Updated Sites

The Last Post

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 23:07:15 GMT

This site lists basic information about funerals as submitted by funeral directors on behalf of their clients. This database currently contains 456,964+ entries. Search by surname and choose past, today, this week or all notices Australia wide.

Trove Digitised Newspapers

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 23:07:15 GMT

Trove Digitised Newspapers offers free access to the full text of 1384+ Australian newspaper titles from 1803 to current (most to 1954). The main state title is listed and the numbers in brackets are the number of titles available for that state. New titles are being added all the time.
• National (3) - Australian Women’s Weekly 1933-1982
• ACT (8) - Canberra Times 1926-1995
• NSW (471) - Sydney Morning Herald 1842-1954
• NT (8) - Northern Territory Times 1873-1932
• Qld (98) - Courier-Mail 1933-1954
• SA (142) - The Advertiser 1889-1954
• Tas (104) - Mercury 1860-1954
• Vic (362) - Argus 1848-1957
• WA (188) - West Australian 1879-1954
• International (8) - Bangkok Recorder - Thailand 1865-1867; Berita Repoeblik - Djakarta, Indonesia 1945-1946 plus five Papua New Guinea titles 1911-1981
TIP: Use the default search first. If you do not get the results you want, do a phrase search - "John William Lee". The speech marks holds two, or more, words together during the search. Consider how names would have appeared in the newspaper of the day. Try alternative basic searches and/or phrase searches John Lee, John W Lee, J W Lee, Jno Lee, Mr J Lee or Lee John William. His wife could be recorded as Mrs John Lee or Mrs Lee.
TIP: Use this site to search for passenger lists (arrivals and departures) and for detailed descriptions of voyages. It is common to find ongoing passenger lists from Fremantle, Adelaide or Melbourne so don't limit your search to port of arrival or port of departure.

Trove

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 23:07:15 GMT

Trove is a collaboration between the National Library, Australia's State and Territory libraries and two thousand cultural and research institutions, big and small, around Australia. Trove is more than an enhanced search engine, it is a discovery service that helps you find and use Australian resources by searching across 458+ million items much of it digitised and available online for free. Learn how to use Trove to find unexpected and unusual resources relating to your area of interest.

The Trove help centre has a series of short Trove help videos designed to help first time users and offer useful hints for experienced users. They cover Basic search, Exploring zones, Advanced search and Making lists.

The British Newspaper Archive (BNA)

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 04:17:09 GMT

BNA offers access to 20.5+ million newspaper pages dating from the 1700s to current. A free search is available or you can browse by - Date, Country, Region, County, Place or Recently Added titles. Filtering options include Date, Newspaper, Countries, Regions, Counties, Place, Recently Added, Type (article, advertisement, illustrated, family notice, miscellaneous) and Public Tags.

There is an Advanced Search which allows you to: Search all words; Search some words; Exclude words or Use exact phrase. A search returns a sentence or two of the newspaper with a link to the digitised page. A subscription is needed to access the digitised page.

Packages available include: 1 month for £12.95, 12 months for £79.95 or PayAsYouGo for £19.95 which allows 40 page views over a year. (Prices current, Feb 2019)
TIP: This archive is available for free, onsite, at some state, public and family history libraries. Check what might be available onsite at a library near you. It is also available through Findmypast. $

