Back in 2011 I compiled my 33 Free Websites for South Australia Genealogy post, and despite having written it almost 4 years ago, it is still one of the most looked at posts on my blog.

Since then a lot of new South Australian records and sites have gone online, so I felt it was time for an update.

Many people think that genealogy costs a lot of money, let me tell you that all of the links below are free. Personally I find that it’s often a matter of knowing where to look beyond the big-name websites, and hopefully this will help with that.

Although I haven’t titled this “Discovering Links”, I’m putting in that series of posts since it contains a whole bunch of links. These are I have discovered, or found useful, and want to share with others. You can see my previous Discovering Links posts here.

It’s not intended to be an exhaustive collection of links, but simply ones that many will find useful, and it may include some that you may not have known about.

=== SOUTH AUSTRALIA ===

GENERAL HISTORY
South Australian Historical Archaeology Database
The Historical Archaeology of Adelaide Project is based in the Department of Archaeology, Flinders University. It is a long term project to record and document archaeological data from three key site types throughout South Australia: cemeteries, standing structures (buildings), and monuments/memorials. The project data has been compiled by second and third year undergraduate archaeology students as part of their work in the topic. These databases are available as a public resource for heritage research.

History As it Happens
History is not only about things that happened long ago. It is happening here and now and we are all part of it. Sometimes history is about small things – the everyday things we take for granted. At other times it is about the big events that change communities in dramatic ways and that live on in a community’s memory for generations. History as it Happens pulls together South Australian’s responses to these tragic events. They invite you to share photos, stories, and footage through their website or Facebook page. They’re also keen to obtain artifacts as well.

South Australian Health Museum
South Australian Health Museum is a virtual (online) museum showcases objects and biographies from the collections of: Royal Adelaide Hospital Heritage Office; Calvary Hospital; The Queen Elizabeth Hospital; South Australian Dental Historical Society and St John Ambulance Museum. There’s amazing collections of items to view, from equipment , to dental copper amalgam, an operating table, prosthetic limbs, medical booklets, and numerous old photographs. Note, this sites does not contain any individual’s medical records.

Adelaide City Heritage
Adelaide City Heritage is a website dedicated to “discovering, exploring, celebrating and protecting the heritage of the City of Adelaide”.

Adelaidia
Learn about the history of Adelaide, through Adelaidia. It is an interactive way of engaging with the history of this city. The site is full of stories of the city’s people, places and events, the city streets and the buildings and monuments that line them, and the events that enliven them. Share your stories of the city, your favorite images and your responses. This site is a work in progress and continues to grow over time and aims to become a comprehensive and multifacteted history that truly reflects Adelaide’s history.

Manning’s Place Names of South Australia Index
Geoff Manning and has dedicated a large portion of his life pursuing his passion for finding and recording the origins of South Australian places. His various printed editions of “Manning’s Place Names of South Australia” grew incredibly with each printing. Now the State Library of SA has much of this information on their website.

SA Memory
SA Memory is an online gateway to South Australian culture and heritage, past and present. This multimedia website focuses on the South Australian experience – what makes South Australia different from other places. SA Memory illustrates and interprets themes highlighting South Australia’s people, places, issues and events from the colony’s beginnings to now: South Australia’s ‘memory’. SA Memory showcases a wide range of archival and published materials and allows users to read original documents and transcripts; view images – photographs, posters, art works, interactive maps, and more; listen to sound recordings, including oral histories; and watch historic film footage. Many of these materials have previously only been accessible to visitors at various archives. Search by name, by place, or by theme – there’s plenty to view on this website.

Location SA Map Viewer
Have you ever wanted to know where your nearest shipwreck is, or every earthquake location in SA since 1836? You can check all of these things and more from the Location SA Map Viewer. Government spatial data has been combined on a single website, allowing easy access to everything from public transport to planning development zones and Marine Parks in one view.

MILITARY
A World Away – South Australia’s War
HistorySA is behind this fabulous site. When war broke out a world away in Europe, South Australians could not have imagined how it would impact their lives. ‘A World Away’ documents the experiences of South Australians in their own words – through diaries, letters and newspapers – and in real time, 100 years after the events. Come on a journey, month by month, as HistorySA delves into the lives of  South Australians on the front lines and the home front during the First World War.

