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

So Queensland 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.

=== QUEENSLAND ===

Renamed Places in Queensland
While I’ve seen ‘renamed towns’ lists for other places, I’ve never seen one as extensive as this Queensland one. Going way beyond just listing towns and suburbs that have been renamed, this one even includes street, cemeteries and buildings. Grouped into: Shires & Local Government; Electorates; Towns, suburbs & localities; Post offices; Railway Stations; Schools; Streets; Churches; Cemeteries;
Buildings: Houses, Hotels, Theatres, Properties & Other Man-Made Things; Geographical Features: Mountains, Rivers etc.; Shire & Local and more!

Queensland Family Trees
This website contains names of over 42,000 individuals, and over 2000 photos and other media, which are linked to the relevant individuals that have a connection to Queensland. Easy to use it has a simple search box on the home page.

Queensland Residents Pre-1859
Griffith University is documenting the lives and experiences of “people, groups and organisations that have not been the subject of historical investigation” by collating information relating to the early colonial period. Use the simply A-Z list, or enter a surname, and you’ll find those that have all ready been documented. Alternatively you’re also welcome to submit your own ancestral biographies

Queensland Timeline pre-1600s to 1859
What happened when in Queensland? This comprehensive timeline will tell you.

Queensland War Memorials Register
War memorials remain as places for honouring the fallen and those who have served our nation. They remind us that in the despair of war, the ANZACs showed courage, ingenuity, good natured irreverent humour and a commitment to their mates. The Queensland War Memorial Register records the sites that are sacred to the memory of those that served. It is designed to provide information for historians and to assist present and future generations understand how the dedication and courage of Australia’s youth created a spirit and national identity for our country. At the time of writing this the site lists 1399 war memorials.

Brisbane Images 1850s to Present
The Brisbane City Archives holds an amazing digital collection of images, maps, plans and documents that document Brisbane’s History from the 1850s through to now. Find your house, find your street or see the tram routes of Brisbane in the 1940s. You can search and view these collections here. Simply enter your search term above or click on an image below to start exploring Brisbane – past and present.

Brisbane City Council Cemeteries
The Brisbane City Council manages 12 cemeteries and three crematoriums: Bald Hills Cemetery; Balmoral Cemetery; Brookfield Cemetery; Cedar Creek Cemetery; Hemmant Cemetery; Hemmant Crematorium; Lutwyche Cemetery; Moggil Cemetery; Mount Gravatt Cemetery; Mount Gravatt Crematorium; Nundah Cemetery; Pinnaroo Crematorium; Pinnaroo Lawn Cemetery; South Brisbane Cemetery; and Toowong Cemetery. Unfortunately, not all records are complete because the Brisbane Council only gained full control of Brisbane’s public cemeteries in July 1930. Before that time, a number of trusts established under Queensland law managed these cemeteries.

Queensland Births, Deaths and Marriages
Search the Queensland historical births, deaths and marriages indexes for free. Covering births between 1829 and 1919, marriages between 1829 and 1944, and deaths between 1829 and 1989, to obtain a copy of the certificate there is a fee, and you can choose to have it as a digital image and emailed to you or a paper copy posted out to you.

Maryborough Public Records 1847-1989
This collecion of miscellaneous records for Maryborough, Queensland, includes burial registers, a hospital death register, list of residents, and a list of war memorials and honor rolls giving soldiers’ names. Original records are located in Maryborough City Hall, Queensland, Australia. The collection contains over 17,000 entries, on 1844 original images.

Convict Transportation Registers Database 1787-1867
The State Library of Queensland have compiled a listing on over 123,000 convicts that arrived on the following ships: Asia, Surrey, Mangles, Norfolk, Elizabeth, Layton, Lord Lyndoch, Marquis of Huntley, Guildford, Prince Regent, Georgiana, Blenheim, Adelaide, Strathfieldsaye, St Vincent, Argyle, Circassian, and Stately.

Queensland Cemetery Inscriptions 1802-1990
An index of over 1.1 million entries which combines several indexes, cemetery transcriptions, burial and other records from cemeteries in mostly in Queensland. Although there a few entries that relate to New South Wales, Norfolk Island, Tasmania, and Western Australia.