FamilySearch

Fri, 22 May 2015 01:27:57 GMT

FamilySearch is the family history site of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It offers free access to the world’s largest family history collection (4+ billion searchable names and 2+ billion digitised records). The records, resources and services available include worldwide records that have been gathered, preserved and shared on microform or online; library catalog; digitised books and journals (350,000+); online research courses and how-to video tutorials; research wiki with 88,991+ articles; user submitted genealogies, family history centres in 80+ countries. Other services include Family Tree – See what others have put online or create a tree; submit photos and stories; create a family booklet or portrait pedigree.
There is access to 2451+ Historical Record Collections arranged by region. These can include indexes and original images of birth, death and marriage records; census; probate and court; military; migration and naturalisation records and more. New material is being added all the time. Access to the original record is mostly free but fees do apply for some collections. The regions cover:
• Africa (32)
• Asia and Middle East (58)
• Australia and New Zealand (42)
• Canada (99)
• Caribbean and Central America (72)
• Continental Europe (601)
• Mexico (66)
• Other (7)
• Pacific Islands (11)
• South America (119)
• United Kingdom and Ireland (155) - See CoraWeb Quick Sheet 005 for details
• United States (1189)
Currently the 601 collections for Continental Europe cover: Albania, Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Moldovia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Ukraine.
TIP: You can use the world map and click on a location, for example Africa, and you will be taken to the Africa research page. You can then choose a country, such as South Africa, and search all South Africa indexed historical records plus there are links to the Learning Center courses for South Africa, FamilySearch Catalog for South Africa and FamilySearch Wiki for South Africa.
TIP: For further information see CoraWeb Quick Sheet 004 - Using FamilySearch
Note: You need to log in with a free FamilySearch Account to use FamilySearch.

The Ryerson Index

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 23:07:15 GMT

This is a free index to death notices appearing in Australian newspapers. The date range covered extends from the Sydney Gazette of 1803 up to newspapers published within the last week or so. The index also includes many funeral notices, and some probate notices and obituaries. Currently there are 6.9+ million entries from 344 newspapers including major Australian capital city newspapers and numerous country titles.
TIP: Use this index and then access the original newspaper notice using Trove Digitised Newspapers or newspaper archives such as the Sydney Morning Herald Archives 1955-1995 and The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age : library edition 2006 to current

Registry of Deeds Index Project Ireland

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 23:07:15 GMT

Registry of Deeds Index Project Ireland aims to index the names from the memorial books held at the Registry of Deeds, Dublin. These cover wills, land transactions, marriage settlements and other deeds from 1709. Currently there are 305,638 index records from 33,440 memorials. FamilySearch has the memorial volumes online 1708-1929. The can be accessed through the Family Search catalog www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/185720
TIP: Use the Registry of Deeds Search and from your search results select the Memorial Number and at the bottom of the page select Go to film

Savill Index of The Advertiser Funeral Notices 1971-2018

Sun, 04 May 2014 02:48:02 GMT

The Savill Index index 1971-2018, by Gerald A Savill, can be searched alphabetically by surname. Information provided includes: last name, alternate last name, other names, death notice (see note), date of publication.
Note: From 2005 the index incorporates private funeral services, many of which did not appear in the funeral notice columns of the Advertiser. Entries marked Y in the Death Notice column will be found in the deaths section of The Advertiser.

Convict Records of Australia

Thu, 17 Dec 2015 23:31:34 GMT

This site, hosted by the State Library of Queensland, allows you to search the British Convict transportation register, compiled from British Home Office (HO11) records for convicts transported to Australia 1787-1867. Information available includes name of convict, known aliases, place convicted, port of departure, departure date, port of arrival and the source of the data. Public contributions of additional information such as crime, occupation, gender and date of arrival are welcome. You can even add convicts who you cannot find a record for. There are details of 130,960+ of the estimated 160,000 convicts who were convicted in England, Wales and Scotland, not Ireland (unless added by a contributor). Court-martialled soldiers from British colonies (West Indies, India, Pakistan and Canada) sentenced to transportation are also included.

Index to The Last Farewell: Devon Convicts Transported to Australia 1782-1821

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 04:31:12 GMT

The Last Farewell: Devon Convicts Transported to Australia 1782-1821, by Jack Walton, Australian Scholarly Publishing Pty Ltd, 2003. This is a transcribed index to this book and has been placed online with the author's permission. The list includes the names of 574 Devon convicts.

Lincolnshire Family History Society

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 23:07:15 GMT

The Lincolnshire Family History Society was founded in 1990 and covers Holland, Kesteven and Lindsey, the three parts of the Historic County of Lincolnshire. The Society has six branches - Bourne, Grantham, Grimsby, Horncastle, Lincoln and London.

Lincolnshire Convicts to Australia, Gibraltar and Bermuda

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 04:41:46 GMT

This site has an online database which details 2000+ Lincolnshire convicts known to have been transported between 1788-1868.

