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:
Search like a proWho Do You Think You Are? genealogist Laura Berry reveals the professional tips you can apply to your family history research
Scottish censusChris Paton on how you can get more from the Scottish census records for less
The history of ice creamCaroline Roope gets the scoop and cools down with the refreshing history of everyone's favourite summer treat
Convicts How to trace ancestors who were transported to Australia online
Reader storyMargaret Smith is related to one of Charles II's mistresses
Cornish family history Discover new family history resources in the south-western peninsula
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.
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.
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 storyChris 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
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.
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.
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.