Family History Month at YPRL

It is Family History Month 2022 at Yarra Plenty Regional Library.  To learn about what is happening visit Yarra Plenty Regional Library

Reasons to Love Family History

 

“Genealogy offers a gateway into an extended family, linked vertically through time rather than horizontally in the present.  In a world of confused and multiple identities, it promises a deeper sense of who we are” Graeme Davison - Lost Relations: fortunes of my family in Australia’s Golden Age (2015)

Researching Aboriginal Family History

YPRL is proud to be a partner in the presentation of a  half-day webinar to assist people wanting to research their Aboriginal Family History. Join Jenny Bates (Koorie Heritage Trust), Maxine Briggs (Koorie Heritage Unit at State Library Victoria) and Tsari Anderson (Koorie Records Unit at Public Records Office Victoria and National Archives of Australia) to discover their tips and tricks.

Topics will include: how to get started, staying organised, an overview of useful records available, ideas for researching names and places, and how to access conditions of records.

The session will be hosted by Peter Webster from Kirrip  Aboriginal Corporation, Melton. 

The online session will be held Monday 17 May 2021, 9.30am - 12.30pm

Bookings are essential.  A meeting link will be emailed to you prior to the session.

Co-presented by Darebin Library Service, Eastern Regional Libraries, Goldfields Libraries Corporation, Melton City Libraries, Mildura Library Service, Moonee Valley Libraries, Wyndham City Library Service, Yarra Libraries and Yarra Plenty Regional Library.

Recommended Resources

Koorie Heritage Trust Koorie Family History Service

SLV Aboriginal people and family history research guide

PROV Aboriginal Victorian Family History

AIATSIS Family History

Recommended Reading

New publication of emotional personal stories of people who used their resourcefulness to seek exemption to obtain freedom from hardship and oppressive regulation of their lives as Aboriginal Australians.

The moving biography of a great Australian who, against the greatest of odds, became one of Australia's most respected and recognisable Indigenous leaders.

Presents a moving and little-known history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander war time and defence service, told through the vivid oral histories and treasured family images of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Aboriginal men learned the game and brought their own unique skills to it, winning local leagues and earning the respect of their contemporaries. But they were, for a long time prevented from reaching the higher levels of the game until late in the twentieth century.

Join us on Monday 17 May 2021, 9.30am - 12.30pm to learn more about Researching Aboriginal Family History.

Bookings are essential. A meeting link will be emailed to you prior to the session.

International Women's Day: Tracing Female Lines

YPRL is celebrating International Women’s Day all week. This year’s theme is Choose to Challenge

Today’s spotlight is to encourage the family historians among us to uncover the stories of our female ancestors.

As always follow or review the beginners’ steps: 

summarize known names, dates and relationships and family traditions. 

Gather records and memorabilia from around the house. Are their family heirlooms such as jewellery, crockery, a vase that has been kept through the generations?  Is there an old quilt or sampler? Needlework was customarily taught to girls at schools.

Pull out your photos, identify them, analyse them, what story can they tell you, examine the setting and background information.  Is there a Family Bible? Are there letters and diaries?

Gather oral history, ask open ended questions. Verify family stories through civil registration records and find married names.  Consider that your ancestor may have married more than once.

The opposite challenge may be to determine a married name.  Look for death notices, obituaries and wills for the father.  The married daughter may be mentioned.

Consider the use of naming patterns. 

Names can be anglicised, shortened, and spelt in numerous ways. Early day clerks made many errors with foreign names and they had problems with different accents. Not all our ancestors could read and write. Not all of them could write their own name.  Christian names were often interchangeable, like Anna and Hannah.

Research the immediate family – brothers and sisters and issues of your female ancestor.  Find your relative in school records 

Check the witnesses for baptisms and weddings – your female relative may have been one.

Search for your first record in the country (a death certificate will indicate how long in the colony).  Perhaps your ancestor came out on a woman only emigration scheme.

Orphan girls who were part of the Earl Grey emigration scheme to Australia between 1848 and 1850.

There are a couple of projects devoted to female convicts including the Parramatta FemaleFactory

Hunt forheadstones. Epitaphs may reveal a wide range of details about an ancestor’s life.

Search Tips

Search everywhere! Both online and offline.  Search broadly, then narrow down, search in non-traditional resources such as the local history catalogue for the public library where your ancestor lived, hospital records or even prison records.

If you can, do not include the surname in your search, instead use other identifying information such as birth or death date or relationships.  This trick works well if you have an uncommon first name.

Be mindful of your spelling. Some names may have been abbreviated e g. Marg’t for Margaret.

Historical newspapers via Trove, Gale Primary Sources and British Newspapers Archive are worth looking at.  Employ your different search strategies including e.g.  “Mrs T. Ryan” combined with a place name to narrow down your search. Your ancestor may appear in featured news articles, social news, obituaries, birth, marriage, death, funeral and probate notices.

Find your Australian ancestor in the electoral rolls via Ancestry and Census Records in other countries.

Consider creating a time line for your ancestor. This can include birth and marriage and births of children for a start

Explore these Resources

Petition, from 'Ladies Resident on Plenty River' requesting protection from bushrangers

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Midwives ofEssendon and Flemington Index compiled from birth certificates

1891women’s suffrage petition

TheAustralian Women’s Register 

Women’sMuseum of Australia

Bal Maidens Cornwall & Devon (searchable database of women miners)

Photo: Ivanhoe Croquet Club, 1913.  Yarra Plenty Regional Library in partnership with Heidelberg Historical Society

This blog post was first published at Yarra Plenty Regional Library 9 March 2021 

Simple Tips to Research your family history

1. Start with yourself. Identify what you know. Work backwards from you.
2. Choose the line to research with the good story, uncommon name or oldest living relatives you can talk to.
3. Gather records in the family possession such as photos, certificates, letters and diaries
4. Gather oral history. Ask questions “who, what, when, where, why and how”. Identify all heritage photographs.
5. Check if others are also researching your family and collaborate.
6. Purchase civil registration certificates – births, deaths and marriages.
7. Search online. Use various search strategies across multiple sources.  Search broadly then narrow down.
8. Search offline. Some online sources such as cemetery indexes will assist in your offline research. 
9. Understand the country of origin of your ancestors and the times in which they lived.
10. Get and stay organised. Note sources for your information.
11. Store your research safely. Keep a master copy of your research on your computer and back up regularly.
12. Publish or share your research and family stories.
13. Never stop learning!