Week 49 (Dec. 3-9) Written

OK, it's soapbox time again!

I have blogged several times over the past few years about the importance of family historians recording their own significant events for inclusion in their family history, to be handed down to future generations.

In 2020 the world experienced a historic global pandemic, with many of us moving in and out of lockdowns and various restrictions on our daily lives as the world struggled to limit the spread and impact of Covid-19.  Like many I was stood down from my job, saw businesses close and contacts restricted, and in the small community where I live, unforgettably saw armed police restricting travel across the state border.  I spent my 50th birthday in lockdown, isolated at home.

While many of my memories of the pandemic restrictions, which flowed on into 2021, are stressful, there were also many positives.  So many people came together to keep each other going.  Online shopping boomed and the concept of 'click and collect' became (and remains) common.  In the genealogical community meetings and conferences went online and access to many digitised records were relaxed to make research from home easier.  The idea of working from home became much more common in many industries.  During this time I did my best to record my experiences and feelings, both positive and negative.

Hard on the heels of 2 years of Covid lockdowns, 2022 saw my home area suffer the worst floods in living memory.  While my home itself was not impacted, many friends saw their homes flood, roads and highways were cut, access to services cut, shops closed and like many I came under an evacuation order.  

We watched the Murray River flood parkland, the water creeping closer and closer, flooding homes and breeching levies like the one behind the library where I work - see the photo below.  As the water rose the community came together to frantically sandbag homes and businesses, another wonderful show of community spirit in the face of a crisis.

These are memories that need to be recorded as part of our family history.  We have all lived through a global pandemic and lived through or witnessed a number of historic events in recent years.  Recording our memories of such major events should be a part of our family history records, for the generations that come after us.

Then there are the smaller events of family significance.  A birthday, anniversary, funeral, graduation, family reunion and so on.  These need to be recorded and added to your family story.

So please, become your own storyteller and get record your memories.  Get it written.

Who Do You Think You Are Magazine

The latest issue of Who Do You Think You Are magazine is now available free online for Campaspe Library members via our subscription to Libby eMagazines.

Inside this month's issue : 

• Common last names How to trace elusive ancestors
• The war detectives Meet the researchers identifying the remains of the fallen
• DNA test buyer's guide Our expert's verdict
• Christmas in the workhouse How our ancestors celebrated
• Orphanages and children's homes Find records online
• Around Britain Merseyside
• And more..... 

 

Website Wednesday - Meyer's Gazetteer

Meyer's is arguably the most important of all German gazetteers. The goal of the Meyer’s compilers was to list every place name in the German Empire (1871-1918). It gives the location, i.e. the state and other jurisdictions, where the civil registry office was and parishes if that town had them. It also gives lots of other information about each place. The only drawback to Meyer’s is that if a town did not have a parish, it does not tell where the parish was, making reference to other works necessary.

Searching Meyer's

Type the name of your place in the search box.

• You can use a wildcard * (an asterisk) in your search. For example, ‘*gheim’ will return ‘Balgheim, Bergheim, Bietigheim, Billigheim’ and anything else that ends in ‘gheim’.
• You can type only the beginning of a name and it will return all places that begin with those letters. For example, ‘Neu’ will return ‘Neu Abbau, Neu Abschwangen, Neuacker, Neuafrika’ and many others.
• You do not need to include umlauts; ‘Munchen’ and ‘München’ will return ‘München.’ You can type umlauts if you wish, but you should not expand umlauts, e.g. ‘ü’ as ‘ue’, as that will return no hits.

A list of places with that name will appear—all those places of the same name, but with other jurisdictions which will help you identify your town.

• You can ‘Filter results by region’ with the drop-down menu. The regions are the various states/provinces of the Second German Empire (1871-1918). Filtering will help you determine the correct town by narrowing the number of returns you get.

Choose the town for which you want more information. This takes you to the ‘Entry’ page.

• You will see the name of your town and a menu that includes the following items: Entry, Map, Ecclesiastical, Related, E-mail, and Feedback.  You can click on each for more information.
• You will see the entry as it appears in Meyer’s, the extraction of the entry, the explanation of the extraction, and a map. The extractions include and are primarily limited to jurisdictions and parish information. The explanations are helpful for those who do not speak German or are not familiar with the old jurisdictions. For example, you will learn what Kreis, Bezirkskommando, and Landgericht mean.
• By clicking on ‘View entry on PDF of the original page,’ you can see the entire page on which the entry appears.
• Click on ‘Show previous and next entry’ to see the previous and following entries. If there was a correction in the Meyer’s addendum, this will also be indicated.

