The Guild Conference welcomes Michelle Patient Posted 18 March 2017 by Julie GoucherMichelle Patient is a genealogist, embroiderer and a geek with a degree in Pure and Applied Chemistry and technical qualifications in Geology. Michelle has a love of data, facts and research. Working for many years in civil engineering laboratories before moving into programming databases for marketing projects, she has spoken to various community and work-related groups since the 1970’s. She started researching her mother’s birth family back in the early 1990’s and became seriously addicted to genealogy research over a wet Sydney Christmas at the end of 1999. Growing up with an elder grandmother’s stories and being given her photos in 1999 started the roller coaster ride that has become her genealogy research journey. Michelle’s science and engineering background has helped her develop research tips which she shares regularly with the wider genealogy community in face to face presentations, in magazines, and over the Internet. Michelle’s articles have been published in various magazines including: Sydney PC Users Group magazine PrintScreen, Information for New Users (IfNu) column, Australian Family Tree Connection Magazine, Inside History, the Royal Australian Historical Society’s History Magazine, The New Zealand Genealogist and the Journal of One Name Studies. She has volunteered in various roles within the genealogy community, both in Australia and New Zealand including President of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists 2012 – 2014 and New Zealand Regional Representative for the Guild of One-Name Studies 2015 – present and Education Committee Member Society of Australian Genealogists. Shackles, Shekels and Shrapnel, the Exodus to the Southern Seas Since the late 1700s there have been various waves of migration from the Northern Hemisphere to the “new lands” in the Southern Seas. Michelle will explore migration waves, the records they created and where to find them. Michelle will be presenting at the Guild of One-Name Studies conference on Saturday 1st April 2017. Non-members are welcome and booking is currently still open. Presentations will be available to Guild members after the event.