June at Cobram Genealogical Group

Cobram's Local Court House

We recently had Susie Zada from come and speak to us about Land Records and breaking down brick walls.  She gave us an insight through examples into the different types of titles land was registered under and the difficulty in visiting the old land title archives at Laverton.  She suggested visiting the Lands website where you can purchase and download some records at Victoria Land Titles.  Susie has written a blog with a step by step guide of how to find records at the archives at Laverton.  So I recommend you read this article before a visit Susie Zada's Blog on Land . There are also some records relating to land at PROV that might be helpful.  Do a series search using the following VPRS series:

• 16705 Index to applications for certificates of title - old to new
• 405 Register of applications for certificate of title
• 460 Applications for certificate of titles.

I was also able to use VPRS 16171 as a good start in getting local parish maps for towns and outlying areas and was able to download pdf maps of Cobram.  I am going to get these printed at Officeworks on to poster size and laminated for our rooms.

Another good resource to have access to when finding land is published by PROV is "A Guide to finding records on Crown Land at Public Record Office Victoria."

After a short break Susie gave us a run down on how she is making use of Pinterest to save her favourites and have the ability to create boards of interest, share these with other people and follow people's pins she is interested in at htttps://www.pinterest.com/susiezada/ and she added some useful links for us through her board on Brickwall Genealogy.

She has motivated me to be more active in using my pinterest page https://www.pinterest.com/closeup1/ 

We had our first Sunday afternoon meeting today 21st June and it was fairly successful with a good roll up of members.  We were a bit more relaxed and had more time to discuss some of the resources available and the things we have been up to.

We looked at some of the resources that the GSV have to offer in their Members Only section especially the GIN database and listened to one of the free podcasts available.  We also looked at the latest newspapers that have become available just recently Trove latest Newspapers Forum.  We also looked at how to access parish and some historical land maps in NSW. This is accessible through the NSW Land and Property Historic Land Records Viewer and by selecting the print icon on the bottom of the page and selecting whole image and A3 you can then print to a pdf and save the document in a large format that can be viewed more easily or printed out on large paper.

Our next meeting is on the 19th July and we hope to run some more podcasts and investigate some good resources for research.

What's Been happening at Cobram Genie Group!

It has been a while since I have written on this blog and feeling like I have to turn over a new leaf and try and add stuff more regularly.

So just a brief run down on what has been happening the last twelve months and what's in store for the future.

Our year has been fairly quiet with speakers in 2014 – Mark Grealy from Archival Access Victoria who spoke about records at PROV and Meg Bate from the GSV who talked on using Social Media in Genealogy in some Sunday sessions we ran

We purchased a few resources in the last year,updating some of our Police and Government gazette collection in Australia. We have made use of our new screen to project on to  with our presentations and our new white board for notices.

Some of our members attended the Deniliquin Genie muster run by the Deniliquin Genealogy Society, where we shared a stall with Yarrawonga Family History Group. It was a lot quieter than the previous one we had attended but there was still some interesting speakers and lots to look at. Some other of our members joined the Cobram Cemetery Trust earlier in the year for a cemetery walk and learnt some history about some of the occupants and their contribution to the local township.

At our recent AGM this year there have only been a few changes in our executive and committee, Nicole Close has remained President, Jan Parker continues as Vice-President while Barbara Coleman is Secretary and Raynor Thomas is Minute-Secretary.  Barbara has also kindly taken over the job as Treasurer as well. Nicole will continue to be Research Officer while Shirley Frappell has volunteered to assist with research. 

Over the last few years our membership has aged and dropped.  We have the competition of “everything being on the web”.   It is also harder for people to come out on a night especially in winter to our meetings. A motion was put forward to change our meetings to occur on a Sunday afternoon.  This was amended to having the meetings on the third Sunday afternoon during the cooler months April to September, while meetings when Daylight Saving time is in place will be on the usual second Wednesday of the month. This means for the months of October, November, December (Christmas breakup), February and March. Sunday meetings will run from 1.30pm in the afternoon when our rooms will also be open to visitors. We also have a Facebook page up and running so keep an eye out for interesting information and links that may pop up.

This year we are having and Susie Zada speaking on a Sunday 7th June on "Victorian Land Titles and Documents - from old to new" at our rooms in Punt Rd, Cobram for a 10.30 registration and a cost of $10.  Refreshments will be served and BYO lunch.  All members and other locals and genealogy enthusiasts are welcome.

In August we will have Family History researcher Joy Roy speaking on "The Lost Irish".  More information to follow.

 

Creating a Blog

What is a Blog?
Blogs have been around for about 10 years.

The word stands for ’web log’ and they’re effectively a web site on which an individual or group of users can record opinions, information, etc. on a regular basis.