Family Tree UK Magazine

The latest issue of Family Tree UK magazine is now available free online for Campaspe Library members via our subscription to Libby eMagazines.

Inside this month's issue : 

• Findmypast’s Pals Campaign
• Blenheim Palace develops pioneering digital twin
• 41,356 census substitute records from Fermanagh, Wexford, Cork, Dublin & Kerry now online
• Call for presentations: Academic Genealogy Conference, June 2026
• Locate shipping company ephemera via online catalogue
• Prize-winning educators at The National Archives
• Barley purchase orders, 1825-1834 
• New look Family Chartmasters’ website 
• DNA Club news 
• A Family History Manual: ‘An excellent example of sharing knowledge’
• Tracing Royal Marine ancestors at sea and at home
• Desolate and destitute
• Speeding up family history with AI for genealogy safely & strategically
• How does Family History fit into history?
• And more... 

Week 48 (Nov. 26-Dec. 2) Family Recipe

I have commented before on the family recipe book, primarily created by my sister.  One of the more fun jobs while we were cleaning out the family home was emptying out Mum's recipe drawer.  While the drawer contained a few proper cooking books, and some complete magazines, it was primarily a combination of loose snippets torn or photocopied from old magazines and books, and hand-written recipes from who-knows-where.  Many had notes written on them - things like substitutions of ingredients and notes on who particularly liked the dish.  There were also a number of recipes written out by others and given to Mum - by several different friends and relatives, judging by the assorted handwriting.  She even had a little A5 folder with hand-written favourites stored inside.

Included in that recipe drawer were the details of so many dishes we remembered from our childhoods - some with fondness and some with a shudder!  My sister and I spent an entire afternoon sorting through these scraps of paper, reading them out to each other and sharing our memories.  Yes, there really WAS a recipe for Dixon Street Chicken!  Do you remember Mum's spaghetti and mince casserole?  So many family recipes are now recorded in our family recipe book, complete with notes and comments.

Food, cooking and mealtimes are such an important part of our families, and so often discounted.  What was your favourite home-cooked meal as a child?  Do you have the recipe, and do you ever cook it for yourself as an adult??  Do you remember any cooking disasters - either your own or that of another family member?  Having them written down with all our memories and stories attached to each recipe is something I treasure, and such a simple thing to create.  If you a looking for a Family History project, maybe a family recipe book is something to consider.

Week 47 (Nov. 19-25) The Name's the Same

Every family has their popular names - names that appear generation after generation regardless of fashion.  There were also fads among names - copying that of the current Monarch and their family, for example, as well as using a traditional name common amongst ancestors.

Naming patterns were also frequent in many families, although they are by no means a reliable way of predicting the names of children.  Traditionally, the first son would be named for the paternal grandfather, the second son for the maternal grandfather and the third son for the father.  For females, the first daughter would be named for the maternal grandmother, the second daughter for the paternal grandmother and the third daughter for the mother.  Providing, of course, these names were not the same.  

In the 1700s the top five names for each gender were :
Boys - John, William, Thomas, Richard and James
Girls - Mary, Elizabeth, Ann, Sarah and Jane

In the 1800s the top five names for each gender were :
Boys - John, William, James, George and Charles
Girls - Mary, Anna, Emma, Elizabeth and Margaret

There was also the tendency, unusual as it may seem to us today, of reusing the name of a child who had died.  In the 1700's and 1800's this occurs frequently in my family tree, with the name of a child who has died in infancy being reused for the next child of the same gender born to the family.  

This can make research quite tricky, especially when a popular name has been used by several branches of a family.  In my Irish Mulholland family, for example, four brothers all named their first son James, after their father.  One child died at 2 days old and the name was reused 18 months later.  This meant there were five children named James Mulholland, born within six years and a few miles of each other.  Sorting out which records belong with which child is quite a challenge.

Then two of them married women named Mary.

Week 46 (Nov. 12-18) Wartime

Russell Nicholas Clark, WW2

This week the focus is 'Wartime' which seems fitting as we have just commemorated Remembrance Day.  As I have commented previously my family was extremely lucky, in both world wars and other conflicts, to have most of those who served not only come home, but come home fairly unscathed.  Once second cousin was killed in France in World War 1 ; one uncle died in the Merchant Navy in World War 2.  All the other relatives who served – my father, uncles and great-uncles and more recently several cousins - returned safely to their loved ones.  While they all had to live with the memories of the conflicts, they were mostly uninjured by their experiences and able to rebuild their civilian lives.  

