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Aussie ancestors: what you wish you'd known?

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  • Aussie ancestors: what you wish you'd known?

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  • #2
    knowing how much info the certs have is one. and they go back to march 1853 with the same required info as now.
    also knowing vic has them online will help.
    i have no convict ancestors, but links for those would help people.
    knowing where to find wills is good.
    land records and naturalisation indexes for certain states are online, those are invaluable.

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    • #3
      There wasn't a huge amount available when I started, Penelope. It mostly seemed to take the form of microfilms/ microfiche in our State Library (I'm talking Western Australia) of passengers lists, newspapers and certain other materials.

      A State Librarian had amassed a lot of data concerning pioneers from oral and written references, some of which was inaccurate. I recall looking at annotated cards for my family when I began. There was a genealogical society one could join and access quite a few materials. The online resources have grown so dramatically in the last twenty years, there is really no comparison. The Wiki has links to most of these.

      Beverley



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      • #4
        I wrote to three different people in Australia, asking if they were related to me, and enclosed a special "money order?" that I bought from the post office. I asked the people I wrote to that if they were not the people I was looking for would they kindly just seal the envelope and put a stamp on using the money order I sent them. I never received any replies! So, there is a lot I wish I had known and still need to know now! Sorry I'm doing a "Grrrrrrr" at you! don't mean to, sorry, sorry, sorry!

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        • #5
          I wish someone would send me a letter asking if I was related. I wouldn't even need a return envelope.....I'd write back.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Harrys mum View Post
            I wish someone would send me a letter asking if I was related. I wouldn't even need a return envelope.....I'd write back.
            Me too!
            Margaret

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            • #7
              i wonder how long you waited? some people keep meaning to do it, and are either busy or forgetful. if it was me, it would take a week or two to write, and a further week to post it. add it all up, and might be a month or two.

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              • #8
                No, this was a few months ago. Yes, me too, I would write back. It happened to me once, many years ago a chap wrote who had the same name as me and wondered if we were related. I wrote straight back and gave him some of my descendants names, but it turned out we were not related. He wrote back and thanked me for writing to him to quickly. Some people can be so nice and others so 'orrible!!

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                • #9
                  i sincerely hope that most people get nice replies, even if people arn't related.

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                  • #10
                    I only found out that two members of one of my extended families had emigrated through googling and viewing the search results.
                    I had 2 East Yorks sisters who married and disappeared off the radar during the 1880's - no sign of either in 91 census or later.
                    One girl married James Holmes Bell - googling for HIS full name took me to a genealogy message board, where someone had left a query about him. There was a reply, referring the inquirer to Rootsweb, with the suggestion that he and his wife may have gone to Australia.
                    They did - I've found details of their sailing and of the births etc of all their children in the Queensland online archives.
                    I then tried the Queensland records for the other missing sister and traced her, her husband and their two children. (They sailed around the same time as the Bells.)
                    I tried my luck a third time for a "missing" male cousin - no luck with Queensland. However, I have recently found a reference for him on the public trees on Ancestry - he and his wife emigrated too, but to Canada.
                    So my advice to people is: explore every possible blanket search possibility you can think of. Sometimes the results are very surprising indeed!

                    Jay
                    Janet in Yorkshire



                    Genealogists never die - they just swap places in the family tree

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                    • #11
                      I started a long time ago with "The Collis Family in Australia" from my dad's cousin and hand written trees from my father-in-law and mother-in-laws families in Australia. The NSW BDM indexes had just come on-line, so I checked out all the dates (which were pretty much all correct) and expanded from there.

                      I wish I had known how much paperwork I was going to accumulate and how to organise it better. I started with one Lever Arch folder and worked out my own system. Now I have 9 folders and need to spend some time updating them, as since I started with a FH on-line database, they have been neglected.

                      There is so much much more on-line now - a lot of Australian cemeteries have on-line indexes, some of the BDM registries too. I have done a bit of research for a couple of friends and sometimes find "googling" a very useful way of finding people and places.

                      In the beginning, I wish I had known how much "stuff" NSW State Records (Archives) has, there is a lot of information waiting there. The Colonial Secretary's Papers are a mine of information on the early settlers, if you have time to look through them.


                      Diane
                      Diane
                      Sydney Australia
                      Avatar: Reuben Edward Page and Lilly Mary Anne Dawson

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                      • #12
                        The Old Bailey online for trial details, all the BMD indexes that can be found online, the newspapers online beta project, the ryerson index, national archives of australia online (good for war records).

                        That's all I can think of for now.

                        You may also want to include a warning that it can be hard to trace beyond a convict as there is little written down about convict parentage so if they didn't tell you may never be able to trace further back with any certainty.
                        Kit

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                        • #13
                          I second Kit's comment about convict's parentage - THAT can be very difficult.
                          Diane
                          Sydney Australia
                          Avatar: Reuben Edward Page and Lilly Mary Anne Dawson

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                          • #14
                            as can be the shipping lists. and some certs are very detailed, but have some amazing lies on them, it's better to get all the kids, then match up parents birthplaces, and marriage dates. and they usually record how many children, including, names, ages and whether theyre dead. better then the 1911 census!!

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                            • #15
                              The Australian National Archives have a number of documents accessible as images online - for free. I was able to establish some useful info for my niece's tree that way - from the service record of her grandfather.

                              There are some sites which specialise in Australian genealogy links.

                              Shipping lists/manifests are available on a number of sites, and you could get lucky with one of the free ones.

                              Christine
                              ~~~
                              Australia names: CHRISTMAS (Queensland, mainly), FREEMAN, MARKS (NSW/Victoria)
                              Researching: BENNETT (Leics/Birmingham-ish) - incl. Leonard BENNETT in Detroit & Florida ; WARR/WOR, STRATFORD & GARDNER/GARNAR (Oxon); CHRISTMAS, RUSSELL, PAFOOT/PAFFORD (Hants); BIGWOOD, HAYLER/HAILOR (Sussex); LANCASTER (Beds, Berks, Wilts) - plus - COCKS (Spitalfields, Liverpool, Plymouth); RUSE/ROWSE, TREMEER, WADLIN(G)/WADLETON (Devonport, E Cornwall); GOULD (S Devon); CHAPMAN, HALL/HOLE, HORN (N Devon); BARRON, SCANTLEBURY (Mevagissey)...

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                              • #16
                                Christine.................my daughter's best friend at school was a Christmas. And I've searched Marks as well, but the last one connected to us died aged 21 in 1896 in NSW.

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                                • #17
                                  I have removed the information in this post as it most likely related to living people and therefore contravened our Ts and Cs
                                  Elaine (Admin)



                                  .
                                  Last edited by Elaine ..Spain; 24-08-09, 16:09. Reason: removed details of living people

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                                  • #18
                                    The local genealogy societies are very helpful. South Australian bmd's are not on line and are costly to purchase. The SA Genealogy and Heraldry Society has helped me to search for accurate info before buying certificates. They also have newspaper records and passenger lists etc.
                                    oakes63 passed away in September 2021

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                                    • #19
                                      Originally posted by oakes63 View Post
                                      South Australian bmd's are not on line and are costly to purchase.
                                      i know!! i have quite a lot of family to research in s.a. im not impressed, as
                                      it will cost roughly $50 a cert!

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                                      • #20
                                        If your local library has a genealogy section then you might find bibliography books for South Australia. There could be three books in the series and they are a gold mine of information re BDM's. Ask the librarian for help finding them. I have used them myself doing research on the HALE family from SA. First found the books in an Adelaide library and our local library in Noosa Qld has them so no doubt other libraries with genealogy sections will have them also.
                                        elsiem

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