The Online Genealogical Index

The Online Genealogical Index is a website aimed at helping you find specific genealogical records online, both free versions of records and those on subscription sites such as Ancestry and FindMyPast.  Known as the O.G.I. for short, this database covers more than 400,000 records for England, Wales and the Isle of Man. Other countries may be added in the future.  The OGI is completely free to use and requires no registration.

 The Online Genealogical Index has grown over the past few years from a few thousand data sets to a over 407,000 covering all major subscription sites and thousands of small sites unknown to many. These include:

• transcriptions of parish registers
• graveyard surveys
• pedigrees
• school records and more

A data set can contain a handful of records or tens of thousands. The OGI has gone through a complete reworking in March 2021 to speed searching and add new filtering options. All you need is a place and approximate year to get started.  If your ancestor gives their birthplace on a census or you know a marriage location, searching these areas can result in links to sites holding records for that place.  You can even specify record type and year ranges.  Results will show if the site holding the record set is free or subscription.

Clicking on the blue links will take you to the required page in a new tab.

You can read the latest information about the OGI by using the News link in the menu to read the blog.  Data is uploaded every few weeks.

WDYTYA 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

• Archives in lockdown
  Jonathan Scott looks at how local archives have risen to the challenge of the coronavirus pandemic
• Get creative
  Jerome de Groot on how family history research can inspire your creativity – from writing to art
• Old newspapers
  The best websites for searching newspaper archives
• Cartoon capers
  The old comics that delighted generations of Britain’s children
• Family hero
  Erica Ward celebrates a suffragist in her tree
• Plus…
  How to improve your online searching, understanding Home Guard records, the lives of ancestors who worked as clerks and much more…

Irish Lives Remembered

The latest issue of the free quarterly online Irish Family History magazine 'Irish Lives Remembered' is out now.   The magazine can be downloaded and read on your computer or tablet.

Articles: 

• Fiona Fitzsimons and Helen Moss - President Joseph Biden's Irish Roots. Part 2: The Scanlon Family,
• Eamonn P. (Ned) Kelly – The Winter Bower of the Sun God and his Consort,
• Brigit McCone – The Rebellion of Dervorgilla, Queen of Tyrconnell,
• Deirdre Powell – The Increase in Appreciation of Irish Composer Ina Boyle (1889–1967),
• Jacqueline Gallup – Dúchas: An Invaluable Resource for Folklore and for Family Historians. Part I: Folklore and the Connection to Family History. Part II: An Interview with Críostóir Mac Cárthaigh, Director of the National Folklore Collection,
• Nathan Mannion – David Herbison: The Poet Laureate of Ballymena (County Antrim) 
• Paul MacCotter – The Barretts of County Cork. Part One: The Early History.
• Book Review - A Review of Fashion and Family History: Interpreting How Your Ancestors Dressed [Patrick Roycroft reviews the latest book by Jayne Shrimpton]
• Book Excerpt – Fashion and Family History: Interpreting How Your Ancestors Dressed (2021, Pen and Sword Family History) by Jayne Shrimpton.
• The Genealogical Publishing Company Book Excerpt – Clan Callaghan: The O Callaghan Family of County Cork (2020 revised edition) by Professor Joseph P. O Callaghan

Regular columns: 

• Dear Genie (Our Genealogists help you with your research block)
• Photodetective (Jayne Shrimpton analyses one of your family photos)
• Patrick's Page (Patrick Roycroft deals with a client at the Irish Family History Centre)
• FMP Roundup (Niall Cullen lets us know of the new Irish genealogy records that have been added to Findmypast)

AncestryHour

Have you discovered AncestryHour yet?  AncestryHour is a Twitter base for everyone and anyone, professionals and amateurs alike, with an interest in Genealogy, Family & Local History.   With AncestryHour you can meet online, exchange tips, promote your services, ask questions and engage with an international following within the ancestral community.

The group currently gets together on Twitter every Tuesday evening from 7.00 - 8.00 pm GMT.  The chat is led by a team of eight well known and well respected genealogists and historians, each with their own specialism but united in their passion for the past. 

If you are not able to participate in the weekly chat, you can still participate at any time and follow the conversations on Twitter or Facebook.  For those isolated at home, it is yet another avenue for communicating with fellow genealogists, to keep learning and researching, and keep up your interest.