So many others were not so fortunate.  Numerous Australian families endured the loss of loved ones on foreign soil, the arrival of the dreaded telegram, or the return of family members forever scarred by their service.  So many who returned faced a lifetime of ruined health or years of recovery and rehabilitation, and ongoing trauma from their wartime experiences.  My family has been lucky indeed.

 

Ernest Green, WW2 postcard from Egypt

Through the National Archives of Australia I have downloaded several family military records -  the NAA has indexed and digitised Boer War and World War 1 and 2 dossiers, which you can search and view online for free.  Other websites include Discovering Anzacs which allows you to add your stories and images, and the Australian War Memorial, which has databases like the WW1 Embarkation Rolls and WW1 Red Cross files.  Researching  newspaper reports in Trove has also been a gold mine, with reports of enlistments, farewells, news from the front, even letters home published in local papers.

Remembrance Day

Remembrance Day, once known as Armistice Day, is one of our most important commemorative dates. On 11 November 1918, the guns on the Western Front fell silent, and the armistice with Germany to end the fighting on land, in the air and at sea was signed.

Each year on 11 November we pause as a nation at 11am for one minute of silence to honour all those who have suffered and lost their lives during wars, conflicts and peacekeeping operations.

A wonderful resource for hosts of a Remembrance Day service, or those commemorating at home, is available from the Department of Veterans Affairs.  Through their ANZAC Portal, they have a free Remembrance Day Kitbag.  It includes the order of service, music, making a speech, the Ode of Remembrance, a brief history, suggestions for a personal commemoration, guidelines to making a paper poppy, and more.

So wherever you are at 11am this 11th of November, take a minute to pause and remember those who have served to protect our freedoms.

Lest We Forget.

Week 45 (Nov. 5-11) Multiple

For the prompt of 'Multiple' I have chosen Thomas May, my 3xGreat Grandfather, who married multiple times.  Thomas had a total of 5 wives, outliving all of them.

Thomas May was born 20 September 1762 in West Mersea, Essex and was baptised 16 October 1762 at the church of St Peter and St Paul.  He died on 27 February 1843 in West Mersea and was buried on 7 March 1843. 

Wife 1 – Elizabeth Godwin
Born 1763 Thorrington, Essex
Married 27 March 1787 Thorrington, Essex
Died 25 August 1790 West Mersea, Essex
Children – Thomas, Edward

Wife 2 – Sarah Sadler
Born 1775 West Mersea, Essex
Married 1792 West Mersea, Essex
Died 7 January 1799 West Mersea, Essex
Children – Elizabeth, Sarah, Hannah, John

Wife 3 – Henrietta Stevens
Born Unknown
Married 12 May 1801 St Mary, Lambeth, Surrey
Died 2 May 1812 West Mersea
Children – Henry, Mary

Wife 4 – Susannah Balls Green
Born 7 June 1770 West Bergholt, Essex
Married 10 November 1818 Fordham, Essex
Died 11 February 1828 West Mersea, Essex
Children - Nil

Wife 5 – Mary Ann Pullen
Born 13 October 1791 West Mersea, Essex
Married 9 August 1829 West Mersea, Essex
Died 1838 West Mersea, Essex
Children – Edward, Sophia Mary Ann

It is his 4th wife, Susannah Green (nee Balls), where the relationships become truly convoluted.  Susannah's son Isaac (from her first husband John Green) was married to Thomas's eldest daughter Elizabeth.  So Thomas became not only father-in-law but also step-father to Isaac, and his new wife Susannah became mother-in-law and step-mother to Betsy.

Family Tree US Magazine

The latest issue of Family Tree US magazine is now available free online for Campaspe Library members via our subscription to Libby eMagazines. 

Inside this month's issue : 

• Web Highlight: Family Tree Turns 25
• ‘Monumental’ Updates to AncestryDNA
• MyHeritage ends DNA uploads
• ‘Finding Your Roots’: Back for Season 12
• Records of Recent US Generations
• Sharing Stories with Relatives
• Tour Family Tree Maker 2024
• Next steps in DNA
• Tools of the Writing Trade
• What to Do With Too Few (or Too Many) Recipes
• Exploring Records at Scotland’s People
• Preserving Pet Memorabilia
• On the Origin of Surnames
• Where and How to Find Your Immigrant Ancestors
• And more... 

