Genealogy is, of course, much much more than just knowing the names, births, deaths and marriages of our forebears. It's also about knowing their stories... how they lived their lives.
I spent the day recently exploring a brilliant online resource for researchers in Australia. TROVE - http://trove.nla.gov.au - a web service supplied by the National Library of Australia allows researchers to search the library's formidable collection of online resources from one simple interface.
The resources available at a mouse click include NLA's entire digitised colection of newspapers, picture and photographic collections, diaries and personal papers, maps and even music and video.
The newspaper collection is particularly useful and covers major Australian newspaper titles from 1803 to1954 including major mastheads like The Sydney Morning Herald, The Argus (Melbourne) and the Adelaide Advertiser and less well known titles like the Hobart Town Gazette and The Western Australian Times.
If your ancestor has a common name - like my second great grandfather David Davis - then it might be difficult to sort out which references refer to them however if you have a less common name in your tree - like my third great grandfather Solomon Schlossman - you can find all sorts of fascinating minutiae that fill in the details of their lives.
For example: On February 17 1894 Solomon advertised a "...Splendid opportunity for any person wishing to join party of experienced miners leaving for field immediately full particulars Solomin Schlossman 69 Liverpool St. Sydney". He was heading for Coolgardie (just outside Kalgoorlie), the site of a new gold rush.
On February 23rd Solomon advertised his business and all his household goods for sale by auction. It's only a small thing but the ad lists a the assets of the business and household items and paints a picture of the state of the business at that moment. Assets included an engine & boiler, sausage machine and filler, chopping blocks, a marble counter and marble tables and gas fittings throughout the house and the shop. It's given me a vivid image of the business and the house.
Trove also delivered me some other treasures including several advertisements for various family business interests, and insolvencies (a recurring theme in my family). On Wednesday 13th January 1926 the Sydney Morning Herald reported that "Cyril Browny, aged 26, appeared at the Central Polico Court yesterday to answer a charge of having stolon a motor car, valued at £210, the property of Sadie Jane Davis, on January 4" Sadie Jane being my great grandmother. Again, it's only a small thing but it adds another brushstroke to the bigger picture.
TROVE is also, of course, a quick and easy way of tracking down all those birth, marriage and death notices from major papers without having to leave the house.
All in all TROVE is full of treasures for those willing to mount an expedition to trawl its database depths.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