South Australian Red Cross 1916-1919
This website allows users to search the records of the South Australian Red Cross Information Bureau held in the collection of the State Library of South Australia (SLSA). From 1916 until 1919, the South Australian Red Cross Information Bureau (SARCIB) performed the service of undertaking research into 8,033 enquiries from family and friends of missing Australian Imperial Force (AIF) personnel fighting in World War 1. Documentation produced and received in the process of making these enquiries is included in the ‘packets’ of records that can be searched and viewed on this website.

South Australians of World War 1
Flickr is the place that the State Library of South Australia (SLSA) has uploaded over 1700 photographs of WW1 soliders. If you have an ancestor from South Australia who was in WW1, be sure to check their collection.

OLD MAPS AND PHOTOS
Map of Adelaide 1849
Plan Of Country Sections &c In The Immediate Vicinity Of The City Of Adelaide In The Province Of South Australia 1849. Scanned at high-res you can view this map in full, or zoom in to see the detail.

South Australian Railways (SAR) Maps 
If you’re interested in South Australian railway history, you’ll be interested in these maps on Johnny’s Pages. A railway enthusiast, he has high-res images of South Australian railway maps which you can click for high-res images.

Port Adelaide / Enfield Local History Photos
The Port Adelaide Enfield Local History Group have collected over 3000 historical photographs and have put them up on Flickr. People, buildings and other things relevant to the area are shown.

RECORDS
South Australian Directories and Almanacs 1864-1973
The State Library of South Australia have digitised over 100 years of South Australian Directories and Almanacs, making them freely available to everyone through their website. From the first, the directories included mercantile, ecclesiastical, legal, and other occupational and trade listings. Like modern telephone books, this eventually developed into a comprehensive ‘trades and professions’ section.

South East Collection of Records
I did include this link in my earlier list, however the list of records has grown since then, so is worth a re-look if you haven’t recently. Also I wanted to mention that the SEFHG holds records relating to the following towns in South Australia: Allendale, Beachport, Canunda, Caroline, Carpenter Rocks, Cape Jaffa, Compton, Donovans, Drop Drop, Glenburnie, Glencoe, Gran Gran, Harris Range, Hatherleigh, Kalangadoo, Kangaroo Inn, Kingston, Kongorong, Lucindale, McGrath Flat, Mil Lel, Millicent, Moorak, Mount Burr, Mount McIntyre, Mount Gambier, Mount Muirhead, Mount Schank, Mundulla, Murrimbum, Nangula, Nangwarry, Naracoorte, Narrung, OB Flat, Penguin Island, Port MacDonnell, Penola, Rendelsham, Robe, Sebastapol, Snuggery, South End, Suttontown, Tantanoola, Tarpeena, Tintinara, Tatiara, Wandilo, Wyrie, and Yahl.

Australian Medical Pioneers Index (AMPI)
This is an Australia-wide site, but it does list some from South Australia, so is a useful resource for researchers if you had doctors or others in the medical profession prior to 1875. AMPI provides biographical data on over 4500 doctors who lived in Australia (or visited Australian shores in a medical capacity) in colonial days.

South Australian Land Records from 1858
It was big news when it was announced that the South Australian Integrated Land Information System (SAILIS) website had South Australian land records online AND free (the historical records anyway). This website allows users to search South Australian land records online from 1858. Look for the “Historical Searches” tab, and follow the links from there. I do suggest watching the short YouTube tutorial first, so you’ll understand how to search.

Adelaide City Council Assessment Books 1846-1870
I have to attribute this link to a customer at work who told me about this. And what a fabulous collection it really is. The Adelaide City Council have digitised their historical rate assessment books and they are viewable online. The books are in table format, and the columns list: No. of Assessment, Name of Occupier, Lessor or Landlord, Name of Owner, Description of Property Assessed, No. of Acre, Situation or Name or Street, Net Annual Value after deductions, Amount of rate chargeable for 12 month, Arrears, Remarks. A valuable resource for those who had family who lived or owned property in the city during this period.

South Australian Photographers 1845-1915
This 337 page book written by R.J. “Bob” Noye, and published in 1997. Containing an extensive A-Z listing South Australian photographers, with biographical details of each, this will be useful for anyone wanting help dating photographs.

South Australian Adoption Records
Monash University have an extensive list that details various collections relating to South Australian adoptions and where you can find them.

Find and Connect
Find and Connect is an Australia-wide site that contains history and information on children’s homes, orphanages, and other institutions. It brings together  historical resources relating to institutional ‘care’ in Australia. You can use it to read information about and view images of children’s homes, get help to find records about your childhood in ‘care’, and connect with support groups and services in your state/territory. Please note, it does not contain private records.