 

Website Wednesday - The Rats of Tobruk Association

This October has seen the 80th anniversary of the establishment of the Victorian Branch of the Rats of Tobruk Association.  The story of the Rats of Tobruk looms large in the Australian memories of World War 2.  The Rats of Tobruk website includes the story of the siege, Honour Roll, Vale Notices and more.  There is a link to an online exhibition and to the Association's online journal.

Around 14,000 Australians were in Tobruk during the siege. After they returned to Australia, the veterans looked for continued comradeship. They wanted to perpetuate the ties created amongst those who were in Tobruk during the siege and to ensure any in need were supported. In 1944, the Rats of Tobruk Association, NSW was established. This was followed by the establishment of the Victorian Branch on 2nd October 1945. From there, other branches and sub-branches were established across Australia. In 1946, a Federal Council was established, which was responsible for coordination of the many branches and sub-branches being established. 

In more recent times, branches and sub-branches have been wound up owing to the small number of surviving veteran members. The only exception has been the Victorian Branch. In 2012, veteran members of the Victorian Branch, decided to open membership to descendants and relatives. Since then many new members have joined the Rats of Tobruk Association Inc (the former Victorian Branch). Membership has grown to over 400 Affiliate Members from across Australia.

Who Do You Think You Are Magazine

The latest issue of Who Do You Think You Are magazine is now available free online for Campaspe Library members via our subscription to Libby eMagazines.

Inside this month's issue : 

• Ancestry wins appeal over access to Scottish records
• New digitisation project will put 'Tudor Domesday Book' online
• Welsh Women's Peace Petition exhibition opens
• Migration's rich rewards 
• Your complete guide to family trees 
• Researching a Glaswegian ancesto 
• Convict transportation
• Houses and streets
• National school records 
• And more... 

Week 44 (Oct. 29-Nov. 4) Rural

Earlier #52Weeks (Week 32) the focus was 'Wide Open Spaces' and I wrote about being born on a sheep station called Para and growing up in the country.

Para Homestead

Many of my ancestors lived in rural areas.  My father's family had strong ties to Fordham Hall (also called Manor Farm) in Essex, being tennants at the Hall for several generations.  Although they were not the owners, they were major local landholders and were the gentry of their small community.

Fordham Hall, Essex

 

The Green family of Fordham Hall farmed the land, kept a pack of foxhounds,and took part in many community events.  The article below, from the 'Essex Standard' on Friday 13 October 1837, mentions Isaac Green of Fordham as one of the judges at the annual meeting of the local Agricultural Society.

Week 43 (Oct. 22-28) Urban

While many of my ancestors were farmers and farm labourers, others resided in a much more urban setting.  Tracing their addresses through censuses, directories, newspaper articles and other resources.  As cities grew and industrialisation drew many into urban living, urban ancestors became more and more common.

One ancestor, Christopher Prentice, worked as a Water Bailiff in Ipswich, Suffolk in the late 1700s.  Too early for the census records, much of my knowledge of Christopher's life comes from newspaper articles.

I hadn't known the job of Water Bailiff  was an elected position until I found the article above, which was placed in the Ipswich Journal on Saturday 12 September 1778 thanking those who had elected him to the position for their trust.

Website Wednesday - Old & Interesting

Antique household equipment, furnishings, utensils - housekeeping as part of social history. Domestic life, household management - how people ran their homes and did the daily chores. Yesterday's everyday objects are today's antiques or museum pieces, making us curious about past ways of life.

Old & Interesting takes a look at how these everyday things were used, how people managed their home life - and more.

The site includes a history of laundry - a unique set of pages about laundry methods and tools, including histories of  ironing, washboards,  starch and bluing.

There is a Kitchen Antiques Directory for the best online resources on culinary equipment, cooking and eating tools as well as baking, butter, and other traditional and historic food preparation pages
 

Information on beds and bedding includes featherbeds and bed warmers for comfort, or simple straw mattresses and rustic box beds.
 

There are also one-off pages on topics from brooms to meat screens or hasteners to cleaning with stone and sand.
 

Week 42 (Oct. 15-21) Fire

Fire has the potential to have a devastating impact on family history records.  This has long been evident in the impact the loss of the Dublin Public Records Office on researching Irish ancestors. 