Memories of Covid-19

As restrictions due to the global pandemic ease for us in Australia, many archives and libraries are recording for future generations people's experiences of the crisis.  As family historians, we need to do the same thing and record our own experiences of this time.

The Covid19 pandemic has been (and still is) a major historical event.  For all of us who have lived through it, there will be memories of Covid, both positive and negative, that stand out.  There were, and still are, new routines, changes in how we live, work, communicate, shop, relax, learn, and more.  We will never forget the sight of police blockading state borders, images of empty streets at midday in our cities, the shock of walking into a supermarket and seeing panic buying or stripped shelves.  Then there are the more personal experiences - business closures and work stand downs, learning to work from home or change our daily routines.

Then there are the positive experiences.  Teddy bears and rainbows in windows, people standing at the end of their driveways on ANZAC Day, the joy of getting out and about after lockdowns ease.  For many of us the simple pleasures in life have taken on new significance as we rediscover them after the trial of lockdowns.

For myself, there are a number of memories I have recorded already.  Living in a border town, the sight of police on the bridge between our twin towns came as a shock the first time I saw them, even though I already knew they were there.  There was the shock and uncertainty of being stood down from my job, not once but twice.  The sight of neighbours all out standing at the end of their driveways for dawn service on ANZAC Day.  The friends who appeared on the road outside my house to sing 'Happy Birthday' to me (in an appropriately socially distanced manner) when my 50th birthday fell during the second big lockdown.

These stories are all part of my personal contribution to my family history and I hope that one day, years from now, family members will look back at the stories and emotions I have recorded and it will help them understand the impact Covid19 has had on our lives.

Scotlands People

ScotlandsPeople has announced that thousands of volumes of historical records from the collections of National Records of Scotland (NRS) are now available online for the first time.

Images of more than a million pages from the kirk session and other court records of the Church of Scotland can now be viewed and downloaded. These records contain details of key events in communities across the country between 1559 and 1900 and are one of the most important sources for Scottish historical research.

You are able to browse through the kirk session records for free, only using credits when you would like to save an image, as these records are made available without intensive indexing of their contents by personal name, place or other subjects.

ScotlandsPeople have also produced a series of guides to help you understand how to use the records and how to navigate the virtual volumes system. 

New on FamilySearch

Over the past year there have been a number of new and updated records added to the database at FamilySearch.  Below are some of the data sets added for Australia.  While not all records contain images, they are all available free and are well worth exploring.

Victoria Petty Sessions Registers 1858-1985

Court records extracted from several different Archival Series and held by the Public Record Office Victoria in North Melbourne, Australia. The records are arranged chronologically within each of the Magistrate Courts and contain brief details of minor criminal matters and committal proceedings.

Number of Records -  3,095,843

Australia Cemetery Inscriptions, 1802-2005

Cards of cemetery inscriptions from many cemeteries throughout Australia. The majority of the cemeteries are in Queensland, but there are some in New South Wales, Norfolk Island, Tasmania, and Western Australia. Some cards include information culled from local newspapers which sometimes include birth and marriage announcements. The cards are sometimes in reverse alphabetical order and there are sometimes many interfiled cards which do not belong to the sequence--generally these have a slash mark across the cards that do not belong in the sequence. The file was the product of many years of work by Jim and Alison Rogers.

Number of Records - 1,124,411

Victoria Coastal Passenger Lists, 1852-1924

Coastal passenger lists from Victoria, Australia. The original lists are located in the Public Records Office of Victoria, North Melbourne, Australia.

Number of Records -  3,244,620

South Australia, Immigrants Ship Papers, 1849-1940

Immigrants ships papers containing a record of births and deaths aboard, 1849-1867 and 1873-1885. Indexed records in collection include passenger lists arriving and departing from South Australia. Information on images varies but may include ship's name, master's name, tonnage, where bound, date, port of embarkation, names of passengers, ages, occupation, nationality, and port at which passengers have contracted to land. Original records in the State Records of South Australia, Adelaide.

Number of Records - 595,565

Queensland Cemetery Records, 1802-1990

An index which combines several indexes, cemetery transcriptions, burial and other records from cemeteries in Queensland. This collection also contains small portions of New South Wales, Norfolk Island, Tasmania, and Western Australia.

Number of Records - 2,168,409

New South Wales, Assisted Immigrants Inwards, 1828-1890

This collection contains assisted immigrants inwards to Sydney, Australia from 1828-1890.

Number of Records - 263,719