Snippets 280It’s been a while since my last Snippets post, but recently I’ve been coming across all sorts of interesting genealogy-related tidbits that I wanted to share with you, so I’ve have collected them together to make up a new Snippets post.

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Australian Electoral Roll update
In early 2014 the Australian Electoral Commission began to enforce restrictions on access to the current electoral roll – in effect only allowing individuals to check their own enrolment details. The electoral roll, both in its current digital form and in microfiche and microfilm in libraries and archives, is of course a key genealogical tool and the lack of access to the current edition meant that the tracing of present day family members and long lost relatives was severely hampered. However, as part of the inquiry into the 2013 federal election the question of access to the current electoral roll was revisited and in May this year the AEC’s heightened restrictions were withdrawn.

This is fantastic news for family historians as this means we can once again visit AEC offices to examine the current electoral roll for genealogical research purposes. Any individual can again examine the electoral roll for any name – though electronic recording of the data is not allowed. For further details of how to access the electoral roll please visit this link.
[seen in the Society of Australian Genealogists Newsletter, July 2015]

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Eyre Peninsula Family History Facebook group
South Australia’s Eye Peninsula now that a Facebook group to which “aims to bring together and assist people with Eyre Peninsula family history”. You can find the link to the group here https://www.facebook.com/groups/853025608099512/

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Do you have family buried in the Old Tawonga Cemetery?
Mark from Archival Access is on the hunt for some information.

“Those in the greater Wodonga area may have seen some media coverage recently relating to the Old Tawonga Cemetery – and the efforts being made to identify who is buried there and where the graves are.

The cemetery sits on what is now farmland – condemned in late 1900 due to its proximity to the river and the difficulty in sinking graves due to boulders beneath the soil. Records I’ve tracked down (which include a sketch of the old cemetery, see below) at PROV suggest no burial register was kept, the cemetery trust was almost non-existent and that graves where dug by residents ‘wherever needed’. This presents a difficult research project but one the group is taking on in gusto – but we could use some help!

I’m putting the call out for anyone with death certificates from the Tawonga, Dederang and Bright area for deaths occurring between 1884 and 1920 to check the burial location of those ‘extra’ folk appearing on the paperwork. I’d love to hear from you if you have someone being buried at the Tawonga or Tawanga Cemetery.  I’ve checked all mine…no results, but I’m hoping with a bit of people power we can uncover a few more names of those old pioneers.”
[seen in the Archival Access Victoria Newsletter, Issue 64]

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Weroona Home 1846-1984 project
A project based at Macquarie University is seeking former residents willing to share their recollections of life at Weroona Home.

The project is looking at the history of private and public philanthropy in relationship to Weroona, a boys’ home at Woodford in NSW run by the Child Welfare Department. From 1948, Weroona housed around 30 boys, ranging in age from 7 to 15. Most boys were living at Weroona because of a shortage of foster care placements at that time. The main house at Weroona was destroyed by widespread bushfires in the Blue Mountains in November 1957, although the caretaker’s cottage survived. A two-storey home, accommodating 24 boys, was built to replace it, opening in 1959. Weroona continued to operate on the site until 1984.

Former residents of Weroona (between 1946 and 1984) can make a valuable contribution to this project by sharing their stories and recollections. The project will be conducted with respect for all respondents and will value the differences in recalled memory. For more information about how to participate in this project, please contact John Croucher by email or by calling 0419 502 197.
[seen on the Find & Connect blog ]

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Parramatta Female Factory being assessed for National Heritage List
The Minister for Environment, Hon Greg Hunt MP, and Federal Member for Reid, Mr Craig Laundy MP, issued a press release on 31 July 2015 about the Parramatta Female Factory being considered for the National Heritage List. The site is in the Reid electorate.

Located five minutes from the Parramatta CBD, the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct is Australia’s earliest and longest surviving female convict site. Designed by emancipated convict, Francis Greenway, the Female Factory was the first destination of all unassigned convict women sent to colonial Australia. Established in 1818, the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct has become a symbol of Australia’s convict past. For more information, click here.
[via the RAHS August Newsletter]

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New Website for the Fleurieu Peninsula Family History Group
The Fleurieu Peninsula Family History Group has just launched a brand new website. If you have connections to this region of South Australia, be sure to check out their wonderful new site.
http://fleurieufamilyhistory.org/

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Hornsby Library’s biographies of those on local War Memorials
The people at Hornsby Library have made the decision to publish biographical information about the people on the war memorials in the shire in an online format. This is not only good for those who can now simply log on to find out details, but also as new information about the boys becomes available the site will be updated to reflect this.
To view the records click here.
[seen on Jill Ball’s blog]

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Western Australian Gold Mining Employees project
Three years ago Outback Family History and Dr Criena Fitzgerald, approached Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines (KCGM) regarding historical employee records in their archives. These records were in the format of individual cards for each employee from the inception of Lake View and Boulder East Company in 1895 up to about the 1960’s. Outback Family History, Dr Fitzgerald and KCGM have been working in conjunction during this time to preserve both the cards themselves and also record the valuable information contained in them.

“The information in these records is something that will not be found elsewhere. The exact data collected on these cards varies as the years go by and new cards were used but the sort of information in general is: Full name, Date of Birth, Nationality, occupation, address, postal address, Mines Workers Relief cards, Lodge, Doctor, Union, Marital status, children or any other dependants such as mother or sister. Also contained among these records is what we believe to be the only complete record of ‘Tributing Parties’ from 1924 to about 1935 showing the full details of each man but also the tributing party he belonged to.

We currently have a group of volunteers entering the information on each card. We estimate that there are about 35,000 cards in total. Sadly some are damaged and unreadable but the majority are in great condition and when they have been transcribed they will be packed into archive boxes and returned to KCGM for storage. The transcribed data will be made available to everyone from free of any charge and we anticipate that the contribution to our mining history will be immense.

We will continue to keep everyone informed of our progress as we proceed. If you have any questions about this project please do contact me.”

For more information on this project check out the Outback Family History blog.
[seen on the Outback Family History blog, August 2015]

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Congratulations to the Ryerson Index
In news a few days ago, the folk at the Ryerson Index announced that they had reached a MAJOR milestone. “After 17 years and 5 days, we can now say that every death notice ever published in the Sydney Morning Herald has been indexed! That’s 184 years of notices from the paper, indexed at a rate of more than 2,000 notices per week for 17 years. We still have a some years where the funeral notices are yet to be indexed, but the task we set ourselves 17 years ago (even if we didn’t realise it at the time!) is now complete.”

What an awesome effort by everyone who contributes their time and effort to this amazing resource. If you haven’t checked the Ryerson Index recently, be sure to take the time for another look. www.ryersonindex.org.
[via the Ryerson Index Facebook page]

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Inside History Magazine receives “Cultural Heritage Award”
Australia’s premier family history and genealogy magazine has been awarded the ‘Cultural Heritage Award’ recently at the Keep NSW Beautiful Blue Star Sustainability Awards! For more their win, as well as the winners from other categories, please check out the Keep NSW Beautiful website. If you haven’t checked out Inside History Magazine yet, you can find more details of their latest issue here.
[via the Inside History Magazine Facebook page]