Ironclad Sisterhood

The Ironclad Sisterhood has recently been launched by the Society of Australian Genealogists, based on the original research into the lives of convict women by society member Jess Hill. 

Jess Hill was a member and volunteer of the Society of Australian Genealogists from 1964 until her death in 1995. During her time at the Society, Miss Hill worked as a Honorary Library Research Assistant, helping others find ancestors, solve long-held mysteries, and uncover lost details about individuals across the ages. In 1970, she began to collect biographies of women convicts transported to Australia from 1788 to 1818.

She began this work in 1970 – an unusually early time to begin investigating convict ancestors, particularly women convicts. Miss Hill joined a small coterie of passionate Australian historians who demanded that women’s history be taken seriously, and women be understood as historical agents in their own right.

In 2021 Miss Hill’s work was rediscovered and the Ironclad Sisterhood project was launched with hopes to further Miss Hill’s research agenda and build a searchable database of convict women filled with biographical details pulled from multiple different sources.

So if you have female convicts in your family history, or simply want to know more about the lives of the women convicts who helped build the colony of Australia, check out the website and see what it has to offer.

Family Tree UK Magzine

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 : 

• RHS Digital Dig project
• Traveller culture celebrated at Auchindrain
• Bletchley Park opens state-of-the-art learning centre in refurbished wartime building
• Share your view of a historic place in the Missing Pieces project
• Lark Rise to Candleford: Village life in the late-1800s
• In search of overseas employment
• Twists, turns & revelations
• Investigating burial records
• DNA first aid : ‘Where are my matches?’
• And more...
  

Family History Month

August is National Family History Month in Australia and Campaspe Library is offering a range of classes and sessions at our library branches throughout the month.

Bookings are essential for all sessions and are now open via our website.  Drop in to your local Campaspe Library branch to pick up a brochure to see what is on offer.

We are also holding a Family and Local History panel 2 August as part of Library and Information Week and National Family History Month.

So book your place to come along.

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:  

• • Replant your family tree Could your family history research benefit from uploading your tree to other websites?
  • Their Finest Hour How you can get involved in a project preserving memories of the Second World War
  • The history of divorce What a lack of legal divorce meant for women in your family tree
  • Indian family history research How to trace ancestors with a connection to the Indian subcontinent online
  • Reader story Chris Hussey's grandfather emigrated to Canada and fought on the Western Front
  • Nottinghamshire family history Don't miss our complete guide to the best family history resources for tracing ancestors from the county

Changing Place Names Mapped

The Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, part of the Polish Academy of Sciences, has unveiled a new interactive map feature on their website: Mapy z Przeszłością (Maps of the Past). The online tool superimposes historical maps over a modern map of Central and Eastern Europe, allowing researchers to visualize and compare shifting borders and place names over time. 

The turbulent nature of Poland’s history, with its boundaries expanding, contracting, and disappearing over several centuries, is reflected in the geographic range of the maps available as overlays. The new map tool is useful for users with ancestry from modern Poland, Germany, Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania, or the historical territories of the German, Russian and Austrian Empires.

In Central and Eastern European genealogy, you will encounter place names that changed depending on who controlled an area and when. This complicates research as we sort out and weigh the accuracy of the various place names that are found in overseas sources. For example, researching a Lithuanian immigrant ancestor, you may find that their town of origin is reported in its Polish form in the sources of the country they emigrated to, such as Great Britain, America or Australia, reflecting the official name from the early nineteenth century. The same town or village may be recorded in another record with an approximation of its Russian name, from when Lithuania was part of the Russian Empire. The town name may also appear in its Lithuanian form, which became official in the twentieth century. Researchers with Jewish ancestry may also find a distinct Yiddish form of their ancestral town or village recorded in overseas sources.

A historical map with Polish placenames overlayed on a modern map of Grodno, Belarus

With the new map overlays, a researcher can alternate between historical periods, translating placenames in the process. This is most effective for placenames with Polish and German variants. Pay attention to the names of nearby towns and villages. Those placenames may appear later in religious or civil records. Some maps also include symbols that mark the nearest religious community.

GRO Digital Ordering Update

Some great news for Family History researchers with civil birth and death registration records from selected years are now available as instant-access digital images via the General Register Office (GRO) website.

Civil registration of births, marriages and deaths was introduced in England and Wales in 1837.  Birth records from 1837 to 2021 and death records from 1837 to 1957 and 1984 to 2021 are indexed on the GRO website.

Family historians have previously had the option of ordering records as either a print record for £11 with a GRO index reference supplied, or a PDF for £7. It takes up to four working days for orders to be despatched.

However, the GRO has now launched a scheme for births from 1837 to 1922 and deaths from 1837 to 1887 to be available as digital images.  The digital images currently cost £2.50 each and are available to view immediately after purchase.

The scheme to order digital images is in the beta testing phase, but is publicly available to all registered users of the GRO website.

This makes accessing these records not only quicker but also less expensive, so take advantage of this great service.

 

 

Look History in the Eye - Episode 11

Episode 11 of the Public Record Office of Victoria podcast series 'Look History in the Eye' is out now.

 Jonathan Butler's debut book The Boy in the Dress was nominated for The Age Book of the Year in 2022. It shares his archival research journey trying to uncover the truth about what happened to his ancestor Warwick Meale, a World War Two serviceman found murdered in Townsville 80 years ago. 

This episode is a recording of the Melbourne Writers Festival event at the Victorian Archives Centre from 2022 with Jonathan Butler in conversation with Dr Yves Rees. Dr Rees is an historian at La Trobe University and co-host of the Archive Fever podcast.

Episode 11: The Boy in the Dress. Jonathan Butler in conversation with Yves Rees.

Duration: 51 min

By Public Record Office Victoria