SHIPPING
Log of Logs Volumes 1, 2 and 3
Not strictly South Australian, but rather Australia-wide, the three volumes of Log of Logs were released in printed book for during the 1990s, and were very popular. Afterall they are essentially a catalogue of logs, journals, shipboard diaries, letters and all forms of voyage narratives from 1788 to 1998, for Australia and New Zealand, as well as the surrounding oceans. And who doesn’t want to know if references and records for their ancestors’ voyage survived? The volumes are now available to read online or download for free.

Immigrants to South Australia, (UK, assisted passage) 1847-1886
I have listed The Ships List on my earlier post, and this is one of the collections that you’ll find on this amazing site. This is an ongoing project detailing immigrants arriving in South Australia, mostly under UK assisted passage schemes from 1847 through to 1886. These lists have been transcribed from the original passenger lists, and where available, extracts regarding a particular ship have been included, from the Sydney Shipping Gazette and the South Australian Register. The South Australian Government Gazette (return showing deaths on board Emigrant ships 1849 to 5th June 1865) has also been consulted.

Bound For South Australia
The precise number of people who travelled to South Australia in 1836 intending to settle will probably never be known with certainty. Available sources include inconsistencies, and all were subject to last minute changes, as additional passengers embarked, or expected passengers changed their minds.  A few left the ships en route, some were born and others died. This website contains passenger lists for the Duke of York, John Pirie, Cygnet, Lady Mary Pelham, Emma, Rapid, Africaine voyages during 1836.

CONNECTING AND SOCIAL MEDIA
South Australia Genealogy Facebook Group
If you are a Facebooker, and are researching family in South Australia, be sure to join this group, as you can post your queries here.

Cousin Connect South Australia
If a forums is more your thing, Cousin Connect has a specifically South Australian section for you to post your queries to.

RootsChat – Australia
RootsChat is another forum, a place for you to put your query out there, and while RootsChat doesn’t have a specific South Australia category, you can find many queries relating to SA on it.

RootsWeb – South Australia
RootsWeb is the original genealogy mailing list, and it’s the largest with about 36,000 different mailiang lists. And they have a category specific for South Australian genealogy and queries. If you sign up to their mailing list you not only get copies of each South Australia query, but it allows you to send your own query so everyone else who is subscribed will get your query, and will hopefully be able to answer. The good thing about a mailing list as opposed to message board or Facebook is that Google indexes them – so people can still find your query years later!!

From time to time I have been doing my “Discovering Links” posts. These consist of a collection of links that I have discovered, or found useful, and want to share with others. But rather than simply giving you a whole batch of random links each time, I am grouping them by Australian state, country or topic. You can see my previous Discovering Links posts here.

So New South Wales is the topic for this one. It’s not intended to be an exhaustive collection of links, but simply ones that many will find useful, and it may include some that you may not have known about.

And while many people think that genealogy costs a lot of money, let me tell you that all of the links below are free. Personally I find that it’s often a matter of knowing where to look beyond the big-name websites, and hopefully this will help with that.

=== NEW SOUTH WALES ===

New South Wales Free Settler of Felon?
Jen Willett’s site allows users to search the Free Settler or Felon database to find people in the Newcastle and the Hunter Valley area of New South Wales. So fare she has over 170,000 references to Convicts, Settlers, Townsfolk, Bushrangers, Innkeepers, Soldiers and Land Owners, Medical Practitioners and Magistrates. Information about the voyages of approximately 350 convict ships and the Surgeon Superintendents who accompanied them can be accessed via the Convict Ship Index and Convict Ship Surgeon Superintendent Index links

Australian Railway Historical Society: New South Wales
If you have either an interest in trains and railway history, or you have ancestors who worked in there – the Railway Historical Society website is a good place to check out. While they don’t have databases of details online, they list research guides, together with details of the types of records they hold.

The Dictionary of Sydney
What’s not to like about this site. This website which started in 2009 is built to be an online encyclopedia of the history of Sydney. Containing articles and essays, entries on people, events, organisations, buildings artefacts and places, together with oral histories, photographs, sounds and moving images. As the website says … ‘it is an encyclopedia unlike any other in the world’.

City of Sydney Assessment Books 1845-1948
The Assessment Books record details of ownership, occupation, construction, and value for buildings in the City of Sydney between 1845 and 1948. They provide valuable information for family and property history which is not available from any other source. When you’re on this site, click on the Ward Maps button, and check out the gorgeous maps they have scanned and put online.

