Group farewelling the passenger liner "Auatia" - Sydney, NSW Family History news is moving.

Thank you for reading the Family History posts. From the end of January 2017, you will be able to continue reading about genealogy matters on the main State Library blog at statelibrarynsw.tumblr.com

By moving Family History news we will bring all the great Library information together in one spot and make it easier to find. Although we will not be adding new items to this blog, the site will remain live and we will slowly move a selection of posts to the main blog.

If you are a follower, we suggest that you unfollow this blog and start following the State Library blog at statelibrarynsw.tumblr.com  

We wish you a successful 2017 and may your search for those distant ancestors be rewarding.

During Family History Month at the State Library of NSW, we were lucky enough to have two expert researchers present a seminar called Researching your Italian heritage. Maria Linders, Chairperson and Fabio Lo Sciavo, past committee member of the Italian History Group presented a how-to session on navigating the landscape of Italian family history.

Being of Italian ancestry, Maria became very interested in tracing her family tree and spent many years collecting and collating information relating to her mother and father, who were both born in Salina, a small island part of the Aeolian Islands off Sicily.

Fabian worked at State Records as an archivist for 31 years and has a keen interest in Family History and has made more than a dozen research trips to the Aelioan Islands. . 

Fabian talked about how Italian records are arranged -by municipality – there is no central/national index- so you need to known where your Italian ancestor was born. He gave numerous examples of doing family history research in Italy and tips and tricks such as  putting your request in writing and bringing the archivist a gift such as pastries or a scarf! 

Maria also spoke about Italian naming customs which mean there are lots of people in the family with the same name so date of birth is very important to distinguish them and how useful cemetery inscriptions can be in Italy as sometimes they have maiden names and children’s names. Maria also gave lots of useful tips about recording your family history research and even DNA searching.. 

Even those without Italian heritage wished they had some by the end of the very entertaining talk and discussion! 

Co.As.It Italian Family History Group holds monthly events of guest speakers from Italian backgrounds at the Palace Cinema in Leichhardt.

August is Family History month at the State Library of New South Wales and this week we are looking at Irish convicts.

John Mitchel was born in County Derry, Ireland in 1815. In 1848 he and other leaders of the Young Ireland movement were convicted of treason and sentenced to transportation. Mitchel arrived in Hobart in 1850 and a year later was joined by his wife and children. He was granted a ticket-of-leave on parole and moved to a cottage near Bothwell. In 1853, after surrendering his parole and ticket-of-leave, Mitchel escaped from Hobart on the brig Emma. His family was also on board and they sailed for Sydney. From there they took another ship to San Francisco eventually reaching New York. In New York, he established an Irish nationalist newspaper” The Citizen” and continued commenting on Irish concerns. He also published an account of his years in jail.”Jail journal, or, Five years in British prisons : commenced on board the Shearwater steamer in Dublin Bay, continued at Spike Island ... and concluded at No. 3 Pier, North River, New York / by John Mitchel.”

Also see “Letter from John Mitchel to G. Baker, July 1853″ in our Manuscripts Oral history and Pictures catalogue. This letter was written by Mitchel about a week before his escape on the night of 16 July 1853. The original letter (7 pages), as well as an album transcript are available on our website.  Click on “View Images” to see the digitised images of the letter.

Alternatively, visit the State Library of New South Wales and read a report on John Mitchel’s trial.”Report of the trial of John Mitchel for felony : before the Right Honourable Baron Lefroy, and the Right Hon. Justice Moore, at the Commission Court, Dublin, May 1848 / By John George Hodges ... ...Mitchel, John, 1815-1875, defendant. Thomas Langlois, 1776-1869 Lefroy;John George Hodges”

At the State Library of New South Wales you can also find other works on and by John Mitchel and on Irish convicts and the Young Ireland Movement

Popular question 2: “do you hold census records?”

Its the eve of the Australian Census of Population and Housing. Since 1901 every 10 years (every 5 years since 1961) Australia has taken a count of each household, and every individual within that household, on one night. It is the largest collection of statistical information on Australia's population. We often receive requests for these census records in Family History here at SLNSW.