Features of a Blog

The features that make blogs different from other websites are:

• content is published in a chronological fashion
• content is updated regularly 
• readers have the possibility to leave comments 
• other blog authors can interact 

• content is syndicated via RSS feeds

Examples:
Geniaus Blog by Jill Ball

Cobram Genealogy Group Blog

Nicole Close's Family History Blog

Shauna Hick's Blog

GSV Blog  

Setting up a Blog

By using Blogger (a free blogging tool)which is a part of Google, I can also setup a reading list of other people blogs and get notifications of when they add new material to their blogs.(see dashboard)

It’s fairly easy to start if you have a Google account. If you haven’t I strongly suggest you get one, so you can better customise your Google experience.

To set up go to:
Blogger - Dashboard
Click on new blog button and give your blog a title, and an address.
Choose the template, customise and set up theme and the layout that you want.

At any time you can go to layout and change the layout of your pages and change the template style.

You can add gadgets to the page such as the ability to share on Google+, Twitter and Facebook and you can add a profile. 

To create regular posts (New Post) or Create pages.

Add text, media and hyperlinks within your posts or pages.

You can save, preview your work and make any alterations before publishing.

As you can see by some of the examples above there are many ways to use a blog to get your information out there. You can write stories about your families or share information on resources you have found or even have a journal of your research. 

So why not give it a go and share your Blog with our group. :) 
 

AGM 2012

Our AGM for 2012 was held Wednesday 9th May. A few changes were made while some jobs have remained unchanged. After a decade of being President Graeme Hickey has retired from the job. We appreciate the job he has done over the years. I have taken it up for another stint. I was President way back early in 2000. Jan Parker will continue to be Vice-President. Our tireless Secretary Barb Coleman is continuing her job with Raynor Thomas helping out as Minute Secretary. It was hard to find anyone to take on the Treasurers job but Jan Hickey was persuaded to continue the job with help from Barb Coleman and husband Graeme where needed.

Graeme talked about the prior year explaining that we didn't have much income this time and were unable to receive any grants. We are at about 40 members at present but may have to try and promote the group to get some new blood in. We have purchased a new computer and it will be set up in the rooms very soon. We will need to get rid of all the really old computers and printers to the recyclers. At our Christmas break up dinner last year we had a very interesting talk by Margaret Fleming who recently published the book "Gum Trees, Lagoons and Flat Plains", stories about the Yarroweyah district. Shauna Hicks kindly came and talked to us during the year and we greatly appreciate the time and expertise that she gives our group.

We have decided to make a few changes to our fees. We are keeping our membership the same but we will put the price up of our research. Non-members who come to our research will still pay a $5 fee to visit the room but will need to pay more if further research is done by our members. For our online/postal enquiries we will be asking for an initial fee of $20 and if any more detailed research is to be done this will be negotiated withe the enquirer. 

Good News: "In the Days of the Punt" Vol1 and 2 are now ready for sale. Thanks to Norm Jordan for making the inserts and design for the CD's and I have finally edited the material and have digitised it into 2 pdf documents. The group has decided that the cost of the CD will be $25 plus postage and packaging. Go to our website for contacts and details of how to purchase one.

So plans for this year will be to get back to work on the local cemeteries. Tocumwal needs to be collated and put on to CD and Barooga which we have on sale in booklet form will also be updated and put on to CD. Also our website could do with a good overhaul. So stay tuned for more details on this. Sadly our bus trip to Melbourne had to be cancelled due to lack of numbers however we may organise a car load or a train trip in the near future. 

On the 3rd June GMAGS are having a day at Yarrawonga from 9.30am with speakers Shauna Hicks and Mark Grealy from Archival Access Victoria. Shauna will be speaking on:

• Ancestors in Church Records
• Sources for Identifying Photographs
• Making the Most of Australian Government Archives
• Online
• Ancestors in Unexpected Places: Exploring Public Record
• Office Victoria’s Nooks and Crannies

The Cost is $20.00 with Morning tea, lunch & afternoon tea included
For Catering purposes please let Jan Parker know by 28th May
rekrapj@bigpond.net.au or 0427 883 264

This should be a great day!!

"In the Days of the Punt" gets Digitised!

After many years we have decided to publish a second volume of stories on the settlers and pioneers of the Cobram and Barooga area that have never been released before. This includes a number of Italian families who have come and settled in the area during the 1900's. These stories were gathered in the 1990's and where possible I have tried to verify the information from birth, death and marriage indexes, newspapers and any other resources available.

We will be selling the original version and the new version on a CD together as an electronic version. The original version of In the Days of the Punt was published in 1988. Due to rising printing costs it has been decided to sell it as an electronic version. 

Please contact closeup1@bigpond.com for details on purchasing a cd.

