500 … Every Little Bit Helps...

Well I did it, I have finally made it to 500 lines of text corrected on Trove (well, acutally a little more as you can’t just correct half of an article). I know in the whole big scheme of things it’s just a drop in the ocean, but hey, it’s still 500 lines that otherwise may not yet be corrected. Now anyone who is a regular “Trover” (do you like my new word?), will be familiar enough with the picture below as it is a screenshot of the Trove newspapers homepage. For those who may not be so familiar … let me tell you that Trove is FREE, and you can search by keyword/s, or browse by area, or by paper.  As at 25 June 2013 there are 10,006,450 digitised newspaper pages online consisting of 101,614,442 articles available to search. Now these newpapers are all scanned and uploaded, but due to the condition of the paper and/or the printing, not everything gets OCR’d correctly, so there are bits that need correcting, and that’s where volunteers are helping out by doing so. I tend to browse or find an article, and if I find it’s not corrected I then do it … simple! If you have created a User Account on the National Library of Australia/Trove website, and log in before correcting text, the details of your corrections are all noted, so that you can see at a glace how many lines you’ve done each month, as mine does below.They even have a Hall of fame which lists the top text correcters, together with where you sit in the list. Ok so I’m a little down the list a number 6533, but that’s ok, as I’m proud to have contributed...

Australian Birth, Death and Marriage Records...

It goes without saying that genealogists are after BDM (Birth, Death and Marriage) records, and why wouldn’t we be?  They give us all sorts of interesting clues: parents’ names, place of birth, what someone died of, family members as witnesses or informants. Seriously they are truly genealogy gold! One thing everyone who is new to researching Australian records needs to know is that each state has it’s own records, so there is no one-place to search for all Australian BDM records, though there are some partial ones. So while it seems a little annoying that we have to check each states records one-by-one, be thankful that Australia only has six states as opposed to the 48 counties of England, or the 50 US states. 😉 Anyway back Australian records. We are fortunate enough to have access to some  indexes and images of Birth, Death, and Marriage records online. ————————————————————————————————————————– BDM RECORDS ONLINE But before getting to them, there’s something else to note, and that is that Australia has privacy rules (I know surprise, surprise!), so you will not find recent records online as they are still covered by the privacy period. Each state has their own rules as to how long, but it tends to be 100 years for births, 50-70 for marriages, and 10-30 years for deaths. So don’t expect to find births or marriages that occurred in the 1970s or later listed yet, and the end date on the links below is when the deaths go until. So first up here’s the records that you can find online, and even better, all of these are FREE: New South Wales 1788-1987 Queensland 1829-1987 South Australia 1842-1972 Tasmania 1803-1933 Victoria 1836-1988 Western Australia 1841-1971 and while these are only...

Trove Tuesday: If Only They Were All Like That...

Ever since Amy Houston from the Branches Leaves and Pollen blog started her Trove Tuesday theme last year, it has been something that I wanted to participate in, but time hasn’t permitted me until now. So for my very first Trove Tuesday post I would like to share with you the amazing obituary I have found for Edward Curran. Let me state that Edward isn’t anyone that I am related to, I was simply looking him up when I was helping a friend with some further leads. And I must say that I’ve seen obits before, but this one is seriously good stuff “if only all obituaries were like this, it would certainly answer quite a number of questions”. The amount of detail in this obit is phenomenal. Starting off with when and where he was born, and when the family moved and so on. In case you hadn’t noticed I am really impressed with this obit, and yes, would love a few of my reli’s to have one this...

Facebook and Genealogy: 100 Links for Australian Researchers...

There is no doubt that Facebook is THE popular to keep you connected to family and friends. But do you realise just how important it can be for your genealogy? Facebook and genealogy … really? Absolutely! You can find genealogy related groups online to ask your how-to questions, you can keep up with what your local societies are doing, you can help track down your digger ancestors, ask for help identifying those old photos you’ve inherited, find out the latest publications from companies, find a researcher and so much more. Facebook is there to be used, so why not use it to your advantage. I’ve compiled 100 links to mostly Australian Facebook sites (a few are non-country orientated, but still very useful so have decided to throw them in too). And to make life easier for you, have divided them into categories. Let me state right now that this list is not comprehensive. I am aware that there are more groups, museums, historical tourist places, as so on that I have not listed. It is however a reasonable list for those of you who’ve never thought of using Facebook as a genealogical tool. So go to your Facebook page, type key words in the search box up the top … you might to just type in “genealogy” and see what comes up, or you might like to type in a surname (if doing so, remember to narrow it by looking for groups or pages) not just individuals, you might want to type in a place to see if there is anything on the area you’re interested in. Happy researching on Facebook 😉 ——————————————————————————————————— RESEARCH HELP Australian Genealogy http://www.facebook.com/groups/talltrees/ South Australian Genealogy http://www.facebook.com/groups/146931945380414/ FamilySearch Australia Genealogy Research http://www.facebook.com/AustraliaGenealogy?ref=ts&fref=ts ———————————————————————————————————  RESEARCH...

Australian Government Gazettes – Have You Discovered Them?...

If you are researching your Australian ancestors, one record that doesn’t get the recognition that it deserves is Government Gazettes. I know it has the word “government” in it, so it automatically “sounds” boring, but trust me the Government Gazettes are a truly fascinating read! And if you haven’t discovered them, now is a good time to do so. I know I shouldn’t call them ‘Australian Government Gazettes’ as technically they’re not, but for ease of understanding, I’m choosing to. First up, a little background history on them … These Gazettes were first issued in the 1800s, by the governments of the various Australian colonies (this was way before Federation, as we didn’t have States then), and used the Government Gazettes as a means of communication to the general public. They’re kind of like a newspaper, but without the whole journalism style we get these days. Instead they contained lots of facts (names, dates, places and events). These were generally issued one a week, but from time to time “Extraordinary Issues” or “Supplements” were released in between if there was a need. What information is in an Australian Government Gazette? The first question that everyone asks is “what will I find in them?” which as you would expect if a very valid question. The answer however isn’t as simple, as it tends to vary between the different Australian colonies, and between the years as well, but I won’t go into the nitty gritty as Archive Digital Books Australasia has done their own analysis on this, which you can read. However some information tends to be the same no matter what Australian colony, and no matter what timeframe, such as: – Land transactions: records of land purchased, who by, who...