The Battle of the Four Courts, the opening engagement of the Irish Civil War, began on 28 June 1922. National Army forces of the Irish Free State were attempting to drive Anti-Treaty Republicans from the Four Courts, and other locations in Dublin. 

The Anti-Treaty garrison had occupied the Four Courts and the Public Record Office 10 weeks earlier, on the night of Holy Thursday 13 April. The Easter date was significant as it linked their campaign with the Easter Rising of 1916. From April to mid-June 1922 political tensions grew, but there were still some friendly contacts between the two sides. In late June the Free State’s National Army surrounded the entire Four Courts complex. In the early hours of Wednesday 28 June they gave the Anti-Treaty forces an ultimatum – evacuate the building or they would open fire. 

At around 4.45 am, just before sunrise, an artillery gun firing 18 pound shells opened fire on the building, accompanied by machine gun and rifle fire. The battle had begun.

Early in the afternoon of 30 June, after two days of fighting, the Four Courts was shaken by a tremendous explosion. 

This shattered the eastern wall of the Record Treasury of the Public Record Office and threw burning material in among the paper and parchment records. The explosion produced a dramatic pillar of smoke and flung files, books and scrolls high into the air. Scraps and fragments fell on the streets of the city, some even landed in Howth, 10 km away.

The remains of the Record Treasury

 
The old, dry records on the shelves quickly caught fire. The flames destroyed practically all the records in the Treasury. Within a few hours seven centuries of Ireland’s historical records were gone.

Immediately the opposing sides blamed each other for the disaster. More usefully, though, within days the staff of the Public Record Office began rescuing any surviving records from the ruins. These rare, charred documents, called the ‘Salved Records’, were carefully stored for future investigation.

Amazingly, the fire break designed to save the Record Treasury, worked — but in reverse, protecting the administration office at the front from the terrible fire in the Treasury. This saved many catalogues, and books that described and summarised the records, from the flames. 

Along with the Salved Records, these catalogues and summaries were the starting point in rebuilding the lost Irish records.

Website Wednesday - Welsh Newspapers Online

Welsh Newspapers Online is a free online resource from the National Library of Wales where you can discover millions of articles from the Library’s rich collection of historical newspapers.

Welsh Newspapers Online currently lets you search and access over 1,100,000 pages from nearly 120 newspaper publications generally up to 1910. This resource also includes newspaper content that has been digitised by The Welsh Experience of World War One project.

Welsh Newspapers Online is part-funded by the Strategic Capital Investment Fund and the European Regional Development Fund through the Welsh Government.

There is also the companion site Welsh Journals, which gives access to over 1,200,000 pages from over 475 journals published between 1735 and 2006.

While many of the titles included in these databases were printed in English, there are also a number printed in Welsh.

Family Tree UK Magazine

The latest issue of Family Tree UK magazine is now available free online for Campaspe Library members via our subscription to Libby eMagazines.

Inside this month's issue : 

• A World first: 200th anniversary of Brunel’s underwater tunnel 
• Digitisation of adoption records discussion
• Ancestry appeal to access Scottish records
• DNA Club news
• RootsTech registration 2026 now open
• Branches and Leaves - the importance of researching the whole family
• Suffering and shell shock : the psychological toll of WWI and WWII
• Getting started with AI for genealogy confidently
• The new MitoTree and Million Mito Project
• How to put your story together for publishing
• Further records of the Crown
• And more... 

Who Do You Think You Are Magazine

The latest issue of Who Do You Think You Are magazine is now available free online for Campaspe Library members via our subscription to Libby eMagazines.

Inside this month's issue : 

• A Banner for a hero
• Ancestry adds millions of Birmingham electoral registers
• Free UK Genealogy reveals plans for probate website
• TNA discovers will from Shakespeare family legal dispute
• Records of Irish schools released
• PhD student's family history collection digitised
• A Right Royal to-do - Charles II's visit to Norfolk
• Think outside the box - brick wall research
• The inheritance of trauma
• Stolen by the Nazis
• Asylum Records
• Crime and punishment 
• Protestation Returns 
• And more... 

Week 41 (Oct. 8-14) Water

Water has a profound impact on many lives.  Whether we live by the sea, by a river or far from water influences many aspects of our lives.  Too much water or not enough can be devastating.