Queensland Soldier WWI Portaits
The State Library of Queensland has digitised almost 30,000 soldier portraits that appeared in ‘The Queenslander’ periodical from 1914 through to 1917.

Queensland Mining Accidents 1882-1945
Queensland mining accidents were listed annually in the Queensland Legislative Assembly Votes & Proceedings. This index contains 8904 entries of mining deaths in Queensland that were mentioned. The accidents occured in the following regions: Ipwsich region, Charters Towers, Mount Morgan region, Gympie region, Mount Isa region, Chillagoe region, Bowen, Rockhampton region, Maryborough, Darling Downs, Cloncurry region, Mount Coolan, Clermont region, Cracow, Brisbane region, Irvinebank, Townsville region.

Text Queensland
This website is a one everyone researching Queensland history should bookmark. All free, it contains books, journals, theses and newspapers as well as government sources including the Queensland Government Gazette 1859-1900, as well as Pugh’s Almanacs,  The Queenslander (newspaper) 1866-1939, Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland 1914-1994 and much more. and more … all searchable.
The Queenslander (newspaper) 1866-1939, as well as the Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland 1914-1994 and much more.

Queensland School, Hospital and Orphanage Records
The Queensland State Archives has an enormous collection of records from the nineteenth and early to mid-twentieth century on Queensland government schools, hospitals, asylums, medical staff, orphanages and children’s homes to name a few. The link above takes you to a listing of what they have available.

Queensland Genealogy and Archives Research Tips
Well-known genealogy researcher, Judy Webster knows everything there is to know about Queensland genealogy research, and her site is an enormouse collection of information for those with Queensland connections. She has a Tips section for those researching Queensland genealogy, which is totally worth a read.

Queensland Genealogy Facebook Group
Got a query to do with Queensland genealogy research? Are you on Facebook? If yes, why not join the Queensland Genealogy Facebook Group, and pop your question there. There’s several thousand member, and members are happy to help each other out.

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Happy researching 🙂

It’s been a while since I last did a “Discovering Links” post, so it’s way past time for one.

These posts are lists of links that I’ve discovered. It’s not meant to be an exhaustive list, but it is simply ones, (and 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 a bunch relating to Victoria  in Australia.

=== VICTORIAN LINKS ===

Ballarat Revealed
Learn more about Ballarat’s historic stories, secrets and spaces via your smartphone, tablet or computer with their walking tours. Along the way you’ll learn about the history and ghost stories of the area.

Boyle’s Football Photos
This website is the work of two independent researchers whose objective is to share their “passion for history and provide a friendly resource for family historians, football buffs and others who have an interest in the Charles Boyles photos and more generally in football photography from the 1920’s to 1960’s”. This site has since grown to cover more than just football photos. There’s articles, as well as pages on players, grounds, teams and more. I’ve categorised this link as Victoria – though it could easily be Australia as a whole – but as it started off with Victorian clubs and players there is a dominance of those records listed.

Cemeteries of South West Victoria
This is an impressive collection of cemetery records from Victoria’s South West region – almost 150 of them. So if you’re looking for people from this area, check this website to see which cemetery they’re buried at.

The Darragh Index (Germans in Melbourne 1861-1924)
The Darragh index is an invaluable resource to help you locate Germans living in Melbourne between 1861 and 1924. Listing over 1200 names, with a further 640 names of wives, children and parents appearing within most entries, the index was compiled using the Melbourne German Sick and Relief Society’s archival records held at State Library Victoria. This collection consists of minute books, membership records, financial records, published histories of the Society, photographs and various documents concerning friendly societies.

Eurekapedia
As the name suggests, this is pretty much the site to go to for anything and everything about Eureka Rebellion.

Geelong and District Family History Group
I don’t expect to generally list genealogy groups and societies, but this one is worth mentioning. The volunteers at the Geelong and District Family History Group are to be commended for their indexing efforts. So far their database has over 1.7 million entries. So for anyone with connections to this region of Victoria, their site is a must.

Historical Maps of Victoria
The University of Melbourne holds about 15,000 maps. Of these they have around 500 that are digitised and are online. The greater proportion of these are Melbourne and Victoria related, although there are some covering other regions.

