News - February 2024
Tuesday 20 February - 7:30pm General Meeting
VENUE: Old Sunday School, St Johns Park Precinct
GUEST SPEAKER: Ian Terry
TOPIC: Uninnocent Landscapes: following George Augustus Robinson's Big River Mission
For more than two years Ian Terry followed the route of George Augustus Robinson's 1831 Big River Mission, which was credited with ending frontier violence in Van Diemen's Land. Accompanied by 13 Aboriginal envoys Robinson spent two months walking around central Tasmania before meeting 26 survivors of the Lairmerrener and Paredarerme people west of Lake Echo promising them that if they stopped resisting invasion and agreed to exile, they would later be able to return to their Country.
They accompanied Robinson to Hobart and after meeting with Governor Arthur were transferred to Flinders Island. They never returned to Country. Ian's project was to photograph the landscapes the Big River Mission passed through as an act of documentation of change and truth-telling about colonisation and dispossession. He held an exhibition of a selection of the images at the Salamanca Arts Centre in November and released an accompanying book entitled Uninnocent Landscapes at the same time.
Ian Terry is a retired Senior Curator of Cultural Heritage at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. Among the many exhibitions he curated at the museum was Our Land: Parrawa, Parrawa! Go Away! which examined the history of frontier conflict in Tasmania. Ian has been on the committee of the Tasmanian Historical Research Association since 2003.
More for Your Diary
Thu 15 Feb - 10.00am Branch Committee Meeting
VENUE: Branch Library, Bellerive
Thu 15 Feb - 1.30pm DNA Group Meeting
VENUE: St Marks Church Hall, Scott Street, Bellerive
Thu 22 Feb - 2pm Library Committee
VENUE: Branch Library, Bellerive
Tue 19 Mar - 7:30pm General Meeting
VENUE: Old Sunday School, St Johns Park Precinct
SPEAKER: John Wadsley
TOPIC: Claremont Barracks
From Your Branch President
I am hoping you all had a nice break over Christmas / New Year and have renewed energy to get back into your family history research and your various volunteering activities.
There is a storm raging in the UK because the Ministry of Justice is considering digitising and then destroying millions of historical wills in an effort to save £4.5 million a year to archive them. The plan is to then progressively destroy wills after 25 years unless the person is famous. This despite growing concern at the fragility of digital archives, after a cyber-attack on the British Library's digitised documents. There is understandable outrage, but is this the way of the future? Can we afford to continue to store ever-accumulating archives? Can we afford to lose them? What might be destroyed next?
With this in the back of my mind, over the break I made a start on sorting, 'tidying up' and - dare I say - culling of my family history archives. Culling is always the hardest - what to keep, what might I find a good home for, and what to discard. I don't have a good plan re what should happen to my archives after my demise, and I fear that if there is too much, and especially if it is not well organised and labelled, it might all go out in the skip.
Is it enough that much of it is also in electronic format? I am all for scanning photos and digitising records, but what do we do with the originals? Is a paperless office/archive realistic? And how long will the current version of digital photos and records be accessible on future versions of computers? How safe is my e-storage from cyber-attack, degradation and/or crashes.
Sorry, I don't have the answers. But these are questions all of us should be considering.
Ros Escott president@hobart.tasfhs.org
In Memory of Anne Speed
The Hobart Branch wishes to acknowledge Anne Speed's recent passing. Anne was a long-time member of the Society and served in the role of Library Assistant for many, many years until just recently. Those of us who visited the Library on Saturday afternoons would remember Anne as warm, welcoming, cheerful and always ready to be of assistance to both members and visitors. She had great local knowledge, having grown up in West Hobart in the 1930s and 1940s. Our thoughts are with her family. Thank you, Anne for all your work with the Branch.
Vale Anne Speed. 27 December 1935 - 17 January 2024
Members Only Website
Have you checked out the Society's new members-only website yet? Initially, you will only be able to access the online version of TAMIOT, our index of over 115,000 headstones and memorials from 788 locations across Tasmania. But over time we plan to add much more; including the ability to review and renew your membership details.
To access the members website for the first time you need to select the Membership/Members Only menu option from the Society site, https://www.members.tasfhs.org/phplogin/index.php . You then need to choose Register. Then choose a username of your choice, a password and enter your email address which is recorded with the Society. You will then be able to login using your new username and password. Should you lose or forget your password you will be able to reset it yourself using a similar process.