Unfortunately, we have to say ‘no’ to most requests for census returns as until 2001 once the statistical processing had been completed, all name-identified information was routinely destroyed. Family historians of the next millennium will have better options however, as in 2001 a report Saving Our Census and Preserving Our History recommended keeping name-identified census information ‘for future research, with appropriate safeguards’ as this could ‘make a valuable contribution to preserving Australia's history for future generations’. The report’s recommendation was supported by the Australian population. There is a 99 year closed access period before this material will be available.

What can be freely accessed if you visit us are the 1828 census of New South Wales which is the only census to survive in full to the present day. It aimed to record all the inhabitants of the colony at the time, and provides the individual’s full name, age, place of residence, ship of arrival, occupation employer’s name and place of residence.

We also hold the 1848 New South Wales census which is the most comprehensive of the early census records for the colony as well as many musters, land and stock returns pre-Federation. NSW State Records provides a guide to all musters and census lists that exist for New South Wales, Norfolk Island and Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) which can be accessed here.

Learning about Ryerson Index

We’ve just had a great chat with John Graham of the Ryerson Index. Did you know that Ryerson has 45,000 (yes, forty five thousand) visitors a month? Learn more about this great family history resource that is free and easily accessible on the web.

- John, can you briefly tell me how Ryerson started and who started it?

In 1998, the Sydney Dead Persons Society (DPS) was looking for a project to involve all the members, and I suggested we index the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) death notices and put them on the web. We started this in October 1998, just indexing current notices from the Herald and Daily Telegraph. We called it the Sydney DPS Indexing Project, and it went along well until May 1999, when Joyce Ryerson donated her collection of all SMH death notices 1985-1999 for us to index. That’s why we changed the name.  

- Who works on Ryerson at present?

We have a committee of seven, and between 120 and 150 indexers - the number varies as people take time out because of changed family circumstances, or travel and other lifestyle reasons.

- How many ‘visitors’ does the site have on average month/week? 

We are currently averaging about 45,000 visitors per month, 95% of whom are from Australia.

- Tell me why you think Ryerson is useful to Family History researchers?

As well as providing information on the deceased, a death notice can provide useful information in relation to living relatives. Knowing the names of siblings, and the locations where they live can help locate other family members, and flesh out your basic research. 

As death registrations within the past 30 years are not available through the official BDM indexes, having an up-to-date index of death and funeral notices helps to fill the gap.   

- And why did you get involved in Ryerson?

I’ve been researching my own family since 1975, and realised early on just how valuable was the information locked away in death notices - when they could be found. But to index all the notices in a paper the size of the SMH was beyond the resources of one individual with a job and a young family, so while it was something I wanted to do, it had to wait until the right resources became available. The Sydney DPS provided those resources.

We’ll share more about Ryerson next week - in the meantime, log-on to the Index and take a look!

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Writing Family History: memoir, history and biography

People interested in writing or reading family history and personal memoir in Sydney will be interested to know that members of the Memoir Club for Readers and Writers are holding a session on “Writing Family History: memoir, history and biography”

‘Family history,’ Betty O’Neill writes, ‘is a powerful tool for exploring issues of identity, belonging and memory.’  It’s a trigger for memoir, an intriguing and often challenging subject for memoir writers. When it comes to internet searches, family history is the most popular subject search after internet shopping and pornography.

Memoir Club presents Betty O’Neill in conversation with Tanya Evans, a highly regarded public historian of family, marriage, gender and poverty. We’ll learn about writing family history and hear about Tanya Evans’ passion for incorporating true stories of ordinary people and places into our knowledge of history.

Tanya Evans is a social and cultural historian of motherhood, marriage, the family, sexuality, gender and poverty in Britain and Australia from 1750 to the present, a senior lecturer at Macquarie University. Her most recent book is the rich and revealing Fractured Families: Life On The Margins in Colonial New South Wales (University of New South Wales Press Ltd, 2015).

