Learning about the history of a country, state or county is great (not to mention incredibly useful), still nothing beats knowing the history right down to the local level. The town, the village, or the district where your ancestors came from. Afterall the closer to where they were the more likely they are to be mentioned in it.
Get to know what the town or area your ancestors lived in ‘back in the day’. Find out if the town has a church or two, a hospital, a school. What sporting clubs were there? What businesses were there? What was the town (or region) best known for … agriculture, shipping, mining, stock etc? Who were the pioneers of the town? Or even just those of note from the region? Sometimes you’ll even find adverts of local business from the town.
All of these are useful questions, and often you can find answers to these in local history books.
During July, we are having a “Local Histories Sale“. With 100 titles detailing the histories of towns right around Australia, you can save up to 40%.
We have histories covering: Armidale, Ballarat, Bendigo, Brisbane, Concord, Darling Downs, Drummoyne, Fassifern, Fremantle, Gawler, Gumeracha, Gympie, Ipswich, Kenilworth, Mildura, Mount Gambier, Newtown, Orange, Parramatta, Port Mackay, Strathfield, Tea Tre Gully, Warrnambool, Windsor and a whole heap more.
You can view the full list of titles here:
https://www.gould.com.au/specials/local-histories-sale/
Below are just a few examples of the types of information you can find in these histories.
a page from “Drummoyne: A Western Suburb’s History from 1794”, showing an image (and giving details) of the Five Dock Grand Steeple-Chase from 1844 (Item code: AU2033)
a page from the Biographical Sketches of Old Colonists section of “The History of Maryborough” (Item code AU4008)
the Old Landmarks and Historic Pictures chapter in the “Jubilee History of Ipswich 1910”
(Item code AU4031)
here’s another page from the “Jubilee History of Ipswich 1910”, this one names on the Honour Board at the Boys’ Grammar School (Item code AU4031)
the Contents page from “The History and Topography of Glen Osmond”. Note this title includes a ‘Register of marriages at St Saviour’s Church’, and ‘Alphabetical list of householders and old residents’, and ‘Obituaries of pioneers’ – incredible (Item code AU5013)
Chapter 14 of “Tasmania’s North East: A Comprehensive History of North-Eastern Tasmania and Its People” book, includes details of the 1861 and 1870 Census (Item code AU6024)
details of businesses listed in “Past and Present: The ‘Donald Times’ Jubilee Souvenir 1845-1925”
(Item code AU7041)
So if you haven’t explored the wealth of information that you can find in local histories, now is the the time to do so. Obviously what we have on sale is only a small portion of those that have been produced over the years, so you may wish to check with libraries and societies to see what local histories they hold as well.
I am only interested and serious about South Australian History. So I will only look for ebooks about this broad subject.