Hard on the heels of 2 years of Covid lockdowns, 2022 saw my home area suffer the worst floods in living memory.  While my home itself was not impacted, many friends saw their homes flood, roads and highways were cut, access to services cut, shops closed and like many I came under an evacuation order.  

We watched the Murray River flood parkland, the water creeping closer and closer, flooding homes and breeching levies like the one behind the library where I work - see the photo below.  As the water rose the community came together to frantically sandbag homes and businesses, another wonderful show of community spirit in the face of a crisis.

After the water receded there was the clean-up to follow.  Cleaning and repairing homes, businesses, roads and farmland again involved the entire community.  For many the impact was ongoing.

Recording our memories of such major events should be a part of our family history records, for the generations that come after us.  My memories of the flood are now a part of my own family records, with photographs of the rising water and the devastation it left behind, as well as images of the community coming together to sandbag and support on another.

Website Wednesday - Full Text Searching Arrives at FamilySearch

FamilySearch has announced that Full-Text Search is now part of its standard search tools. Since its initial release in FamilySearch Labs during RootsTech 2024, the feature has undergone numerous enhancements to improve its power and usability. 

FamilySearch hosts billions of digitized historical records, but only a fraction are indexed and searchable. Advancements in artificial intelligence and handwriting recognition are making records searchable much faster than ever before.

Full-Text Search uses AI-generated transcripts to search unindexed record collections in seconds. By entering keywords, names, places, and dates, users can now search almost 2 billion genealogically significant records, most of which were previously accessible only as images.

Unlike traditional indexed searches, Full-Text Search scans the entire transcript of a record, allowing users to find matches in any part of the document. This capability is helping thousands of users uncover relatives and evidence about them in records they may never have considered before.

Full-Text Search is now available on FamilySearch.org in the main Search menu under Full Text. Users can also access the tool through the all-collections search on the signed-in FamilySearch home page and in the FamilySearch Catalog.

Several new features have been added since RootsTech 2024:

• AI-generated summaries of records, including names and relationships.
• Search fields for year, place, and image group number (DGS).
• Almost 2 billion records from various countries and languages.
• Ability to search by specific collections, which are grouped using digitization metadata.
• Automatic translation of record summaries into your preferred language.

Week 40 (Oct. 1-7) Cemetery

The theme for Week 40 is 'Cemetery', and the information to be found on tombstones and in cemeteries cannot be discounted.  From visiting cemeteries in person to finding online cemetery records to uncovering photos of headstones, I have had some wonderful finds.  The information found on headstones can be remarkably varied in content, with anything from a simple name to the details of parents, spouse, children and dates and places of birth and death.  Sometimes finding one relative in a cemetery leads to the discovery of several more, with whole generations of family all buried in the same location. 

The photograph above is the Mulholland family plot in Eurobin, Victoria.  The plot includes two main headstones and several plaques.

The main headstone is for my great great grandfather David Mulholland who died 10 April 1902, age 71 and his wife Eliza Jane who died 30 October 1925, age 95.  Also included on the headstone are three infant children - Samuel Thomas, died 28 April 1879, age 3 months ; Margaret died 5 September 1885 age 10 years, and an unnamed infant son who died 26 January 1887 age 10 days.

The second, smaller headstone is 'erected to the memory of the beloved children of David and Jane Mulholland who died at Boggy Creek.'

Sadly, the three children named on the headstone all died as infants within a few weeks of each other - Henry Mulholland, died 29 January 1872 aged 4 years 8 months, Margaret Jane Mulholland who died 2 February 1872 aged 6 years 4 months and Thomas Mulholland who died 14 February 1872 aged 1 year 2 months.  A stark reminder of the perils of childhood and how disease could carry off several family members in rapid succession - all three died of diphtheria.

Website Wednesday - Victoria Government Gazettes

The first issue of the Victoria Government Gazette was published on 9 July 1851. Before then, material about Victoria was published in the New South Wales Government Gazette, the Port Phillip Government Notices and the Port Phillip Government Gazette.

The gazettes are the government's method of notifying the general public of its decisions and activities. They contain information on everything from land transactions, bankruptcies, reward notices and new acts of parliament, to tenders, patent applications, unclaimed letters and monies, shipping and emigration notices, and more.

Gazette entries may be as brief as a road closure notice or as comprehensive as a 200-page list of everyone who is registered to practice medicine in Victoria.

Early issues of the Victoria Government Gazette were published once a week. In the 1850s the frequency increased, and by the turn of the century the gazette was pressed almost daily.