Betty O'Neill's research into the life of her absent Polish father – a resistance fighter and Roman Catholic who survived Auschwitz and Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camps – took her to both those sites and to archives in Poland, Austria and England. 'Family history,' Betty writes, 'is a powerful tool for exploring issues of identity, belonging and trans-generational memory.'

Time: Tuesday 26 July 6.00 - 9.00 PM

Where: The Randwick Literary Institute, 60 Clovelly Road, Randwick 2031. 

 02-9398 5203 for more information

http://randwickliteraryinstitute.com.au/faqs/

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In 2014 the Society of Australian Genealogists (SAG) established the annual Croker Prize for Biography. Each year members of the society can submit entries in the form of a short biographical essay of between 800 and 1,000 words, and the theme this year was  ‘The ancestor I most admire is ….

The 2016 competition is now closed but the entries can be found on the Society’s website here.  The winner will be announced shortly on the Society’s website. 

As a family historian, it is very interesting to read the short biographical essays of some fascinating people as well as to scan the references for sources you might not have thought to look at for your own family history. 

Rugby League at the Sportsground; Queensland v NSW.  1930s ? Taken for Sam Hood's news services. 

It’s State of origin 2 on 22nd June 2016 where New South Wales plays Queensland in the annual best of three series. Queensland is the defending premiers and they also won match one so New South Wales has to win this match to keep the series alive. 

Rugby league is one of the most popular sports in Australia, particularly in New South Wales and Queensland. The State Library of New South Wales has Rugby league magazines such as Rugby league week from 1970 onwards. RLW has also been digitised by Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre from 2002 and it is available from home for clients with a State Library NSW card who are New South Wales residents. We also have Rugby league news 1920-1973 and Big League 1974 onwards.  We also hold The Tom Brock Collection 1902-1997 relating to rugby league and the South Sydney District Rugby League Football Club.

New Zealand and Australia have always had a friendly rivalry, which manifests itself in sporting competitions such as the Bledisloe Cup, and also debates over who invented the meringue based dessert the pavlova which is supposed to have been created to honour the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova during one of her tours to Australia or New Zealand.   Australians also have a tendency to claim famous Kiwis as our own from Phar Lap to Crowded House, Split Enz, Russell Crowe, and even Keith Urban. 

However we have to give the Kiwis credit for creating Papers Past, which provides online access to digitised newspapers at the National Library of New Zealand. The collection covers the years 1839 to 1920 and includes publications from all regions of New Zealand.The range of periodicals and the number of pages available will increase as the project develops. Papers past, like the pavlova was invented in New Zealand and it influenced the development of arguably the best newspaper database in the world, Trove which has digitised significant newspapers from the Australian states and territories from 1803 to the 1950s. 

Anna Pavlova, as the Dying Swan / Spencer Shier, Melbourne, 1926

Kiama Family, Local and Social History Expo

Last month’s Family, Local & Social History Expo hosted by Kiama Family History Centre was a huge success and we were happy to be a part of it and meet so many people engaged in research across the family and local history spectrum. Close to 1,000 people attended this years Expo.

Gail Davis from NSW State Records presented a fascinating paper “Pandora’s Box: Lifting the Lid on the Weird & Wonderful at State Archives” which was well received. An archivist with many years experience working at NSW State Records, Gail has written a number of guides and finding aides such as Using the Archives Resources Kit and the Convict Guide, which was published in 2006.

Another speaker was Ray Thorburn who discussed the number of different schemes operating in Australia and expose some unknown facts about immigration; did you know that immigration through the Port of Newcastle NSW 1865-1880 is indexed, but is not available online?

There was a huge variety of different stands this year including Royal Australian Historical Society, Ryerson Index, Shoalhaven Family History Society, Illawarra Historical Society and the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages.

We were delighted to be amongst such fine company, and congratulate  Kiama Family History Centre for organising such a wonderful event.