Index to Victorian Probate Registers, 1841-1989
FamilySearch has images of the probate record indexes from Victoria, Australia online, and free. Listing over 1 million names this is a valuable resource as even though it’s an index, it contains the following information: Name of deceased, Late of [address], Occupation, Date of death, Nature of grant, Date of grant, and To whom committed.

Letterheads from Melbourne Businesses
If your ancestor had a business in Melbourne, they may well have had letterheads. While the various Victorian archives have over 10,000 letterheads in their collections, 250 of these were chosen to display on the emelbourne website.

Melbourne Directories 1857-1880
The University of Melbourne’s Baillieu Library holds copies of Melbourne directories published first as Sands & Kenny’s directory (1857-59), then Sands, Kenny & Co.’s directory (1860-61) and finally as the Sands & McDougall’s directory. Those covering 1857-1880 have now been digitised and are online on the emelbourne website.

Melbourne Publicans Index c1841-1949 (Cole-Tetlow Index)
Compiled by Eric Tetlow, this index contains over 21,000 names of hotel licencees taken from the Melbourne city and metropolitan volumes of the Robert K. Cole collection of hotel records held at State Library Victoria. The index entries contain the name of the licencee or owner, location of the hotel, dates when the licence was held, and volume and page numbers, which can be used to locate an entry in the Robert K Cole Collection of hotel records, and covers the years c1841 to 1949.

My Marvellous Melbourne Podcast
If you’re interested in stories of Victoria’s history, take a listen to the My Marvellous Melbourne podcast. A production of the Melbourne History Workshop, their segments combine stories, interviews, personal reflections and memories that interest and inspire them about the social history of the city and suburbs.

Outward Passenger Lists from Victoria 1852-1924
Listing over 1.6 million entries, this collection consists of outward passenger lists of those leaving Victoria, Australia, 1852 to 1924. The original records are located in the Public Record Office of Victoria., but this index is online (and free) on FamilySearch. The entries include people not only going overseas from Victoria, but also those to different Australian states.

Picture Victoria
Similar to what PictureAustralia was, PictureVictoria is a portal site for libraries in Victoria to upload photos to, so they can be all searched from a single site. While the Trove photograph collection is good, if you have Victorian interests, you may wish to check this out as well just in case they have something different.

Public Record Office Victoria (PROV)
The PROV is Victoria’s major archive, and holds over 100km of government records related to all facets of Victorian Government activity from the 1830s onward. Some of the popular records, including photos, maps, and documents relating to family history, have been digitised and are available to view online.

Royal Women’s Hospital Staff Biographies and Book of Remembrance
In 1953, Dr Colin Macdonald, the hospital’s Clinical Radiologist and Honorary Historian set about researching the lives of the medical staff who had served the hospital in its first 100 years. Volume 1 featured biographies of honorary medical and surgical staff who had died prior to 1956. After Dr Macdonald’s death, several colleagues continued to record biographies in a second volume. None have been added since 1975. The two volumes were manually typed, with photographs of most subjects having a photograph together with their biography.

Victorian Births, Deaths and Marriages 1853-1988
The Victorian Registrar of BDMs has a index of the Births up to 1917, Marriages up to 1957, Deaths up to 1988, Church baptisms, marriages and burials in Victoria from 1836 to 1853, and BDM at sea on ships that were bound for Victoria from 1853-1920. Note: the index is free to sear, but if you want an actual certificate, there is a cost for that.

Victorian Collections
Think of the Victorian Collections as an online museum that you can wander and browse through. Currently they have over 128,000 items in their “digital museum” which continues to grow. It is a free, web-based collections management system, which hundreds of groups have already contributed to, and then creates a central portal to Victoria’s rich cultural heritage and diverse history.

Victorian Government Gazettes 1836-1997
The State Library of Victoria have digitised the Victorian (and very early New South Wales) Government Gazettes, and have made over 160 years of them available online. Free. You can view images of individual gazette pages by browsing through, or you can search the index.

Victorian Heritage Database
For all who are researching family or places in Victoria, this is one for you to bookmark.  The Victorian Heritage Database is a “fully searchable online database containing information about Victorian Heritage Places and Precincts, including statements of significance, physical descriptions, historical information, builder, architectural style, photographs and heritage overlay number”. Type in a place, and everything with that name in it, streets, rives, anything in that suburb will come up.

