Commencing our November session with ‘Pains and Gains’ again led to shared problem solving and lots of encouragement and ideas for next steps.

Bev reported on using the Ryerson Index, an index of death notices in Australian newspapers, for more recent death notices details.  Robyn described having trouble locating traces of the family name ‘Delargy’, however reported locating some new evidence on Wikitree which she is validating.  Barry has been using the Irish search information supplied by Elizabeth at the last session. While unable to trace his GG Grandfather’s records, he has been able to confirm some information about his GG Grandmother. His search continues.  Jan continues searching for evidence of the Keon family from the Irish websites but has had no luck to date.  Andi went to Wunghnu Cemetery searching for family graves, finding a ‘Mills’ grave-stone, but no other family members. It has been found that three family members drowned in the same boating accident, however Andi found nothing in the cemetery records of their resting place. 

David became immersed in shipping passenger lists while researching and locating the passenger list for William Hinds. He shared fascinating findings based on his research into the ‘Thomas Arbuthnot’; noting that the lists were segregated into male and female; highlighting financial details such as the passage cost was £19 and sharing his conclusion that the income earned by the ship’s owner/s was significant. Marg went to Malmsbury on the day lockdown ended as planned, meeting a helpful and informed local historian who had located extensive family history for her.  Marg also located a possible contact in Ireland for information on the Ryan family and sent an email. There has been no response to date. Wendy gave the group a new search site called Ancestorian, which is free. The site has information from various regional groups and appears to be a valuable research tool.

After the break we shared stories on the November topic ‘Census’, using Census results, or records which would enable us to form a census-like view, to describe what might be happening for a family in our tree across the decades.  Robyn was able to track her maternal great great Grandfather Norman McIntyre family across 70 years using largely Scottish census results; while Barry had by necessity to use Electoral Rolls which are the closest thing to a census list of names in Australia during the 1900’s.  Bev’s search took her from Lincolnshire to Indiana, with the US Census records from 1860 to 1880 helping her develop a picture of her great grand uncle’s life in America.  You can read these and other ‘Census’ stories on the website. 

At the end of the session, we firmed up our ‘course description’ and plans for next year.  Our current group will continue to be offered for members who already working on their family tree.  Social distancing regulations permitting, we are adding a hands-on segment to some of our sessions and offering a new ‘Beginners’ course in 2022.  Comprising up to three one-to-one sessions in Term 1 transitioning to small group sessions in Term 2, Family Research – Beginners is designed for members who would like to start an online tree or gain confidence in using an online tree they started years ago.  

Wendy Sturgess, Barry O’Connor and Bev Lee

Footnote - as discussed during today's session....

Following on from last month's presentation on Free Irish Records, Elizabeth has sent us the handout she promised on websites which we may find useful - I've attached this below.  

Elizabeth also provided a USB containing the Word document of her talk and the images of the documents handed out in class.  I've incorporated the images of the records  into the text and worked with Elizabeth's feedback to prepare a second document which reflects the effort she put into preparing her  presentation and the case studies she developed drawing on her own family records.   I hope you find it useful as a review of the session and that Elizabeth is able to draw on it in future if asked to do a similar presentation. 

Bev Lee

Irish Geneology drawing upon Free Irish Records - presentation by Elizabeth Kearns to the Family Research group, U3A Benalla,  on October 28, 2021 (large file)

'Free Irish Records' - handout of useful websites,  Elizabeth Kearns 29 October 2021

November's topic may come to you easily, but could leave you feeling perplexed and 'stumped'.  This being the case, it seemed worthwhile to tease it out a little for you.   

The topic has been designed to help you to flesh out the story of your family a little more - their family structure, whereabouts, etc.  Here's a reminder:  

‘Census’ Find one of your favourite families in your family tree. Pick a year for a census in which you describe what you know about where they were living, who was likely to be living there, what their occupations were, what else was happening in the country, world at the time… in fact anything else you know about them then. Create your own census, or draw upon a census document you have found during your research to develop your ‘census report’ around. 

In some cases, following a set of census records eg. England or Scotland from 1841 to 1911 (and in a few months to 1921) could produce a fairly rational and full story of a family's life.   However, even then, children can be born and die between censuses so never appear on a census.  This could happen to more than one child in a family across a decade.   Families can suddenly appear - if they migrated from Ireland to England or Scotland, for example, and disappear as they migrate overseas.  

However a number of our families are beset by a lack of published census results.   As we learnt from Elizabeth last week, only the 1901 and 1911 Irish Census records are available in full.  In Australia, although there were musters in the early days, there are  few dedicated census results with names listed at addresses available.  Australian censuses appear to have been (and still be) used more to collect aggregate information to provide a basis for social, economic and cultural policy formation than to provide details of who is living in families.    

The following link explores this dilemma -  https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Australia_Census 

'Thinking outside the square', we are likely to need to draw on other records to see who may have been living in the households of our forebears at a particular time.  Electoral rolls can be useful, as Barry found, however remember that they won't include family members under 21 years.  Another problem, people may be living in the same household, but for some reason have different surnames, so they are unlikely to appear on the same page of the electoral roll.  

Considering these (and other problems) underpins the purpose behind this month's topic, which is really to try to enhance the story of your forebears' lives by 'hypothesizing'  possible census results for decades commencing in eg. '01', '11',...'81', if they weren't published.  I could, for example, hypothesize my Lee family's 'census results' in Ireland in 1861 based on knowledge gleaned from 1871 Scottish Census and Catholic Baptismal Records from Ireland in the 1850's and 60's, and then follow up with what was on the 1881 Scottish census to explore a little more about what happened with the family a decade after the arrival, when perhaps some of the children had married and had children of their own.

Australian records  provide a particular challenge.  It will be the work you have done in finding BMD records which will provide much of your evidence, supplementing information from Electoral Rolls when they began to be published.  I'd suggest that you stick with the '01' '11' etc decades for the imagined census dates for story telling purposes.

Of course, some of you will be able to do a broad sweep across 70 years of  UK or Scottish  published census results if that takes your fancy.

If you have time and the interest to understand more about censuses, you might like to watch the video which follows.

I hope this is helpful.  Do feel free to respond to the topic in your own way; however if you want to chat about it, give me a call. 

See you on the 25th November at 1pm!

​Bev Lee