Australian Royalty

Tue, 29 Jul 2014 22:19:27 GMT

This site by Marion Purnell features a fully searchable online family tree of colonial Australians, their forbears and descendants. It includes 81,461+ individuals who lived in New South Wales 1788-1900.

General Register Office - Historic Birth and Death Index Search

Mon, 28 Nov 2016 21:10:49 GMT

The General Register Office is part of Her Majesty's Passport Office and oversees civil registration in England and Wales. Use this site to order certificates online and search a free new version of the GRO historic birth and death indexes. The birth index 1837-1918 is the only index to include the mother's maiden from 1837 (previously only available from 1911). It also includes all full names and not initials. The death index covers 1837-1957 and includes the age at death from 1837 (previously only available from 1866). Search options are limited to plus or minus 2 years. You also have to search each year by gender. You need register (free) and set up a password so that you can use this site.
TIP: No maiden name shown indicates a likely illegitimate birth.
TIP: Use the FreeBMD site to locate possible year entries you are interested in, across a range of years, and then use these GRO indexes to obtain the extra information.
New: PDF copies of birth records 1837-1918 and death records 1837-1957 are available for £7. A PDF copy cannot be used for official purposes. A certified certificate costs £11.

NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages - Family History Search

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 23:07:15 GMT

There are details of the services offered for family history research including online certificate ordering. The Registry’s Family History Search provides access to unrestricted searching (no identification required) for births over 100 years, deaths over years ago and marriages over 50 years. This date range is extended by one year from the date of your search so on the 1 May 2019 you can search births to 1 May 1919, deaths to 1 May 1989 and marriages to 1 May 1969. You can use advanced wildcard characters to find or replace text.
• Use * to find string of characters - R*n will match Ron, Ran, Roan etc. and Bro*' it will match any word starting with Bro e.g. Brooks, Bromley, Bros.
• Use ? to replace a single character - R?n will match Ron, Ran etc. It will not match Roan.
• Use @ for a soundex search - @colin will match Clune, Colan, Cullan, Callahan.
TIP: For further information you can download a Family History Search Help Guide

NSW Family History Transcriptions

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 23:07:15 GMT

A transcription service for NSW Birth, Death and Marriage certificates by Marilyn Rowan. Transcripts are available for births over 100 years, deaths over 30 years and marriages over 50 years. This date range is extended by one year from the current date. So on 1 May 2019 births to 1 May 1919, deaths to 1 May 1989 and marriages to 1 May 1969 are available. Also offers certificate services for England, Wales and New Zealand plus a document service for NSW State Archives and Records.

Turtle Consolidated Services

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 23:07:15 GMT

New South Wales transcriptions are available for births over 100 years, deaths over 30 years and marriages over 50 years. This date range is extended by one year from the current date. So on 1 May 2019 births to 1 May 1919, deaths to 1 May 1989 and marriages to 1 May 1969 are available. Also offers transcripts for Tasmanian records up to 1899 and certificate service for England and Wales.

Joy Murrin Family History Services

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 23:07:15 GMT

Offers a range of services to assist with your family history research including Birth, Death and Marriage transcriptions/certificates from New South Wale, England, Scotland, Victoria and New Zealand. New South Wales transcriptions are available for births over 100 years, deaths over 30 years and marriages over 50 years. This date range is extended by one year from the current date. So on 1 May 2019 births to 1 May 1919, deaths to 1 May 1989 and marriages to 1 May 1969 are available.

NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages - Early Church Records - Codes

Thu, 11 Jul 2013 21:40:25 GMT

These codes can be found on the microfiche indexes and cover baptisms, marriages and burials 1788 to 1855. For example IQ is t the code for Wesleyan Methodist baptisms in County Argyle, Goulburn, Gunning, Yass.

New Farm & Districts Historical Society (Brisbane)

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 21:18:26 GMT

This Society was formed in 1994 and is a community-based organisation whose members are passionate about ensuring the rich and vibrant history of New Farm and nearby suburbs is not forgotten. The society promotes an understanding of the history of the area and how it evolved from one of Brisbane’s earliest settlements to the present. Details of activities, resources and contacts can be found on this site.