Victorian Historical Journal (1911-2012)
The Journal is the official publication of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria. It provides articles related to Victoria’s history, spanning Aboriginal heritage to European settlement as well as research articles, book reviews, obituaries and reminiscences.

Victorian Law Reports 1874-1976
The Victorian Law Resources website isn’t one I’d particularly think of visiting for research, but it sure has a heap of useful stuff for the genealogist. They have digitised old (1874-1976) law reports, so you can see them online.

Victorian Places
Victorian Places is essentially an online gazetteer listing over 1600 destinations throughout Victoria (Australia). Search or browse for places, and you’ll discover the history of every town, city, suburb, village and settlement in Victoria that had a population of over 200 people.

Victoria’s Anzac Centenary 1914-1918
The Victorian Government have created this site to commemorate the Victorians who took part in the First World War. Useful for students, community groups, historical societies, cultural institutions, ex-service organisations and family historians – this site helps delve deep into Victoria’s history to learn more about our WWI service men and women. You can search or browse all the stories online (click here), but not only that, if you have ancestors who took part, you can add details online too.

Western District Families
Merron grew up in Victoria’s districts and has a passion for sharing it’s history. Her site it subtitled “Stories of Pioneering Families From the Western District of Victoria” With many obituaries, military heroes from the region, and even more general history, Western District Families is a definitely a place to visit if you have any connection to the region at all … or if you simply love learning about Victoria’s history.

WikiNorthia
WikiNorthia is a wiki that is “all about documenting life in Melbourne’s north”. This project began as a collaboration between Darebin Libraries, the Yarra Plenty Regional Library and the Moreland City Libraries. These three libraries cover five council areas, and have a goal to create an online encyclopedia of the northern suburbs of Melbourne.

WWI Soldier Settlement in Victoria
On this site you can access the individual records of thousands of  World War One returned soldiers who leased farming land across Victoria between 1919 and 1935.

The commercialisation of genealogy, and genealogy costing money is not a new topic, as it’s one that seems to pop-up every now and then.

This post is one that stems from comments I saw on Facebook from someone who is convenor of a genealogy-related Facebook Group who said she wouldn’t share any post (no matter how relevant or useful) if the blog had adverts on it, simply because they didn’t wish to promote commercial genealogy. This led to numerous comments asking why.

Personally I don’t agree with this woman, as we should do all we can to help preserve our records and history, commercial or otherwise.

MY DISCLAIMER
Before I go on let me just state up front, that yes I do work in a genealogy bookshop, Gould Genealogy & History (www.gould.com.au). Yes, it is a commercial business, and currently lists about 7000 products on our website. No, it doesn’t make bundles of money, but we do have wonderful customers who have kept our little family business going for over 40 years.

Would the fact that I work in the genealogy industry influence my opinion? I doubt it. Or maybe it has, as I see the work that goes into caring, restoring, archiving, housing and digitising records, and I know that it ALL costs money, so I have no objection when paying my subscription fees to various online websites, or to a number of societies and so on.

THERE IS FREE STUFF
For sure you can do a lot for free, and I do not condemn that in any way. In fact, I promote the use of free sites (just check my list of Discovering Links posts, and Facebook Links). But during your genealogical journey there comes a time when you need to order a certificate, pay for a researcher, join a society, buy a subscription to a website or magazine (or both), buy a book to help your with your search, or even a DNA kit or two. So as you see it’s not ALL free.

Despite that, there is an anti-commercialism feeling from some people in the genealogy scene. I don’t know why, but I do know it’s there.

THE QUESTION
Here’s a question, how many of you have been able to view ORIGINAL RECORDS online? By that I mean the scanned images of the originals? I have, and to say it is very cool is an understatement. Wills, land records, parish chest records, shipping lists and so on … it is super exciting to see them, yet without funding for preservation, archiving and digitising we just wouldn’t have these records available.

Just think, a few years ago the only way to see them (apart writing and getting photocopies) would have been to travel to that region and go to the local archive. So the fact that you can see them from home, even in your pyjamas if you wish, is simply AWESOME … and it saves you money on airfares! And yes, a subscription can cost several hundreds of dollars, but that’s STILL cheaper than an airfare!

