Historic Directories

Have you searched some of the historic directories for your ancestors?  The Historic Directories Project is a digital library of local and trade directories for England and Wales, from 1750 to 1919. It contains high quality reproductions of comparatively rare books, essential tools for research into local and genealogical history.  Below is the 1882 Kelly's Directory page for Fordham in Essex, where my ancestor Joseph Green was noted as a major landholder.  He also appears in earlier Post Office Directories, also available from the same site.  The Historic Directories can be search by Location, Decade or Keyword, and is free to use.

Australian Electoral Rolls

The Ancestry.com database contains selected Australian electoral rolls, with the exception of South Australia, that run from 1903-1980. Electoral rolls were compiled by each state during election years to determine the number and names of individuals eligible to vote. Information listed in electoral rolls usually includes:
•Number
•Name of voter
•Gender
•Address
•Occupation
Electoral rolls are great records to use as “census substitutes.” They are useful when census records are either not complete or non-existent, and are usually available in between census years. Because electoral rolls were published on a fairly consistent basis and are generally country-wide, they are useful for tracking individuals over time and place.
Below is the Electoral Roll image for my Great-Grandmother Eliza Jennion and her second husband Edward, who were living in Charlotte Place, St Kilda at the time of this roll in 1914.

Henry Montgomery Clark

My Great-Uncle, Henry Montgomery Clark, served in World War Two along with three of his brothers, David James, Leonard Rupert and Russell Nicholas.  All were in different units and I have been told 3 served in the Middle East, and found themselves in the siege of Tobruk.  Originally I has been told all 4 brothers served un Tobruk, but have since been corrected - beware the inaccurate family story!  While I knew about their WW2 military service I was surprised to find that Henry also served in the Militia during the 1930s - something I discovered while searching family records on Recordsearch at the National Archives of Australia.  Below is his enlistent form in the militia in 1934.

Eliza Pummeroy

This article from The Argus on 9 May 1901 concerns my great grandmother Eliza Pummeroy who was left destitute upon the death of her husband.  I had never known she faced the courts in an application for relief.  Her children did end up in care for a while, until after Eliza remarried.  Not only does this article tell about her struggle but also fills in a lot of the detail on the death of her husband Alfred.

Another great article found on Trove.

FamilySearch

FamilySearch has changed the look of their website. When you go to the relaunched website for the first time, it should offer you a video tour of the website enhancements. Amongst the new features are the ability to build a family tree and share photos of ancestors online. This provides a new avenue for making contact with others researching your family and sharing your knowledge and family stories.
While searching the historical records is still completely open, access to most of the new features requires registering to sign in to the site.  Access is still free and registering is also free and quick to do.
FamilySearch.org has also made available a new collection of some 74,000 images of Tasmania civil registration records from 1803 to 1933. These are birth, baptism, marriage, death and burial records from the Archives Office of Tasmania. The images are organized region and then by type of record. The images are not searchable by name and many of the records were kept in ledger books as opposed to individual certificates, so it will require some digging to find an ancestor.

Europeana 1914-1918

Europeana 1914-1918 is based on an initiative at the University of Oxford where people across Britain were asked to bring family letters, photographs and keepsakes from the War to be digitised. The success of the idea – which became the Great War Archive – has encouraged Europeana, Europe’s digital archive, library and museum, to bring other national or local institutions across Europe into an alliance with Oxford University.  The project is collecting memorabilia and stories from the period of the Great War (1914-1918). This phase of the project is focussing on European items: letters, postcards, photographs and stories from Germany, Luxembourg, Ireland, Slovenia and the UK.

The Word on the Street - Scottish Broadsheets

In the centuries before there were newspapers and 24-hour news channels, the general public had to rely on street literature to find out what was going on. The most popular form of this for nearly 300 years was 'broadsides' - the tabloids of their day. Sometimes pinned up on walls in houses and ale-houses, these single sheets carried public notices, news, speeches and songs that could be read (or sung) aloud.
The National Library of Scotland's online collection of nearly 1,800 broadsides lets you see for yourself what 'the word on the street' was in Scotland between 1650 and 1910. Crime, politics, romance, emigration, humour, tragedy, royalty and superstitions - all these and more are here.
Each broadside comes with a detailed commentary and most also have a full transcription of the text, plus a downloadable PDF facsimile. You can search by keyword, browse by title or browse by subject.