Sands Sydney Directories 1858-1933
The firm of John Sands Ltd (Printers and Stationers) published their directory each year from 1858 through until 1933 (with the exception of 1872, 1874, 1878 and 1881). The Sands Directories were household and business information books – the equivalent of today’s yellow and white pages. They have  become a fundamental source for research into Sydney history, especially family history. This series has been digitised from microfiche.

Glass plate negative: 31205
New South Wales. Police Dept. 1928
 (Justice & Police Museum, Sydney)

New South Wales Police Forensic Archive
The Justice & Police Museum holds the NSW Police Forensic Archive, which consists of around 130,000 glass and flexible negatives of mugshot photos. This is an incredible collection, and some of these are now online for viewing.

University of Newcastle Flickr Collection
If you love history and Newcastle, you’ll be engrossed in this collection of over 46,000 photographs on the Uni of Newcastle’s Flickr page. There’s over 200 albums of topics, but here’s just a few: Anglican Churches and rectories, Coal mines and coal, Estate posters, Historical photographs of Newcastle, Maitland, Mayfield. Stockton, Toronto, Wallsend, Hotel photos, Newcastle teacher’s college (staff and students), 1871 Census of St John’s Parish Newcastle, Register Book of Christ Church Cathedral from the archives of the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle (baptisms 1839-1861, marriages 1839-1855, burials 1839-1854), Royal Newcastle Hospital, University of Newcastle including staff and students … and obviously a whole heap more. Set aside a day or week and get lost looking through these photographs.

ArchivePix
On the topic of photographs, the City of Sydney has scanned and uploaded over 75,000 old photos to their website. With a handy search box, this helps you find what you’re after. And they are also asking people if they can help identify people, place sand scenes to help with tagging.

New South Wales Law Almanacs 1886-2008
If you had anyone who was connected to the law (on the good side) in New South Wales, these Law Almanacs could be worth checking out. All scanned and viewable online from 1886, they list judges, lawyers, barristers, sheriffs, and so on. There is a site search engine which searches across the collection.

New South Wales Government Asylums for the Infirm and Destitute 1880-1896
State Records NSW has over 10,000 entries that relate to people who were admitted to Government Asylums in New South Wales in the last two decades of the 19th Century. The index is free to search, though if you are wanting a copy of the record there is a small administrative charge.

Mariners and Ships in Australian Waters
Masters, crew, stowaways, births and deaths at sea – you will find them all here. The lists on this site are being transcribed from the State Records NSW “Reels of the Shipping Master’s Office, Inwards Passengers Lists” with new records from the 1837 to 1925 period added weekly. This site allows you to browse or search by vessel, or name of the passenger or crew.

Death Records in New South Wales
State Records NSW is the primary place to go to NSW Inquests, Deceased Estate Files, Probate Packets (all of which are part of their “Dearh Reords” collection. They have indexes online to the following: Deceased estates 1880-1958, Probate Packets (Wills) 1817-1976 & 1989 includes the last will and testament, Intestate Files of those who died without leaving a will, Coroners Inquests 1796-1963 and Convict deaths 1828-1879.

Assisted (Bounty) Immigrants 1828-1842
This FamilySearch project gives viewers a digitised version of the Assisted (Bounty) Immigration index to search online – all 41,000 images of it!

Sydney Oral Histories
The collection showcases the voices of Sydney people past and present. In these interviews Sydney people talk about their history, their neighbourhoods, their beliefs, their work, their businesses, their relationship with the natural world, and their myriad experiences of daily life in this city. This is history from the people who were there.

Did you have an ancestor who was a petty thief, stealing just to survive, or one that was a full-on criminal? There’s no doubt that finding convict heritage for an Australian is what is known as “Australian Royalty”. It is GOLD.

For a start there’s a HEAP of fabulous records available to check out, and there’s plenty of places to search … here’s just some that I’ve used, and have collected together for you. Note these aren’t in any particular order, so you might need to read through them all to see if they are likely to be of use to you in your convict search.

A few months ago I started a new theme of posts, ones that I have termed “Discovering Links”. These are posts that lists links that I’ve discovered. It’s not meant to be an exhaustive list, but it is simply ones, generally the not-so-commonly-known ones that I’ve come across in my research, from magazines, or from seeing mentioned on social media.

No matter where I discovered them, I noted them, have been to them, and have found them interesting – so thought I’d share them with you. For this post I have a few relating to Victoria  in Australia.