BUT PAYING FOR GENEALOGY?
“The information is public and should remain free to all of us and not be the property of some private company.” This is common complaint from people. And it’s one that I’ve partly covered above. If a record was free from a society or archive, and is now on a pay website that doesn’t mean that the free record is no longer available if you go to (or get in touch with the society or archive). It simply means you can now access it easier from your own home, online, but to do so yes, you’ll have to pay. It also means that the society or archive has possibly been paid some money which will go towards helping store those and other original records better for the future.

Subscription Sites
Paying money for a subscription simply means that you are giving that company money to then be able to negotiate with another archive to obtain and digitise their records, which helps everyone in the long term.

Societies
Societies rely on membership money as that enables them to continue to pay rent and pay the other regular bills for their premises, continue to collect books and records, update their website, and sometimes have guest presenters speak at their meetings. Some even have a small bookshop and sell products to their members, which help supplement their income.

Researchers
It’s a general fact that there’s not a lot of money to be made in genealogy research, so if a researcher has adverts, or uses affiliate links to supplement their income why is that considered wrong? You as a customer don’t pay more for their services, and it helps them out a little.

Authors
If a genealogical researcher or speaker writes a book, is it wrong that they spruik it? Surely not? A number of authors I know have adverts of the books they’ve written on their website, and so they should. It takes not only a whole lot of knowledge, but a lot of time and money to write and publish a book, and yet, unless you sell many thousands of copies, you’re simply making peanuts. Still here they are sharing their expertise, to help you and others, with research, so good on them. Buy it and support them.

Other hobbies
Model trains, fishing, knitting, papercraft, you name it, people are happy to pay for their hobby, yet when it comes to genealogy many say ‘it should be free’. I don’t believe so, as it really is helping to preserve our records and our history.

TELL ME ..
For those who’ve read this far and totally disagree with me, just answer this one question, WHY do you believe genealogy should be free?

Here’s another of my “Discovering Links” post. These posts 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.

For this one I’ve decided to share my Western Australian links. It is not intended to be an exhaustive collection (not by a long shot), but they are simply ones that many will find useful, and it may include some that you might 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. There’s plenty out there, it’s just a matter of knowing where to look beyond the big-name websites, and hopefully this will help with that.

=======

DEAD RECKONING: A GUIDE TO FAMILY HISTORY RESEARCH IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Produced by the Library Board of Western Australia as a book back in 1997, this publication has been updated and is now available online. If you are a novice family historian just starting out tracing your family tree or an experienced genealogy researcher looking for whatever happen to the elusive great uncle, Dead Reckoning is a great place start to learn about family history research in Western Australia.

WESTERN AUSTRALIAN BICENTENNIAL INDEX (WABI)
Western Australian Biographical Index is really the pre-curser to the Dictionary of Western Australia and Bicentennial Dictionary of Western Australians series. This is the information noted on card file, and all 85,000 of them have now been scanned, transcribed and made available through both the WA Genealogical Society and the State Library of WA websites. For more on WABI read here.

BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX OF COOROW, CARNAMAH AND THREE SPRINGS
A project of the Carnamah Historical Society and Museum, the biographical dictionary aims to chronicle the lives of people with a connection to the shires of Coorow, Carnamah or Three Springs. These shires encompass the towns and places of Arrino, Billeroo, Carnamah, Coorow, Dudawa, Eganu, Eneabba, Five Gums, Green Head, Gunyidi, Inering, Kadathinni, Leeman, Marchagee, Prowaka, Three Springs, Waddy Forest and Winchester. And you will find some entries for people from the neighbouring shires of Perenjori and Mingenew, which include Bunjil, Caron, Latham, Mingenew, Perenjori, Strawberry and Yandanooka. Keep an eye on this, as it’s ongoing.

WESTERN AUSTRALIAN BIRTHS, DEATHS AND MARRIAGE RECORDS (BDMs)
The Western Australian registrar has free online searching of births, deaths and marriages from 1841 for their historical records. This covers the following: Births 1841-1932, Marriages 1841-1936 and Deaths 1841-1971. Remember it is an index only, so doesn’t contain ‘all’ the info that you’ll find on a certificate, but it is still very useful.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA MOTOR REGISTRATIONS 1917-1928
Motor registrations are a great resource, and thanks to the Royal Automobile Club (R.A.C.) of Western Australia who published an annual Year Book & Road Guide, and Carnamah Historical Society and Museum who have transcribed, indexed and created a searchable online database, you now have access to over 80,000 motor registrations from throughout Western Australia, and covering the years 1917-1928.

