Thursday, September 19, 2024

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 : 

  • Women making medical history : Celebrating 150 years of medical education
  • Researching the social & family history of unrelated cohorts
  • Lives on the ocean waves : Tracing your mariner ancestors before 1914
  • Lives of service : Researching 19th century soldiers
  • Belle of the ball
  • Your 6 step plan to thorough (brick wall-smashing) family history
  • How Ancestry Enhanced Shared Matches can help you
  • Which (DNA) test is right for you?
  • Spotlight on... York and District Family History Society
  • Helping you discover your family story
  • Your questions answered
  • Photo corner
  • Diary Dates
  • And more....

Tuesday, September 17, 2024

Trove Tuesday - search Tips part 2

 A useful addition to your search toolbox in Trove is the Near search, using the tilde key.

~ (near)

        Get results where keywords are found near each other, setting the 'distance' between your keywords.

       “John Argent”~2

       This example will give you results with the keywords ‘John' and ‘Argent' within two words of each other. 

       This single search will cover “John Argent”, “John T. Argent”, “John Thompson Argent”, “Argent, John”, “Argent, Mr John”, etc.

       It will also include matches with a different middle name or initial, increasing irrelevant matches

        Note: There should be no space between the tilde ~ and the phrase.

Another great way to maximise useful search results in Trove.

Friday, September 13, 2024

Week 37 (Sept. 9-15): Tombstone

The theme for Week 37 is 'Tombstone', 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 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.

Tuesday, September 10, 2024

Trove Tuesday - Search Tips part 1

To get the most out of searching Trove, there are a number of search tips you can use to optimise your results.

Phrase searches

        Enclose search terms in quotes, eg:

       “John Argent"

       "South Australia" elections

Wildcard searches

        Specify wild cards or truncate word endings with an * , eg:

       math* tutor*

Boolean searches

        Use AND, OR and NOT and brackets to create boolean expressions. You can use a minus sign next to the word in place of NOT, eg:

       (cats AND dogs) NOT rabbits

       “Moreton Bay" -Brisbane

When looking for articles on the death of my great uncle Norman Clark in a shark attack, I use his name as a phrase search "Norman Clark".  This looks for both words, together, as a phrase.  Just searching Norman Clark, without the quotes, brings back any article with the two words anywhere in the article, even paragraphs apart.  I then add a boolean term - AND shark - to only include search results that also contain that word.

So the search "Norman Clark AND shark bring back 278 results - articles from all over the country.

A treasure trove indeed!


Sunday, September 8, 2024

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 : 

  • 5 questions with: Steve Little - AI Program Director, NGS
  • 100,000 Digital Books
  • New and improved : Genealogy software
  • Digitized records roundup
  • Guidelines for AI and Genealogy
  • MyHeritage launches new sub
  • Heirloom Hunting
  • Defying the Odds : One woman finds records of her family when she expected none.
  • Family Inheritance : These five tasks will help you turn the boxes of materials you inherited from family into an organized archive.
  • Memento Mori : These death-related heirlooms may seem macabre by modern standards. But they hold details that are valuable to modern genealogists.
  • Treasure the Register : Tap into valuable Standesamtregistern—German civil vital records
  • Flash Back : Handwritten details on the back of a photo suggest an unexpectedly complex immigration story.
  • Cemetery Records
  • Finding Newspapers at Chronicling America
  • DNA Matches Without a Family Tree
  • Obituaries

Friday, September 6, 2024

Webtember with Legacy Family Tree

Legacy Family Tree Webinars is back with another month-long, free online genealogy conference. Each Friday in September, join expert speakers as they cover a range of topics, from DNA testing to historical records and everything in between. There’s something for everyone.


There are a total of 20 Webinars scheduled, and all will be recorded and available for the rest of September for those who cannot attend them live.  Quite a bonus for people like me living in Australia, where the time difference means the first webinar of each day starts at 12.15am!

So check out the range of topics covered and book yourself in!

Thursday, September 5, 2024

Week 36 (Sept. 2-8): 'We Don't Talk About It"

Every family has their secrets, the topics that, when raised, receive the response 'we don't talk about it'.  It may be a scandal in the family, a story of disaster or a tragedy, but every family has those topics that are spoken of only in whispers, or not at all.

One such topic I discovered when I first began asking about my family history was that of my great uncle Norman Clark.  I have written about Norman several times regarding his tragic death in a shark attack in 1930, when Norman was just 19 years old.

It was my grandmother, Norman's sister Gladys, who first told me he was a forbidden topic.  As I started informally gathering names, dates and stories in my late teens, I only had one surviving grandparent, my mother's mother Gladys Daisy Pummeroy (nee Clark).  When I first asked about her siblings, the only thing she would tell me about Norman was that he died at 19, it was very upsetting, and no one liked to talk about what happened.  She also insisted I promise NEVER to question her youngest brother Russell about it.  I duly promised.

Great Uncle Russell was an enthusiastic letter writer, and he and I corresponded for a number of years.  While he was the source of many stories about the family, especially my mother during her childhood, he only raised the subject of his brother Norman once.  While discussing his siblings (there were 12 Clark children, plus 2 half siblings from their father's first marriage) he commented 'and you know about what happened to Normie'.  I responded that I knew he died at 19 and Grandma had made me promise not to ask about him.  The following is his response in his next letter.

Norman was the villain of the family. When he was 15 he was placed in the Tally Ho Boys Home where he remained to my knowledge several years. I can remember Mother taking Lennie and I to visit him at times by horse and wagon. I believe he was kept there until he was 18, but eventually came back home.

I rather idolized Norman and used to follow him around. I got up to all sorts of tricks such as stealing fruit from trees, playing truant from school and other things.

Norman was taken by a shark a few months after he came home.  I saw it happen and ran home to tell Mother “Normie’s been taken by a shark”.  She didn’t believe me until the police came.

After the shark incident my Mother’s words were “It was an act of God”.  Norman was bad but a brother I shall never forget.

The subject of Norman and his tragic death was never raised again.  'We don't talk about it'.