Allen,

Baikie,

Baldwin,

Barlow,

Bishop,

Breen,

Brentnall,

Burge,

Butts,

Byrnes,

Cahill,

Cahir,

Campton,

Carr,

Carton,

Casey,

Cassise,

Cohen,

Corbett,

Craig,

Crawley,

Cronin,

Curtis,

Dean,

Deane,

Dick,

Dickie,

Dixon,

Dowd,

Dryden,

Dufrayer,

Dunleavy,

Egan,

Ewan,

Fallon,

Farman,

Fisher,

Fitzgerald,

Frankcova,

Gattuso,

Giblett,

Gilbert,

Gilligan,

Gilliland,

Gorman,

Gracey,

Hadden,

Halden,

Hanrahan,

Harrington,

Harris,

Hay,

Healy,

Henderson,

Higgins,

Hoban,

Hopkins,

Horan,

Huxley,

Ireland,

Jacobs,

Jessop,

Jewell,

Jolly,

Keady,

Keamy,

Keenan,

Kennedy,

Kiichler,

Kingham,

Larkin,

Lawless,

Leahy,

Leithoff,

Lethbridge,

Lucchesi,

Lumas,

Mahoney,

Mammolito,

Mantovani,

Markiewicz,

Martindale,

McKenzie,

McLean,

McMahon,

McPherson,

Merrit,

Mete,

Milhelm,

Miller,

Mitchell,

Monaghan,

Muir,

Mulcahy,

Murphy,

Muscara,

Nunan,

O’Conner,

O’Dwyer,

O’Neill,

O'Brien,

O'Farrell,

O'Hara,

Papa,

Pardo,

Parnell,

Pobjoy,

Power,

Quick,

Quinlan,

Rachele,

Raco,

Rennie,

Richard,

Roche,

Roe,

Rollston,

Rowe,

Rowley,

Ruffy,

Rutherford,

Ryan,

Salmon,

Sandford,

Santoro,

Scott,

Scrimizzi,

Sellers,

Service,

Shears,

Shinnick,

Smith,

Stanley,

Stanyer,

Taylor,

Toohey,

Tuck,

Wall,

Walsh,

Weiss,

White,

Zito,

Mining Ancestors in Australia

Notes from a talk given by Shauna Hicks at Yarrawonga Family History Group on October 2011.

If you have mining ancestors in your family you can add a lot of context to the history surrounding your family and even follow their movements as they moved around in search of gold or other metals that have been mined in Australia.

A rough guide to the times where gold was being mined in Australia's history is as follows:

• South Australia - 1840's
• Victorian and New South Wales - 1850's
• Queensland - 1860's
• Western Australia - 1890's
• Many travelled over to New Zealand and back following the gold there.

You can find a great timeline of Australian Mining at this educational website  Chronology of Australian Mining

The Australian Mining History Association has a wealth of information particularly a bibliography of each state with links to websites that hold information on that States Mining history.

It is a good idea to look at the Government Departments for each State that looks after Mining to see if they have historical records and information.

For example - Dept of Planning and Community Development in Victoria has links to historical information at Gold mining - history and mining plots in Victoria

To get a brief overview of an area it is often useful to use wikipedia to get an idea of the area your ancestors may have mined.

When searching in Western Australia a helpful index to begin with is called the Mining Lease Holders Index covering 1892 - 1909. It has been taken from a Mines Department Nominal Index to Mining Tenements (CONS 4603/6 – Record Series 1028) and provides the name of the lease holder, lease number, goldfield and date of lease holding.This index is on Microform and you may be able to access it through a local family history group or State Library.

In Victoria at  the Genealogical Society of Victoria if you are a member you can log in to the Members Only section and search the index of Names. Here you will find Hospital Admissions on the Victorian Goldfields. Many miners were admitted to hospital for various injuries and illnesses. This index may be invaluable in giving you the birthplace and age of the individual their occupation and other information about their admission. This index has also been put on to a CD and your local family history group may have it available.

Other places to research your mining family members and the places they lived are through State Libraries, Regional Specialist Libraries such as the Bendigo Regional Archives Centre, Universities and Trade Unions.

QLD State Archives - QLD Mineral Leases 1871-1940

QLD Index of Mining Company Records  - Companies Index 1863-1959

NSW Registers to Gold Leases 1874-1928 - Registers of auriferous (gold) leases, 1874-1928

Gold Diggers from South Australia 1852-53 - a searchable database

New Zealand Gold Miners Database 1861-72 - Goldrush Online

The Noel Butlin Archives Centre has many records about Gold Mining as well as Union and Business Records.

The Trade Union Archives will also give you information about Union Members, Strikes and other details.

Looking for family that may have been involved in a Mining Accident and you are looking in Victoria you should certainly look at Dave Evans Mining Index. This is only a sample of a more detailed index that can be found on CD. You may like to see if your local family history group or library has it available.

The QLD State Library has Mining Accidents 1882-1900

Cora Webb has links to information about the Mining Occupation that will give you some background information to this occupation.

If you are looking for more information on the types of health issues that miners may have had such as phthisis and claims they may have made against the companies they worked for you should start with your State Government Archives. 

If you are looking for photographs of your ancestors or of the area they mined around. Use your State Library, State Archives, University Archives and Picture Australia to search. You may also like to look at the Images from the Past on the Royal Historical Society of Victoria.

Finding detailed information about your Mining Ancestors may be hit and miss but there are a lot of resources that can enrich the family history of your mining ancestors giving your stories more detail and depth.