OUTBACK FAMILY HISTORY: WESTERN AUSTRALIA’S CENTRAL GOLDFIELDS
If your ancestors went to the central goldfields region of Western Australia, you can’t go past the Outback Family History website. It’s choc full of info on the people, places and history of the towns in the region. You’ll find info such as the: Western Australian Virtual Miners Memorial, Mining maps, Details on hotels (over 200 of them), Cemeteries, Marriages, Early Deaths 1891-1898, Lodge Records, Schools, and Post Office Directories.

WESTERN AUSTRALIAN LONELY GRAVES
If you’re unfamiliar with the term “lonely grave” the definition for it is “a lonely grave is a single or small group of graves outside recognised or currently used cemeteries.” The names, burial sites and photographs of over 2700 Western Australian lonely graves are on this site to date.

IMAGES OF WESTERN AUSTRALIAN HISTORY
The Images of Western Australian History website is a collaborative portal to the treasures that exist in various collections including museums and libraries in Western Australia.

WESTERN AUSTRALIAN ALMANACS 1849-1889
Almanacs predate the Western Australian government Year Books and Post Office Directories, and served a similar purpose in detailing the activities of the colony of Western Australia. The State Library of WA has digitised a series of almanacs covering the period 1849-1889. The link takes you to more info about the Almanacs, and give you the link to go to them.

GALLIPOLI DEAD FROM WESTERN AUSTRALIA
The Gallipoli Dead from Western Australia Project is one that has been a collaborative project between WAGS members and others to record details of known Western Australians who died at Gallipoli. So far this project has named 1023 men who died as a result of their service at Gallipoli. Also check out the Western Front Dead from Western Australia Project they have going.

WESTERN AUSTRALIAN POST OFFICE DIRECTORIES 1893-1949
Post office directories are a valuable source of information for researchers. These Western Australian post office directories provide information by place, surname, government service, and by trade or profession. The different sections enable readers to see at a glance the householders or businesses in any one town; the address of any householder or business in the State. Scanned images are able to be browsed, but not searched.

WESTERN AUSTRALIAN POLICE GAZETTES 1876-1900
Anyone who is researching history in Western Australia should be using the Police Gazettes. They have a phenomenal amount of information for those on both sides of the law. You’ll find info such as: apprehensions; police appointments, dismissals, discharges, promotions, resignations and transfers; tickets of leave, certificates of freedom, and conditional pardons issued to convicts; deserters from military service; escaped prisoners; inquests; licences (publican, gallon, eating, boarding and lodging houses, railway refreshment rooms, wine and beer, colonial wine, spirit merchants, club, wayside house, packet and billiard table); missing friends; prisoners discharged; special inquiries; stealing in dwellings; and warrants issued and a whole lot more …

THE HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA
The Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia is an ambitious historical project. Previously released in book form, this is now long out of print, the University of WA has decided to make it available online. This comprehensive, authoritative work, covering all periods and aspects of Western Australian history should be a reference point for academic and general historians. There’s over 1000 pages of history relating to Western Australia in this book.

OLD MAPS OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA
The State Records of WA has a collection of several thousand maps which have been been digitised and made available online. These include original surveys of the colony, hand drawn and hand coloured maps, townsite plans, cancelled public maps, group settlement plans which show the allotment of land for individual properties, exploration maps showing the routes in WA throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, and a whole heap more.

REVERSE WESTERN AUSTRALIAN MARRIAGE LOOKUP
A project of the Perth Dead Persons Society, the Reverse WA Marriage Lookup site, is another place to search for WA marriages. Currently covering the years 1906-1965, it has a simple search function, enter a surname and see what comes up. You can narrow it down by adding in a first name, district and year.

