Newsletter: 2022 Tasmanian Family History Society Inc. Hobart Branch

Tuesday 21 June - 7:30pm General Meeting

VENUE: Zoom Meeting

GUEST SPEAKER: Janet McCalman

TOPIC: The Afterlife of Tasmanian Convicts: researching convicts from birth to death

Janet McCalman’s talk is based on the Ship’s Project work on the Founders & Survivors project that commenced at the University of Tasmania. The Ship’s Project was a subsidiary Project run from the University of Melbourne where around 60 volunteers traced the lives before and after sentencing of men and women on 126 convict ships. What did we discover and how can that help us to understand the lives of people transported?

NOTE: To enable members to access this Zoom presentation log-in details for the meeting will be forwarded via email on Monday 20 June. Non-members wishing to access the presentation are invited to contact secretary@hobart.tasfhs.org requesting that log-in details be forwarded to them.

More for Your Diary

Thu 16 June – 10.00am Branch Committee Meeting

VENUE : Supper Room, St Marks Church Hall

Thu 16 June – 1.30pm DNA Group Meeting

VENUE : St Marks Church Hall

Thu 23 June - 2pm Library Committee

VENUE : Library

Tue 19 July - 7:30pm General Meeting

VENUE : Zoom Meeting

SPEAKER : Janine Marshall-Wood from Victoria

TOPIC : No Ordinary Convict … The Rebeccas

Library Accessions May 2022

Library Logo

The following items were accessioned during the month of May 2022

Books

* Denotes complimentary or donated item

Membership Renewal – Notice - Please Do Not Delay

RENEW TODAY

Memberships are currently due with the year commencing 1 April 2022.

The renewal form was posted with the latest Tasmanian Ancestry Journal early March.

If you have not yet paid your subscription and have misplaced the renewal form, please let us know at membership@tasfhs.org and we will arrange a replacement.

Payment methods are endorsed on the renewal form. The preferred method of payment is direct transfer to the TFHS Inc. account.

It is very important that your 8-digit CRN is used as the reference. In the past a number of deposits have been made that can’t be identified due to lack of CRN details. The CRN is clearly marked on the front, bottom right-hand side of the renewal form.

If using Debit/Credit card, please ensure that your card is current, the card number is entered clearly and in full and that the expiry date (mm/yy) is entered as well.

Cheques are still acceptable and should be sent to Membership TFHS INC PO Box 326 ROSNY PARK TAS 7018

We look forward to your continued membership and hope you enjoy the articles in Tasmanian Ancestry.

Tasmanian Parliamentary Papers 1856 - 1901

The Tasmanian Family History Society partnered with the Tasmanian Parliamentary Library in digitising the Tasmanian Parliamentary Papers for the years 1856 to 1901.The Parliamentary Papers are mainly reports to parliament by various government agencies and should not be confused with Hansard which records the proceedings of the parliament. Examples of such papers are the ‘Charitable Grants Department Report for 1900’ or ‘Main Line Railway: petition from Bothwell as to route (1873).’

During 2019 a member of the Tasmanian Parliamentary Library staff suggested that the valuable paper copies of Tasmanian colonial-era (1856-1901) Parliamentary Papers be digitised in order to better preserve them and, at the same time, to allow the Tasmanian Parliament to make the digitised copies available to the wider community for research purposes. Subsequently a project steering committee was formed, which included Robert Tanner (then Vice-president, TFHS Inc.).

The Tasmanian Family History Society Inc. (TFHS Inc.) became a major partner in this project, being aware that it would provide a very valuable resource for family historians, as well as other historians and other interested researchers.

That project is now complete, and the digital papers are now available via the Parliament of Tasmania website (under Library & Resources). The papers may be read and searched here .

TFHS Inc. and the Tasmanian Parliamentary Library acknowledge the generosity of the Tasmanian Community Fund who made it possible to employ the services of Acrodata to undertake the task of digitisation. More details of the project can be found here .

The papers are readily searched using the search function included with the papers. Individual papers may be downloaded in PDF format. The web site is very user friendly and well worth exploring.

Andrew Cocker’s comments:

The Hobart May general meeting enjoyed a fascinating guided tour of the Parliamentary Library and its records by Warwick Lee. The online collection includes the colonial parliamentary papers from 1856 to 1901 and they contain an amazing wealth of quite diverse and often unexpected information.

I had previously searched the Parliamentary Papers for McHugh without success but following his advice on searching I tried again; this time M’Hugh. And I hit gold. I had once spent many days, including a field trip trying to find details of the land in North Motton where my Great-Great Grandfather John McHugh established his first pottery in 1859. I did establish where it was but found no land ownership records.

And there it was: 100 acres at River Leven 8 Jan 1862. The purchase price was 120 pounds and he had by then paid 24 pounds. It was listed in the Surveyor Generals Statistical Return under Return of Agricultural Lots sold for cash under the 18^th Section of the “Waste Lands Act” up to 30 April 1862. I would never have guessed that this report existed, let alone know to search there, but it is there along with so many other treasures.

You can browse by title or search. Find it at https://www.tasfhs.org/parliamentary_papers.php.

National Family History Month - August 2022

NFHM is an initiative of the Australasian Federation of Family History Organisations (AFFHO).

This popular initiative has received broad support from some of Australia’s leading government and non-government organisations since its introduction in 2006. Originally only the first week in August, NFHM increased to include the whole month of August in 2013 to allow greater participation across Australia and New Zealand. NFHM is on again in 2022, although probably we will still be affected by Covid-19. Libraries and all history/genealogy groups are encouraged to hold events as their circumstances allow during August, and we expect some will choose to be held on-line. The opening and closing ceremonies will be scheduled in the coming months.