well find themin the German or Russian records.)

You can find out more at the US National Archives Access to Archival Databases home page:
http://aad.archives.gov/aad/

Founded in 1885 as the Huguenot Society of London, the Society changed its name in 1986 to reflect its wider membership. It seeks to promote the publication and interchange of knowledge about the Protestant Christians who fled France to avoid religious persecution in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many of whose descendants are largely unaware of their ancestors.

The Society has published a large number of PDF guidesto help those researching their Huguenot ancestry – starting with a basic guide on how to proceed with research, and giving all kinds of more specific pointers such as a French glossary, a guide to Huguenot settlers outside London, and how to search in France for ancestors who arrived in Great Britain and Ireland after 1710.

Sadly the Society’s journal, Huguenot Families, ceased publication in 2008, but back copies are still available from the Society’s website.

For more information, visit the Huguenot Society of Great Britain & Ireland’s website:

http://www.huguenotsociety.org.uk/family/

If you’re living in New Zealand – or able to travel there – and interested in genealogy, heraldry and family history, then you’re in luck!

The Australasian Federation of Family History Organisations (AFFHO) is holding its next triennial congress in Auckland from 16-20 January. The overarching theme of this congress, the twelfth in a series stretching back to 1977, will be “Preserving the past for the future”. It’s hosted by the New Zealand Society of Genealogists at Kings College, Otahuhu.

The programme is simply packed with hour-long lectures and two-hour workshops, together with several plenary sessions, on a bewildering variety of themes. Guest speakers specialise in all kinds of fields relevant to the Australian and New Zealand family researcher, including local historians, family record archivists, geneticists and practitioners in many more disciplines.

Other special events include the Congress Banquet at Eden Park, home of the All Blacks, and a day tour of Auckland for out-of-town visitors.

Topic profiles, speaker profiles and a full programme are all available from the website, and it’s possible to register (for the whole conference, for single days or for individual events) online. But time’s running short, so hurry!

Website: 12th Australasian Congress on Genealogy & Heraldry

Well, for starters they’ve got an award-winning complete index of births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales since civil registers began in 1837 (including records of overseas registrations).

There are complete transcripts for all census returns for all counties in England and Wales from 1841 to 1901 (except for 1881 – records are already available for London and Lancashire, and the rest will be available soon) with linked images so that you can see the actual entries if you choose.

If you’re delving back even further than 1837, they’ve got the records of over a thousand parishes on line, and the number’s growing steadily – these can take you back as far as 1538, when Thomas Cromwell ordered the recording of all baptisms, marriages and burials. There are also records for Nonconformists going back to the 1600s in some cases.

They have other research materials available too – including trade directories going back to the mid-1800s, land records from the 1873 tax survey covering all landowners with a holding of one acre or more, and many more.

All this wealth of information is checked by a team of UK experts, both paid and volunteer, to ensure the greatest accuracy possible. And to make sure it’s as useful to you as it possibly can be, there are a host of smart search tools available to help you extract all the details you can.

With a range of subscriptions to suit everyone, whether you just want to check a couple of entries on one of The Genealogist’s hundreds of databases (443 and rising) or want to carry out extensive research on several of them, The Genealogist is the online research tool for you.

Olympia, London

If you have ever wondered what your ancestors were like, where they lived or what they did for a living, Who Do You Think You Are? Live: the National History Show is an event where you can make incredible discoveries about the story of your family.

Following on from two successful events in 2006 and 2007, this is a great chance to take forward your research into your family history, to get a taste for what’s involved if you’re starting out in genealogy, or even to just find out what it’s all about!

With the largest gathering of TV historians, family history experts and nearly 200 exhibitors from Ancestors Magazine to Your Family Tree, this three-day event is a unique opportunity to fill in the gaps in your family tree and make your connection to events in history. There’s plenty of support from major exhibitors such as the Society of Genealogists (over 80 seminars!), and you can hear from celebrities such as Ainsley Harriott and Matthew Pinsent about what they’ve unearthed in their own family research. And if you’re stuck in your research and need advice on how to take it forward, then you can get a 20-minute one-to-one session with an expert.

There’s far too much to mention here! But you can find out more on the Who Do You Think You Are? Live website