Monday Group
In mid-December, we celebrated the end of another successful year with the publication of Part 13 of the Millingtons' Undertaker Indexes, and a Christmas lunch at Bellerive Hotel.
On the first Monday in February this year, seven keen members of the group arrived to recommence checking of indexes for publication of yet more Undertaker records. Other regulars will return over the next few weeks. Unfortunately, Christine Spry has retired from the group after many years and will be much missed by the group, especially for her quick wit and wonderful sense of humour!
Work is continuing with Millingtons burial records. Indexing of the last of the Hooper and Burgess burial records is finished (but not yet published) and indexing of their successors, Turnbull Funerals, has begun. Our unique collection of indexes to undertaker records began with the P S Keating Undertakers' Burial Records from 1895. The firm was taken over by Graham Family Funerals in 1986 and it is hoped to begin indexing their records very soon. As well as individual indexes being available for purchase in book form at our library*, all indexes may be searched in the consolidated database on computers, mostly with images of original burial register entries, at the Hobart Branch Library. Colleen Read
* see list at https://www.hobart.tasfhs.org/burials.php
Contributions to Tasmanian Ancestry
Are you disappointed there are no articles in Tasmanian Ancestry that relate to your family and your family research? There is a simple solution in this. Write something!
The stock of articles for future editions of Tasmanian Ancestry is currently quite small so members are urged to make that contribution that you have been planning to write. A single page of Tasmanian Ancestry consists of no more than five hundred words, or less with a photograph.
Members who have undertaken UTAS units in the Diploma of Family History must have some assignments just waiting to be converted to articles for our Journal.
Other suggestions might be an interesting article enhanced and sourced from the pages of the Trove Newspapers website or an article based on a surprising recent discovery based on your DNA journey.
Don't put it off if you are a little unsure about knowing the style and layout requirements. Our editors will be happy to work with you to polish your contribution.
UNE Convict History Research Collective -
Directory of The Norfolk Island
First Settlement - 1788-1814
This project identifies the majority of individuals associated with the 'First Settlement' phase of the colonial occupation of Norfolk Island, from the arrival of the small advance party on the Supply from Port Jackson in March 1788 to the final evacuations of the Island in February 1814. The population of the island is believed to have peaked at around 1,150 persons between May 1792 and July 1794. However, based on extensive archival research, we have identified a little under 3,650 unique individuals in over seventy key historical documents, suggesting a highly fluid population and a preponderance of short-term residents.
More details found here: Directory of the Norfolk Island first settlement
Maree's Mutterings
The Genealogical Society of Queensland on behalf of the Australasian Federation of Family History Organisations and History Queensland is hosting the Australasian Conference 2025, "Connections - Past - Present - Future", which will be held in Brisbane from 21 to 24 March 2025. It is combining the 17th Australasian Conference on Genealogy and Heraldry and the 5th History Queensland State Conference.
These three key-note speakers have already been booked: Judy Russell The Legal Genealogist®. Internationally renowned lecturer and award-winning writer; Dr Nick Barratt Author, broadcaster and historian, well known for his work on BBC's Who Do You Think You Are. and 'our own' Hamish Maxwell-Stewart A heritage and digital humanities professor at the University of New England and the CEO of Digital History Tasmania.
The website has just gone 'live.' so not all links work yet, especially in regard to the program.
https://www.connections2025.org.au
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61555896460536
Open House Richmond,
part of the Richmond Bicentennial Program is Saturday-Sunday 24-25 February, 10am-4pm.
Where: Throughout Richmond and Coal River Valley. You will need to register. https://www.richmond200.com/projects-events/open-house-richmond/
The Wall Family: Weaving the Threads of Memories by Christine Leonard
The Wall Family: weaving the threads of memories written by Christine Leonard centres on William Wall, a 17-year-old groomsman who was transported to Van Diemen's Land in 1835. William 'Cocky' Wall served a seven-year sentence as an assigned servant in Hobart, and Launceston, where, on securing his ticket of leave, married and started a family. William took up farming for the Van Diemen's Land Company in Emu Bay before sailing to Victoria in 1847 to start a new chapter with his young family. The Walls were amongst the first white settlers in the Warrnambool district of Victoria.
This book explores William and his thirteen surviving children, the currency, and their descendants through tales passed down by the family about colonial Australian society over a period spanning 180 years.
Christine has been invited to talk at the Hobart Library on Friday 5 th April at 5.30 pm.
The Wall Family: weaving the threads of memories is available from the author Christine Leonard, through her website www.leonardstories.com as a paperback for $30, or e-book that costs $7.99.