From 1987 onwards, the gazette has been published in three series:

• General – produced weekly
• Periodical – lengthy, non-urgent notices, published irregularly
• Special – published irregularly

The Online Archive runs from 1836 up to 1997.  You can browse the online gazettes by decade, year, month, day and page.

Traces Magazine

Edition 31 of Australian history and genealogy magazine Traces is now available free online for Campaspe Library members via our subscription to Libby eMagazines.

Inside this month's issue:  

• Kutalayna revived
• Ghosts, grifts and spiritualism
• The mystery on Goold Island
• Death in harness
• Is honesty the best policy?
• Hannah Rigby’s last lark
• A Pandora's box of letters
• Your guide to early portrait photography
• Women worth emulating
• ‘Dependable’ cooking from 1924
• Narryna : a Georgian gem

Week 39 (Sept. 24-30) Disappeared

We all have them - the elusive ancestors who have simply disappeared.

Sometimes we are lucky enough to find them again in unexpected places.  Sometimes they reappear after an absence of years - or decades.  Sometimes they remain elusive and are never found again.

People disappear for all manner of reasons.  They move around the country or the world in search of a better life.  They disappear into prisons, asylums or other institutions.  Their names are spelled so badly the connection is difficult to make.  Perhaps they chose to change their name completely as part of a new start.

Migration can be one of those times when our ancestors simply disappear.  Shipping and immigration records can be sketchy at best, and those recording our ancestors were often not terribly concerned with accurate spelling of names. 

For my own research, it was important to consider if my ancestors might have migrated in stages.  Not everyone went straight from A to B – some visited other points along the way, sometimes taking years to arrive at their final destination.

One such example was the family of my great grandfather, James Nicholas Clark, who was born in Bristol, England or possibly Launceston, Tasmania around 1856, just as the family emigrated to Australia.  James’s younger sister Annie Amelia Clark was born 31 March 1857 in Port Sorrell, Tasmania, where the family lived for at least 12 years before they crossed Bass Strait and settled in Victoria.  I searched in vain for their immigration records for years before I discovered they began their lives in Australia in the state of Tasmania.  I had been searching for their immigration records in the wrong state.  The family 'disappeared'.

Website Wednesday - the Latin Genealogical Word List

As we progress further back with our research, chances increase that we will come across a document written in Latin.  Latin is the language of the Romans. Through the continuing influence of Roman civilization and the use of Latin by the Catholic Church many genealogical resources are written in Latin.

Nearly all Roman Catholic church records used Latin to some extent. Latin was used in the records of most European countries and in the Roman Catholic records of the United States and Canada. Because Latin was used in so many countries, local usage varied. Certain terms were commonly used in some countries but not in others. In addition, the Latin used in British records has more abbreviations than the Latin used in European records. 

Some common genealogical terms include the following :

English	Latin
birth	nati, natus, genitus, natales, ortus, oriundus
burial	sepulti, sepultus, humatus, humatio
christening	baptismi, baptizatus, renatus, plutus, lautus, purgatus, ablutus, lustratio
child	infans, filius/filia, puer, proles
death	mortuus, defunctus, obitus, denatus, decessus, peritus, mors, mortis, obiit, decessit
father	pater
godparent	patrini, levantes, susceptores
godfather	patrinus, compater
godmother	matrina, patrina, commater
husband	maritus, sponsus, conjux, vir
marriage	matrimonium, copulatio, copulati, conjuncti, intronizati, nupti, sponsati, ligati, mariti
marriage banns	banni, proclamationes, denuntiationes
mother	mater
given name	nomen
surname	cognomen
parents	parentes, genitores
wife	uxor, marita, conjux, sponsa, mulier, femina, consors

There are a number of sites online that can help you with translating genealogical records written in Latin.  One such website is the Latin Genealogical Word List.  The website itself also includes links to other sites you may find helpful. 

Family Tree UK Magazine

The latest issue of Family Tree UK magazine is now available free online for Campaspe Library members via our subscription to Libby eMagazines.

Inside this month's issue : 

• New digitised access to Irish newspaper records
• MyHeritage wiki volunteers needed: can you help?
• Trace nearly 200,000 19th-20th century medical ancestors
• Babies in workhouses in Ireland, 1872-1874
• New direction for DNA courses & qualifications
• ‘Was justice served?’ • A new season of Findmypast’s podcast launched August 2025
• Exploring the Pre-1841 Censuses
• Railway lives -  Discovering our ancestors’ work on the tracks
• Thinking of taking a DNA test?
• What are our responsibilities as family historians?
• Treeview - Take the tour 
• ‘Other’ records created by the Crown 
• And more... 

