State Library Beginners Workshop on family history questions & some notes
State Library Beginners Workshop on family history questions, some notes
Hello everybody out there in blog land! On the 15th of November Monique and I went to the State Library for a few hours to attend a beginners’ workshop on family history questions. I thought I would share with you some of the points that were discussed so that you can help any customers who are beginning to research their family tree. The workshop was divided into two parts:
1/ Key resources for finding Birth, Death & Marriage information
2/ Looking at Passenger Arrivals and shipping records. Most of what I will cover relates to NSW only.
Looking for Birth, Death & Marriage information
- NSW Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages
-www.bdm.nsw.gov.au
-“civil” registration started in 1856, previously there were only church records
- every state has their own website
- ancestory.com doesn’t cover all of the years that NSW BDM covers, they have a lot of selected & incomplete records- so it can be a worthwhile website to check.
- When doing a search every detail is significant eg. Mary A. Smith will bring up fewer hits than just “Mary Smith”, although a good search tip is when you first start put the minimum amount of fields in the search screen- if you get too many hits you can build it up by adding more information as necessary.
- Ryerson Index
-www.ryersonindex.org
- It’s an index to death & funeral notices & obituaries
- Covers 300 newspapers from around Australia
- Starts at 1803 & goes to the present day
-Gives exact date of death plus date & title of newspaper with notice
-Keep in mind death & funeral notices aren’t obligatory
- Trove- Digitised Newspapers
-http://trove.nla.gov.au
-Full text of over 1000 newspapers ranging from 1803 to 1954
-Tip: use the advanced search screen to limit irrelevant results
-Tip: in advanced search, article category, selecting family notices may be helpful
-Tip: if applicable, don’t forget to use the keyword “divorce”
- SAG reels
-a project of the “Society of Australian Genealogists”
-a collection of church registers on microfilm (basically this is what you can use if the records you are looking for are pre 1856)
-organised by church & town
-held in the special collections area of the State Library
-much less information than “civil certificates”
Passenger arrivals & shipping records
There are 4 main categories of passenger arrivals.
1/ Assisted immigrant- someone whose journey was paid for in part or in full through a government immigration scheme. These people are usually “well documented” .
2/ “Unassisted” or free paying passenger. Very little details are recorded about this type of passenger.
3/ Crew. There are very few records relating to crew until 1854. The unassisted lists include crew.
4/ Convict. Convicts were sent to NSW arriving from 1788 to 1842- and one final ship in 1850.
Here are some tips that will help if you are looking for shipping records.
- Records in the “home country” can help you establish when the person departed.
- Pre 1923 passenger arrivals are kept with State Records offices, eg. records.nsw.gov.au. Post 1924 records are with the national archives of Australia- naa.gov.au.
- NSW Assisted Immigrant Passenger lists 1828-1896 & NSW Unassisted Immigrant passenger lists 1826-1926 are on Ancestory.com
- These State Library links will be helpful-
- http://guides.sl.nsw.gov.au/shipping-records (Shipping research guide)
- http://guides.sl.nsw.gov.au/passenger-records (Passenger research guide)
- If you are looking at shipping records try to establish the approximate year of arrival. For example, the death certificate will say where someone is born & how long they have been in Australia- however be aware if the time ends with a ‘0’- eg. “60 years”, then it is probably a guesstimate.
- Newspapers used to have shipping news.
- This is a very useful resource that is free to access online: “Log of logs : a catalogue of logs, journals, shipboard diaries, letters, and all forms of voyage narratives… for Australia and New Zealand, and surrounding oceans / by Ian Nicholson. 1788 to 1988. –v. 2. 1788 to 1993. –v.3 1788 to 1998” Here is the link to the pdf online- https://zenodo.org/record/6901#.Wfk1rVuCyUk
Two more tips for those who are having trouble researching their family tree!
1. The State Library website can be a good starting point for people looking at their family history- it has all of the links that I have mentioned.
2. Start your research with your parents and go backwards from there.
I have a question that you can try out your research skills on if you like. Let me know if you would like me to send you the answer for it!
“I have been told Richard Rogers Hawke sailed from London to Sydney on the ship ‘Oroya’, accompanied by his mother, Annie & siblings, Lillie, Philip, & Laura arriving 1893, seeking gold.’ Do you have a passenger list, please, & is there an image of the ship?”
Good luck researching your family tree!
-Michael D.
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