Trove – Eight Years of Incredible Discoveries
Eight years ago, the way of historical and genealogical research in Australia changed forever. Trove went live.
Created by the National Library of Australia, the Trove website is a portal to their absolutely incredible collection of records.
By “absolutely incredible”, I’m talking millions of records. But not “just” millions. How about 554,000,000 of them? That’s right, over HALF A BILLION of them in fact! All online and all free to search. So how lucky are we?
There’s no doubt that Trove is Australia’s number 1 website for research. If it’s not yours, it should be! So go and bookmark it www.trove.nla.gov.au now.
If you’re not familiar with Trove, take a quick look at the videos below that give you a quick overview, of what it is, and the different facets to it.
So you’ll find photos, journals and articles, archived websites, government gazettes, music, sound and video recordings, diaries and letters, maps and books, even vintage issues of the Women’s Weekly magazine. They all make up the phenomenal collection of Australian history that the National Library of Australian (NLA) looks after. For more a detailed analysis on using Trove and all it’s facets, check out Shauna Hicks’ “Trove: Discover Genealogy Treasure in the National Library of Australia“.
the stats as at 1 December 2017
However what most researchers (myself included) head to Trove for, is their historical newspaper collection. And why wouldn’t we, they are so fun. And with over 200 million pages of old newspaper online already – there are so many stories just waiting to be found.
The blog theme “Trove Tuesday” was started back in 2012 by Amy Houston of the Branches Leaves and Pollen blog, [note, I know the link has changed, but I still wanted to give her the credit], and through its creation, has inspired so many to find and share their amazing discoveries using Trove.
Just having a quick look through my own Trove Tuesday posts, and I’ve done articles on obituaries, the opening of a butter factory, drink ‘driving’, a hanging, a duel, several WW1 and WW2 related entries, local football match, Adelaide’s water supply, gold, South Australian pioneers, an earthquake, Christmas, the plague, a sudden death, a ploughing match … and so much more.
None of this would have been easily accessible without the online newspapers on Trove. The detail in a newspaper article is often better than you’ll find anywhere else , so it is a valuable source of information.
So I wish to say a huge CONGRATULATIONS to the National Library of Australia team for Trove’s 8th birthday, and THANKYOU, THANKYOU, THANKYOU for giving us the present of Trove.
And one last note, if you come across the following terms, here are their definitions:
– BT – before Trove
– pre-Trove – life before Trove
– post-Trove – life after Trove went live
– Troveite – a person addicted to searching Trove’s newspapers
and for even more Trove related lingo, be sure to check out a heap more at Carmel’s Library Currents blog
Related Articles:
13 Tips For Searching Trove’s Historical Newspapers
4 Responses to “Trove – Eight Years of Incredible Discoveries”
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Trove is responsible for many sleepless nights but we love her (she has to be a girl, Right?)
Oh you’re so right about the sleepless nights Jill. As for Trove being female … hehe maybe?
Three cheers for Trove! Without her I probably would have lost interest in family history. Thanks for the mention too.
I too am a huge fan of Trove!! It’s been a boon for my Australian research – families on both sides of my mum’s tree emigrated there during the 19th century and it’s been so cool to find out what they did after leaving England 🙂