Week 38 (Sept. 17-23) Animals

Animals have always been a big part of my family and throughout my childhood a succession of cats, dogs and other animals filled our home.  We loved them all, and my father was particularly close to our cat Lucy, the last pet in our household before his death.

Lucy was 18.5 years old when she died, and in the last years of her life was frequently referred to as the geriatric attack cat.  When our dog Kiera had died aged 15 a few years previously, Lucy took over her guard dog duties, a task she clearly took very seriously.  Many was the time I looked out our back windows to see Dad walking around his garden, his faithful hound … err cat … at his heels.  As if she understood his failing eyesight, she was always about a metre behind, never in front, never under his feet.  And woe betide any stranger who came near Dad while Lucy was on guard.

I happened to be home the day an electricity meter reader came to the house.  Dad was asleep on his couch on the front verandah, his cat at his side.  Inside the house I heard a strange voice yell and hurried out, to find the meter man retreated off the veranda, Lucy with tail like a bottle brush squarely between him and HER DADDY, and Dad still blissfully asleep.  

Standing on the stones in our driveway, blood trickling down his arm, the man told me what had happened. As he entered the gate and approached the verandah, Lucy woke, sat up and hissed.   When he kept coming she jumped off the couch, fluffed herself up and started to growl.  When he stepped onto the veranda, she flew him, biting and clawing.  The man quickly retreated, and that's when I came out.  There Lucy stayed, firmly between this stranger and Dad, determined he was not getting any nearer.

In the end I had to hold her while the man edged past, quickly read the meter, and retreated again.  "I’m wary of the dogs," he told me, "but I’ve never been attacked by a cat before!"  Fortunately he saw the funny side, as she had drawn blood and I had visions of her being taken away in kitty sized handcuffs!

Over the next few weeks I relayed the story of the geriatric attack cat several times, and was quite taken aback by the number of other visitors who responded that Lucy had warned them off as well.  Friends, our gardener, delivery people, the lady from the chemist delivering Dad's medicines - everyone commented to me that Dad often never woke up as they went about their business, but that cat watched every move they made!  Lucy passed away the day Dad went into hospital, her work done.

A remarkable animal indeed. 

Website Wednesday - Ancestry

Ancestry has again been adding new record sets to their database.  New records sets recently added include :

Australia

• New South Wales, Australia, Police Gazettes,1862-1938 Records 1,369,220
• Victoria, Australia, Police Gazettes, 1925-1933 Records 315,012
• Queensland, Australia, Police Gazettes, 1864-1945 Records 1,249,156
• Queensland, Australia, Blue Books, 1870-1911 Records 9,343
• Queensland, Queensland Criminal Reports, 1860-1907 Records 268
• Western Australia, Australia, Burial Records, 1899-2024 Records 700,434
• Singleton, New South Wales, Australia, Church Records, 1840-1899 Records 10,232
• New South Wales, Australia, Mineworker Fatalities, 1869-1939 Records 1,696
• New South Wales, Australia, List of Convicts and Deserters, 1790-1868 Records 1,114
• New South Wales, Australia, Early Newspaper Index, 1828-1919 Records 4,000

United Kingdom

• Birmingham, England, Electoral Registers, 1833-1972 Records 49,105,506
• Suffolk, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1949 Records 1,532,634
• Suffolk, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-1999 Records 514,948
• Suffolk, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1924 Records 2,213,998
• Suffolk, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812 Records 4,576,549
• Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1924 Records 1,544,406
• Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-1997 Records 413,911
• Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1950 Records 1,091,738
• Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812 Records 2,731,359

Ancestry is one of the largest genealogy websites worldwide, and for those on a tight budget Ancestry Library Edition may be available from your local public library. 

Ancestry Library Edition provides access to all records included in a paid world subscription.  Census, BMD, Military, Immigration, Pictures, Stories, Maps, Trees, etc.  It does not allow you to create your own  online tree and link records to it. 

The database can only be accessed in-house, not from home, but will generally be available on your library's public PCs and via their public wi-fi using your own laptop or tablet.  Records can generally be downloaded to a USB or to your device, and printing may also be available.