Australian Genealogy and History Snippets – January/February 2023
From time to time I come across all sorts of interesting history and/or genealogy related tidbits that I want to share with you, so I’ve collected them together to make up a Snippets post.
These aren’t meant to be comprehensive, but rather they are just bits that I’ve found and wanted to share.
Call for expressions of interest for new editor/s of the Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society
The Council of the RAHS is seeking expressions of interest for the position of editor of the Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society (JRAHS). The current editor Adjunct Associate Professor Carol Liston AO and our proof reader Mrs Joy Hughes are stepping down after many years of distinguished services in their respective roles. [via their email newsletter]
Billionaire fails in bid to partially demolish historic goods shed in Victoria
A $750 million twin office tower project has been turned down in a move by Heritage Victoria to preserve the state’s largest and most architecturally elaborate 19th century railway goods building. [via The Age]
New Records at Queensland Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages
New records alert! The Queensland Registry now has 107,603 new records available to search on their BDMs website. These include BDMs from the following years: 1923 Births, 1948 Marriages, 1993 Deaths. Start searching today! www.qld.gov.au/familyhistory [via Facebook post]
Labour History Society South Australia
Did you know that there is a society dedicated to the history of labouring in South Australia? No, nor did I until I found it mentioned on a website. So if you’re interested be sure to get in touch with them, or if you’re local, pop along to one of their meetings. [via Experience Adelaide site]
41,000 Burials for the ‘Adelaide Plains’
Recently the Adelaide Northern Districts Family History Group (ANDFHG) added the Adelaide Plains Burial Register to their records. A searchable (onsite) database consisting of some 41,000 names for Burials across the whole of the Adelaide Plains. It includes many of the Burials not listed in the Council districts, from the smaller lesser-known cemeteries. [via their email newsletter]
Happy 167th Birthday to the State Library Victoria
On February 2023, we celebrate another Library birthday. At 3pm #OnThisDay in 1856, State Library Victoria (then known as the Melbourne Public Library) opened its doors for the very first time. Upon opening, the Library was one of the first free public libraries in the world with a humble 3000 books in the collection. While the Library has remained on the same two-acre allotment since 1856, the structure you see today is made up of around 24 individual buildings that have changed dramatically over the years. You can learn more about their history here. [via Facebook post]
The History Trust of South Australia has a new home
The History Trust of South Australia is delighted to announce our new home at 233 North Terrace, ‘Security House’! You can find them Level 2, 233 North Terrace, from May this year. They say “we are grateful to our community for being so patient with us throughout this transitional period; we welcome you into our new home”. [via Facebook post]
Keith Conlon to leave state heritage council after criticising WCH site decision
Keith Conlon is stepping down from the state heritage council after publicly sharing disapproval of the new Women’s and Children’s Hospital project. The state government on Wednesday said Mr Conlon, 78, would leave the position in March. It comes after Mr Conlon criticism of the state government’s decision to build part of the new Women’s and Children’s Hospital on a site consisting of parklands at the heritage-listed Thebarton Police Barracks, near the Old Adelaide Gaol. The barracks will be torn down to make room for the new hospital, which will cost up to $3.2bn. “When we did get the chance to oppose it, it was all too late,” he told The Advertiser. “It makes you concerned for the future of state heritage.” [via The Advertiser, Saturday, 11 February 2023]
If you have any Australian genealogy and/or history related news that you’d like me to share, please feel free to send me an email with the info, and I’ll put it in my next Snippets update.
Facebook for Australian & New Zealand History and Genealogy
Since releasing my first big list of Australian history and genealogy links on Facebook in September 2016, I’ve continued to find more, and more, and periodically do updates.
So what started out as a list of a few hundred links, has grown to large list of 2085 links (as at 26 January 2023). That’s 77 pages worth of Australian and New Zealand history and genealogy links … just on Facebook.
I haven’t added any new categories with this update, but there are additions to nearly every category that’s listed.
DOWNLOAD HERE
This is an ongoing project which will be updated periodically, so if you have any links you’d like added, please either send an email to alona @ lonetester.com (without the spaces), or message me on my Lonetester Facebook page.
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And I can’t mention genealogy on Facebook without making reference to two other incredible lists:
– Katherine Willson’s worldwide Genealogy on Facebook list is enormous, and now has over 16,700 links.
– Gail Dever’s Facebook for Canadian Genealogy list of over 1000 links is a must for everyone with Canadian connections.
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]
Introducing “Six Feet Under Downunder”- Australian Cemetery and Burial Records Online
In between trips, blogging and presentations, my geniemate GeniAus (aka Jill Ball) has managed to begin a new project (and website) …. “Six Feet Under Downunder“, which is a listing of Australian burial and cremation records online … and she’s asking for your help!
But first here’s her explanation of how it came about ….
While preparing for my Six Feet Under Downunder webinar over the past few days I realised that there is no one site that lists all the wonderful resources in Australia that index the names of the deceased resting in cemeteries and crematoria around Australia. It would have helped me no end in my preparation if there was a meta site that links to such resources.
Of course I decided to create such a site. I must be mad but I hope that the many generous genies around Australia who know of such indexes of memorials, headstones and burial sites will share them with me so they can be loaded on the site. I will initially only link to free sites that are available online, sites that one can visit via the internet.
So Aussie geniefriends, please visit her website, click on the various state links. These link to Google Doc pages with lists of cemeteries. If you know of other FREE sites, that are not yet listed, please send her an email with details, 6feetunderdownunder@gmail.com, and she’ll get it added.
The more comprehensive this is, the more useful it is. And I can see this being an incredible resource for those searching for Australian cemeteries.