Continuing the theme of the genealogy of politicians in Australia, the opposition leader in Australia is called Bill Shorten. I have not been able to find his family tree but according to a Sunday Profile transcript and a Sydney Morning Herald interview his father, a British migrant was a ship’s second engineer from Tyneside and both his grandfathers had been Tyneside shipyard union leaders and his mother’s family were Irish Catholic and the first of McGrath’s and O’Shea’s and Nolan’s came out to Australia in about 1853 to discover gold. 

Many politicians in Australia have been of Irish descent, including Sir Richard Bourke 8th Governor of New South from 1831-1837 who was born in Dublin, he encouraged the emancipation of convicts and helped bring forward the ending of transportation. There is a statue of Governor Bourke outside the Mitchell library facing the botanic gardens. Other politicians of Irish descent include Kevin Rudd, 26th Prime Minister of Australia whose maternal grandmother came from Ballingarry in Co Tipperary and  Paul Keating, 24th Prime Minister of Australia who grew up in Bankstown, which was called Irishtown in the 1800s because of the large number of residents who hailed from Ireland. Barry O’Farrell, former premier of New South Wales is also descended from Irish immigrants who arrived in Victoria in the 1860s and his grandfather was a Police Officer, also a popular occupation for Irish in Australia. 

[Sir Richard Bourke statue, Sydney] SPF / 205

On May 8th, The Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced the date of the Australia Federal Election for July 2nd 2016. Malcolm Turnbull’s middle name is Bligh which has given rise to the myth that he is a descendant of William Bligh (1754-1817), best remembered for the mutiny which occurred on the HMS Bounty in 1789; and on 26 January 1808 when he was Governor of New South Wales, he was deposed during the so called Rum Rebellion. 

Malcolm Turnbull is actually descended from John Turnbull, 1751-1834, who was a supporter of Bligh and in recognition of Bligh’s good treatment of landowners in the Hawkesbury named his youngest son William Bligh Turnbull and the tradition has continued ever since. Malcolm Turnbull’s family tree is reproduced on People Australia 

The State Library of NSW has the John Turnbull family Bible, with manuscript entries on the Turnbull family, 1792-1892. John Turnbull  came to New South Wales on the Coromandel 13 June 1802, he was born in Scotland. John Turnbull also signed an address complimenting Bligh on his reforms and complaining of injustice at the hands of the rebel government. (Call No.: SAFE 1/48: copies at Safe 1/48 and CY 179).

 William Bligh, ca. 1814 - watercolour on ivory miniature MIN 53

1939 register on findmypast

The State Library of NSW has access to the 1939 Register on findmypast. The 1939 Register, taken on 29 September 1939, provides a snapshot of the civilian population of England and Wales just after the outbreak of the Second World War.  As the 1931 census for England and Wales was destroyed by fire during the Second World War and no census was taken in 1941, the 1939 Register provides the most complete survey of the population of England and Wales between 1921 and 1951.

From the Guardian: "Notable entries include James Bond creator Ian Fleming, then 31, who stated his main job as “stockbroker”, while the grandfather of Victoria Beckham was working on the London Docks and living in Tottenham.The register also includes Joseph Kennedy, father of the future US president, John F Kennedy, who is listed as ambassador to the United Kingdom. In Port Talbot, the actor Anthony Hopkins is a toddler living with his parents. His father, Richard, is a baker and his mother is a housewife called Muriel."

It was the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death on Saturday 23 April 2016 and the State Library of NSW is celebrating by displaying Australia’s only complete set of Shakespeare’s four folios in the Library’s Amaze Gallery. They will be on display in the AMAZE Gallery throughout April, along with other extraordinary Shakespeariana from the Library’s rich collections. The Library’s stunning Shakespeare Room – arguably one of the most unusual places in Australia – will be open from 10am to 4pm from 18 to 29 April (except 24 and 25 April).

Historians don’t know Shakepeare’s date of birth, but his christening was recorded on the 26 April 1564 and it was usual for christenings to take place on the third day after birth. For more information about his life see the BBC’s William Shakespeare: The life and legacy of England’s bard 

The poet’s family tree is also available on the Shakespeare family history site although recent evidence shows that it might be incorrect. 

Bust of William Shakespeare / by J. Hogarth