WESTERN AUSTRALIAN CONVICTS
The Convicts to Australia is another other the Perth Dead Person Societies’ (DPS) sites, and is actually a reference site for convicts to Australia, not just Western Australia. If you have convicts, be sure to bookmark this one. There’s LOTS of info here.

CONVICTS TO WESTERN AUSTRALIA 1850-1868
Search the Convict Database to discover the men who were transported to the Swan River Colony, Western Australia from 1850 to 1868. Providing researchers with a wealth of information, you get not only the Name, convict number, date of arrival, and ship name. But also date of birth, marital status, occupation, literacy, sentence place, crime, sentence period, previous convictions, ticket of leave date, conditional pardon date, certificate of freedom date.

CEMETERIES OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA
There is no ‘one place’ to search for all Western Australian cemeteries, but a good place to start is the Metropolitan Cemeteries Board. Their cemetery records contain details of “interments, entombments, cremations and memorials” dating back to 1899, and covers Karrakatta, Fremantle, Pinnaroo, Midland, Guildford and Rockingham cemeteries. Also the MCB took over administration of Guildford and Midland cemeteries from the Shire of Swan in 1989, and these records have been included in the system.

11TH BATTALION AIF – CHEOPS PYRAMID PROJECT
The 11th Battalion, raised in Western Australia within weeks of Great Britain’s declaration of war in August 1914, arrived in Egypt in December 1914 to prepare for the Gallipoli campaign. On Sunday, January 10, 1915, Captain Barnes recorded in a letter to his mother: ‘After Church this morning the whole Battalion was marched up to the Pyramid (Old Cheops) and we had a photo took or at least several of them.’ Most of the 704 men who posed for this iconic image have never been named/identified and it is likely that this is the last photograph of many of them. The idea for the project came as a result of the donation of a print of the Cheops image which is now framed and hanging in the WAGS Library, coupled with a desire to expand the work of the late Allan Ellam who, in the 1980s, commenced a similar project. The aim of the project has been to identify as many of the men in the photo as possible as record the stories and honour the sacrifices made by all of the men of the 11th, not just those that appear in the Cheops photo.

PASSENGER SHIPS ARRIVING IN FREMANTLE, WESTERN AUSTRALIA 1829-1889
A chronological list of ships that arrived in Western Australia (Fremantle) from 1829, stating the date it arrived, and where it came from. Many (but not all) include lists of passengers.

WESTERN AUSTRALIAN SURNAMES LIST
Is anyone researching the same family you are? They may well be. So why not check the Western Australian Surnames List. The WA Genealogical Society has a listing of over 470,000 names that people researching, together with contact details. This research interest list is available to members and non-members, both to view and submit, and is open to all those whose ancestors came to Western Australia.

WESTERN AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT GAZETTES 1836-2017 
The Western Australian Government Gazette from 1836 is found online at the Department of the Premier and Cabinet website. Browse and search facilities are available. Access to individual notices is from 1st January 2002. Indexes are available online from 1836.

WESTERN AUSTRALIAN SCHOOL RECORDS INDEX 1891-2005
This index will enable family historians to quickly determine what archival material the WA State Records Office holds for Government Schools in the period covered. There are 2,687 Western Australian schools listed in the table.

ROYAL WESTERN AUSTRALIAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION
The Royal Western Australian Historical Society contains a wealth of useful information for researchers, but for this purpose I’m highlighting their photograph collection. Simply click on the “photographs” tab, and enter your search term (name, or place, or topic), and see what comes up. They really do have a stunning collection of photographs.

PASSENGER ARRIVALS IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA 1898-1966
The Passenger Arrivals index is an online database that includes the names from passenger lists in the National Archives series K269, Inward passenger manifests for ships and aircraft arriving at Fremantle, Perth Airport and outports, chronological series, 1898-1978 and series A1197, Incoming passenger cards. The index now includes the names of over 5.5 million passengers arriving:
– by ship between 1898 and 1966 (arriving in or travelling through the port of Fremantle or other WA ports)
– by aircraft from 1944 to 1966 to Perth Airport (or travelling through)
– by ship or aircraft from 1965 to 1967
For more about the Passenger Arrival Index read here.

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AND ONE MORE … 
Just a tip, remember to check out my “Discovering Links Australia” list, as many of these are Australia-wide, and therefore include references to those in Western Australia as well.