VENUE: Old Sunday School, St Johns Park Precinct
GUEST SPEAKER: Richie Woolley
TOPIC: Some Recherche Bay archaeology and its historical context
The Recherche Bay area has a rich history of human activity, in both pre-and-post colonial times. Whaling, coal mining and sawmilling have all carried out there in the period from 1830 to 1950, and many ruins and relics associated with these activities still survive. Richie has spent more than ten years trying to find and document such sites, and his talk will focus on a few of the more significant ones, such as the French Garden , as well as a previously unrecorded one relating to the Fisher family, for whom Fishers Point was named.
Richie grew up at Judbury in the Huon Valley and is the author of Above the Falls: The People and the History of the Upper Huon , and co-author of A History of the Huon and Far South. He is a long-term member of the Tasmanian Family History Society, and an active and valued participant in its DNA Interest Group.
Thu 20 Jun - 10.00am Branch Committee Meeting
VENUE: Branch Library, Bellerive
Thu 20 Jun - 1.30pm DNA Group Meeting
VENUE: St Marks Church Hall, Scott Street, Bellerive
Thu 27 Jun - 2pm Library Committee
VENUE: Branch Library, Bellerive
Tue 16 Jul - 7:30pm General Meeting
VENUE: Old Sunday School, St Johns Park Precinct
SPEAKER: Susan Gardner
Topic: The Story of William Proctor and the history of his property, The Lea
For all family historians, surnames are a crucial connection to the past and an important way of identifying family lines in our ancestry. Frustratingly, spelling can very over time, especially if our ancestors were illiterate. On baptism, marriage and burial records the vicar or recorder then relied on how he heard the name and how he thought it should be spelt. If it was an unfamiliar name, some wide variations could be recorded.
Some of us had ancestors who deliberately changed their surname, for example many emancipated convicts, immigrants who simplified or anglicised their names, or people who had something to hide.
And then there are women, who with few exceptions such as in Scotland, traditionally changed their name when they married. For Britain, I find the GRO birth indexes very useful as they contain the mother's maiden name when baptism records don't: https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/ then go to 'Order certificates online', login or register (free), then 'Search the GRO Indexes'. I usually search using a year ending in zero or five, with plus/minus 2 years as this enables searching in 5-year increments. If you find what you are looking for, a digital image of the original will have more information, costs only £3 and is available for immediate download.
If you are interested in the surnames in your family tree, here are a few suggestions to learn more.
Search the TFHS's Comprehensive Subject Index (CSI) at https://www.hobart.tasfhs.org/csi.php and then come into the Branch Library to look at the resources you have identified, where that surname is included. If you have Tasmanian Ancestry, your people may be in one of the many unique Family Histories we have in the Branch Library.
Or search the new TFHS Members-only resources for Births, Deaths, Marriages, Divorces, Inquests, Wills, Monumental Inscriptions and much more. Go to https://www.tasfhs.org/ and follow the prompts to be registered and logged in to access the members-only section of the website.
Use a surname map to find out where a surname was most prevalent over time. For Great Britain head to https://apps.cdrc.ac.uk/gbnames/ , enter the surname of interest and then use the slider to see concentrations on the map over time, from 1851-1911 and 1997-2016. Scroll down for further information.
Visit the Guild of One-Name Studies at https://one-name.org/ and enter your surname at the top of the page to see if it is one of the nearly 8,000 surnames being studied. A one-name study is similar but different to family history research, in that it concentrates on a single surname. Researchers often start by following a single line of their own family but move on to collecting information on people with that surname, past and present, anywhere in the world. Reconstructing families - placing all the people with the given surname into family trees - is not a required part of a one-name study, although most researchers do this.
There is a wealth of information on your surname out there. You never know what you will find until you start looking.
Ros Escott president@hobart.tasfhs.org
We seriously need to think about succession planning as our volunteers are not getting any younger. Some even have plans to go on prolonged holidays next year.
An amazing amount of work goes on behind the scenes at the Branch Library. Not just projects, but the day-to-day tasks that are required to keep the Branch functioning and to support the Society - Hobart Branch provides the secretariat services for the Society.
Liaising with the printer and mailing out Tas Ancestry, producing and selling publications including mail orders, keeping the library's computer system and programs running smoothly, acquisition procedures for new and donated books, purchase of equipment and supplies, stocktaking, banking, liaising with the Council for building maintenance, and with Hydro, TasWater, Fire Brigade, etc, etc, etc. Not to mention emails and phone calls!
These unglamorous tasks are not for everyone, and some require skills in IT and office management. One option, which the Branch has used in the past - and still uses - is what I call the 'transition to retirement program'. If someone with the appropriate skills is over 55 and under their official retirement age, they can go on JobSeeker and instead of looking for work they can volunteer with us for 15 hours (~2 days) per week and that satisfies Centrelink's mutual obligations requirement. The Branch is registered with Centrelink to support volunteers doing this.
If you or anyone you know might be interested in volunteering with us in some capacity, with or without JobSeeker, please make contact for more information.
Ros Escott president@hobart.tasfhs.org
We have been slowly replacing the card indexes in the Bellerive library with searchable electronic databases, which makes room for much needed shelves for books. There is one huge task left: the card indexes for the books in the library. Are there any volunteers who would be willing to contribute to transcribing these indexes into a database? It is a big job but could be shared by several people.
Ros Escott president@hobart.tasfhs.org
We are hoping to find volunteers to write brief reviews for our website of some of our family history library books which are either unique to us, or likely to be of special interest to family historians. The review can be anything from a paragraph to a couple of pages and can be submitted in a Word doc or similar. For example: What is the book about? Who wrote it? Which family names and/or place names are frequently mentioned. It is possible that the Preface to the book covers the essential information.
An online submission form should also be completed with details of the book, author, Dewey number, etc. - the form can be found on the Branch website under 'Reviews'.
Howard Reeves has kindly agreed to coordinate this project and will receive reviews, edit them only if necessary, and forward to the web manager for publishing. Once online, names, etc. can be picked up by search engines and bring people to the branch library.
Howard has kick-started this by writing a sample short review which can be found online under the 'Resources' tab, 'Special and Unique Book Reviews'. Anyone can write a review, perhaps of one of our books you found particularly useful when researching your family history. If library assistants have spare time, they could select a book and review it. The more reviews we have, the more useful this resource will be.
*Bramich 2021 Family Reunion; FROM WARWICHSHIRE TO DELORAINE
* DENOTES COMPLIMENTARY OR DONATED ITEM
Some years ago, then secretary, Howard Reeves marked out and painted white parking lines in the Branch library car park. They are important to ensure safe parking and keeping our allocated spaces free from others. The paint has slowly faded and is in need of refreshing. We are looking for a volunteer to help with this one quiet weekend. If you think you could help or would like to know more about it, please contact Maurice at the Branch library.
library@hobart.tasfhs.org or 62 459351.