Who Do You Think You Are? Australia 2023 (Season 14)
If you’ve been hanging out for the new season of Who Do You Think Your Are?, the Australian version, you don’t have too much longer to wait, as Season 14 starts on Tuesday, 2nd May.
This popular series is back with a stellar new line-up of well-known Australian personalities who embark on a deeply personal journey to explore their family history, discovering tales of love, tragedy and perseverance along the way.
So just who features in WDYTYA Australia 2023? Here’s the list …
Barry Humphries – an Australian comedian, actor, author and satirist
Jenny Brockie – Australian journalist and documentary-maker
Derryn Hinch – media personality, politician, actor, journalist and author
Rhonda Burchmore – Australian entertainer
Stephen Page – Australian choreographer, film director and former dancer
Peter Helliar – Australian comedian, actor, television, radio presenter, writer, producer and director
Kerry Armstrong – Australian actress and author
John Waters – Australian film, theatre and television actor, singer, guitarist, songwriter and musician
Bernadine Lim, SBS Commissioning Editor for Documentaries said:
“We are completely thrilled the new season of Who Do You Think You Are? will return to SBS from May 2, and with such a brilliant line-up of guests. Prepare to be delighted by Barry Humphries’ quest to prove he’s the most interesting person in his family, captivated by Jenny Brockie’s deeply emotional journey as she searches for the familial connections she has yearned for all her life, and moved as Derryn Hinch finally uncovers the long-suppressed identity of his mother’s father. And that’s just the first three episodes! With this new season Who Do You Think You Are? continues to fascinate, amuse and enthral Australian audiences, resonating with our universal desire to discover our origins, in all their diversity.”
Here’s a sneak peek for you …
So remember to note the date, Tuesday, 2 May, 7.30pm, SBS is when it starts, and if you want to check out episodes from past seasons in the meantime, just head to SBS OnDemand, and you can watch them from there.
Trove is Saved!
Researchers around Australia, and indeed around the world, are breathing a huge sigh of relief at the news that the Australian Federal Government is giving a much needed cash injection to Australia’s national treasure, the National Library of Australia and Trove.
In its upcoming May budget, the federal government has promised $33 million over four years to the NLA.
The NLA, which runs digital archive database Trove, will also be separately allocated funding of more than $9 million — a move the government said would secure the future of the service for years to come.
So this is fabulous news, not only does the National Library of Australia get much needed funding, much of which is needed to upgrade the NLA building itself – the building that holds so much of Australia’s history – Trove gets allocated funds too.
With newspapers, diaries, magazines, photos, gazettes, newsletters, maps, artefacts, books, diaries, letters, music, audio and video, and so much more, the Trove website is truly a portal of Australian history, to the world.
On Trove you can find more than 14 billion digital items primarily relating to Australian history, and now with ongoing funding, that number will continue to grow.
So a big, big thankyou for everyone who signed the various “Save Trove” petitions, and to those who wrote to their local Members of Parliament to voice concern over the potential closure of Trove. Our voices have been heard, and thanks to the ongoing funding, we can now continue to use our favourite website for all of our research.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/
For more about the announcement, have a read of these articles:
– National Library welcomes announcement of ongoing Trove funding
– Trove secures funding as federal government comes to rescue of National Library of Australia’s digitised archive
– Australia’s Trove Receives Lifeline with $42.2 Million Funding Boost
– Trove funding secured in 2023-24 Federal Budget
Please, Help Save Trove
For any Australian historian (family, local, or social historian) Trove is the ultimate GO-TO site. It is the National Library of Australia’s site, which is accessed by around 20 million people every year, and contains about six billion (that’s right BILLION) digital items, including newspapers, magazines, photographs, journals, parliamentary papers and more … and it’s all FREE!!
However due to huge funding cuts over a number of years, and the fact that Federal funding for the National Library of Australia’s digital resource ends in June 2023, means that Trove could cease operations, or at least in its current form.
What if there was no Trove?
But to us researchers, a life without Trove is as unthinkable as life without Google.
This is Australia’s primary institution, the one that provides access to not only what the National Library of Australia itself holds, but access to holdings from 900 or so other Australian institutions. This is portal for Australia’s heritage, and yet depite it being used on a globa scale, is being treated as unimportant.
What can we do?
We have been asked to use our voice (well technically fingers), to sign a petition, and spread the word far and wide. But there is a time limit … the petition date is 22 February 2023. So we don’t have much time.
There was a Change.org petition for this topic, but it’s been said that the government only acts on “official” petitions. So another one was started by the same person, and this official petition will be presented to parliament. So if you care about access to Australia’s history, even if you don’t use Trove, please take a few moments to sign the petition.
And if you want to read more about what the organisations are saying, here are links to a number of articles about it:
- Online resource Trove is due to run out of government funding in six months, National Library of Australia warns
- Trove’s funding runs out in July 2023 – it’s time for a radical overhaul
- Trove in trouble: why does it cost money to keep the resource online?
- National Library’s digital archive Trove under threat
- Trove thrown overboard amid funding cuts
- National Library’s treasure Trove under threat from budget cuts
- National Library of Australia’s free digital archives may be forced to close without funding
- Trove’s funding is under threat. It’s time for an overhaul
- Speak up for Trove
[banner graphic used with permission from GenealogySA]
They Closed the Borders ….. AGAIN!!
“Victoria-NSW border to close for the first time in 100 years as Melbourne coronavirus cases hit record daily high” – this is the headline from the SBS News report, dated 7 July 2020, and it comes as Victoria is just beginning another six weeks of lockdown to try get COVID-19 under control.
Anyway that headline intrigued me, as I was curious about the previous border closure … so I headed to Trove to see what I could find.
And what an amazing article I found. Talk about history repeating itself … just have a read of this article from South Australian newspaper, The Register, dated 3 February 1919. You can see the original article here. Please note, the red highlight is my emphasis, not that of the original article.
—The Spanish Flu—
No one desires to minimise the horrors or the epidemic which has swept over the world, nor the necessity for precautions, but it would seem that if ever fear was worse than the disease, the present is the occasion. The Federal Quarantining Department kept the disease out of the country for months. Australia has had ample warning, and advantage from the experience of other countries.
The Commonwealth and State authorities met last November, and planned, a joint course of action. The Sydney doctors diagnosed their cases as the real thing; the Melbourne doctors were still using big words, and unable to make up their minds. Now both States have been declared infected, but New South Wales will not admit Victorian passengers, because Melbourne was responsible for the trouble, and Queensland, not to be out of the fuss, is asking the despised Commonwealth Government to lend it a body of Light Horse to patrol its border against New South Wales. Incidentally it may be recalled that the Queensland Government did nothing to help reinforce the Light Horse when they were at grips with the human enemy in Syria, Palestine, and elsewhere.
Like South Australia, the Queensland Government is certainly within its rights and within the agreement of last November in protecting itself, but it is carrying the never-dying jealousy of the two big States to extremes when they cut all passenger and goods communication between their respective infected areas, merely because “The reason why, I cannot tell. I do not like thee, Doctor Fell.”
But as for the poor public, there seems every effort to create a real scare. Sydney says that all must wear masks, and in Melbourne the picker-up of unconsidered sixpences is selling bits of useless gauze, or mosquito net, with a couple of tapes attached, like the proverbial hot cakes.
The people clamour to be vaccinated, or inoculated, with the “dope,” which may or may not cure, but which certainly makes some people feel ill. If we cover our mouths and noses with six suffocating layers of gauze and never take them off, whether to eat, or drink, or curse, or pray aloud, we are “theoretically” immune, though there are some who think we may get infection through the eyes or through the ears.
If private enterprise can do no better than this, one need not marvel that the most sincere individualist thinks nationalized medicine could not be worse. Two women doctors alone stand out in Melbourne with the simple advice—let in the fresh air, keep clean, don’t crowd, and where possible do your business through the mails, telegraphs and telephones, so as to avoid unnecessary personal contact.
One alarmist newspaper gives publicity to the questions of whether we have got enough medicine bottles, whether we have prepared to bury the dead, and feed the living. An official doctor wants us to be ready for a “huge epidemic.” There is nothing of the “silent navy” about these good folks. One could wish there were. Let them prepare, by all means, but publicity of scaresome possibilities is the best calculated means of ensuring the worst results. The Federal quarantine authorities remain moderately silent among the uproar. ls it too much to suggest that Mr. Massy Greene might signal his entry into his first real Ministerial office by preaching the doctrine of restraint and courage.
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Sounding familiar? It does, doesn’t it. Sounds remarkably like news reports we’ve been hearing over the past few months.
In searching further I found that Dr Peter Hobbins, medical historian, and expert in the Spanish Flu at the Department of History at the Universty of Sydney, says that …
“there are some striking parallels between 2020 and 1919”. He says that during that time “New South Wales imposed drastic restrictions on its residents; closing schools, churches, entertainment venues and important events such as agricultural shows and victory parades.” And “for the first time in my career, I feel a real sense of what could be called ‘historical déjà vu’, in living through the COVID-19 lockdown”.
If you’re interested in learning more about the Spanish Flu and the impact it had on Australia, be sure to check out this website, as it is packed with information.
So now I have to say, this has me more intrigued than ever to find out how my ancestors coped and made it through the Spanish Flu pandemic. Health wise, job wise, social wise? Remember, they didn’t have tv, computers or social media to even keep in touch with friends. So, it’ll be interesting to learn more about it … and gives me more research to do!!
Caption for cover picture: The influenza quarantine camp set up at Jubilee Oval, Adelaide, South Australia during the epidemic of 1919 – SLSA [PRG 280/1/9/374]
