GSV News

Researching family history is a good start, but writing about it makes it history.

Congratulations to Louise Wilson for receiving the Don Grant Award 2020 for her book Sentenced to Debt - the story of Robert Forrester, First Fleeter.

This award was announced by Family History Connections at a zoom presentation on 19 September 2021.

Bettina Bradbury was announced as the winner of the Alexander Henderson Award 2020 for Caroline's Dilemma: a Colonial Inheritance Saga, the lives of the Bax and Kearney families, early squatters on the Victoria-South Australia border.

Congratulations to both winners and for the support given to family history writing by Family History Connections with these ongoing awards.

Louise Wilson is a member of the GSV's Writers Discussion Circle. She regularly convenes one of its annual topics - this year about writing First Nations people in our histories, something that Louise faced in writing Sentenced to Debt. See the blog post July 23. You will find many of her contributions in Ancestor journal both as feature articles and in the 'Getting it Write' section. And members of the GSV Writer's Group benefit from her helpful critiques and suggestions. So it is great to see her input being recognised once again.

You can read the judge's comments on both books https://www.familyhistoryconnections.org.au/index.php/awards/131-2020-awards-3

And about Louise and her books at Louise Wilson "nerdy...but nice!" HERE

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A mysterious ancestor living the good life in Sydney in the early 20th C as a socialite and breeder of racehorses—this was the subject matter of the winning entry in the GSV Writing Prize 2021.

The winner was Susan Wight with her story ‘The mystery of the extra Booth Hodgetts’, a well-written account of her original knowledge of the four Booth Hodgetts and subsequent research to solve the mystery of an apparently additional member of her family tree. 

Last Saturday 2 October, President Jenny Redman announced the winner and runner-up of the 9th GSV Writing Prize at a virtual gathering of eager entrants and interested writers who joined Council members, staff and the Ancestor team online. 

The runner-up was Bernard Metcalfe with his intriguing tale of ‘The Secret Life of Mr Crisp’ about a ‘model’ family man who stole his brother-in-law’s identity—a tale that uncovered much that was hidden from his family. 

Susan wins a one-year subscription to Ancestry’s Worldwide membership and a DNA test. Bernard wins a six-month subscription to Ancestry’s Worldwide membership. The GSV extends its warm thanks to Ancestry for their continued support of this annual Prize.

This year fourteen entries were received from which five were shortlisted. The three remaining shortlisted entrants were Louise Wilson with ‘Hapless Fate’, in which she recounts the misadventures of a distant family member, Russ Gloster with ‘Ghost ships of Gloster’, his account of the ships belonging to one of his ancestors and Yvonne Tunney with ‘From Godly mechanics to farmers’, the story of German missionaries in the Moreton Bay settlement.

We were glad to see two entries from members of GSV Member Societies - Gisborne Genealogical Group Inc, and Philip Island & District Genealogical Society Inc - to whom eligibility has been extended.

Well-known GSV members Cheryl Griffin (guest judge) and Joy Roy (President’s nominee) joined three Ancestorteam members, Barbara Beaumont, Sue Blackwood and Tina Hocking on the judging panel. The judges were appreciative of the work that went into the entries, and congratulated all the entrants on their achievement. The President thanked all the judges for their deliberations and Leonie Ellis for her administration of the competition. 

The winning story will be published in the coming December issue of GSV's Ancestor journal and the full Judges' Report will be available on the GSV website.

Congratulations all! 

You don't have to go far - living within 5 km

In previous times families didn't move far from their villages for generations. Many or even most people never moved beyond our recent 5 km lockdown over their whole lives.

This has been a useful factor in tracking early family names in a specific geographical location. Tracing my Barnes family, it has been shown that by 1860 a third of all UK 'Barnes' were in Lancashire and in 1861 it was particularly prevalent in Haslington and Accrington, north of Manchester - in the Valley of Rossendale. 'Golding', a recurring name in my family, is also most prevalent in Lancashire in its north England cluster. Both these name locations probably reflect the settlement there of Hiberno-Norse people from about 900 after their expulsion from Dublin in 902.

A great grandfather of mine set foot on Suvarov (or Suwarrow) Island, a very small Pacific atoll, in 1889. Years later the largest islet of this coral reef would be the voluntary home of Tom Neale where he lived for six years. He was inspired by an earlier occupant, Robert Dean Frisbie, who exiled himself and his four children there for a year in 1942. The islet they lived on is only 800 metres long and 200 metres wide - so a perambulation is well below our present 5 km confinement.

Robert Frisbie had lived on Pukapuka, another small Pacific atoll and wrote: 'Think of it! A woman living on this island for some seventy years and never visited Frigate Bird Islet, four miles across the lagoon! It reminds me of a pair of darling old maids who lived near our ranch in the foothills of California. They were in their forties, alone on a farm only a few miles from Fresno, the lights of which place they could see, on a clear night, from a hill beyond their house—yet they had never been to Fresno nor to any city! Once I tried to take them, and I remember that one old dear couldn’t go because she had a hen setting and her sister was “no hand at poultries”; the other one couldn’t go because she was afraid to leave her sister alone—“something might happen.” So it is with lots of Puka-Pukans. We have only three islets on this reef, yet many of the neighbors have set foot on only one.' 

And to help us live within our own resources, that classic of Thoreau's two years in a cabin on Walden Pond is worth a re-read. 

Our ancestors didn't move far, until they did - when wars, economic emigration and forced relocation, transportation took them to another county or across the globe.

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References:

Tom Neale. An Island to Oneself, Collins, 1966

Robert Dean Frisbie. The Island of Desire: the story of a South Sea trader, Doubleday, 1944 / Benediction Books 2019 / ebook available online.

Henry David Thoreau, Walden or Life in the Woods (1854), JM Dent Everyman's Library 1910. 

[Ed] I thought I would treat you to a picture of this tropical island in memory of all those beach holidays we Melbournians had to cancel this year.

Thinking about becoming a GSV Member?

Try our Visitor E-Pass with the special introductory price of just $10

The Visitor E-pass gives you 6 hours online at home access to the members section of the GSV website. This will allow you to:

• Access two unique databases - a names index of over 3.1 million records and the 'Milestones' index of 1.5 million records, 
• Access our award-winning journal –Ancestor
• View our webcasts about family research, DNA, and information sources
• Search our catalogue and indexes

Further details and purchase your Visitor E-Pass HERE

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Watching Jimmy Barnes' personal story of his dire early days as a child migrant in Elizabeth, South Australia, (Working Class Boy) reminded me that many family histories in Australia commence with relatively recent arrivals - in the middle of last century after WW2 - rather than with early pioneers of the 18th and 19th centuries. The Bonegilla Migrant Camp in NE Victoria was where over 300,000 migrants started their Australian lives.

Next month the annual Back to Bonegilla Migrant Camp Gathering is on again :

Friday 2 November and Saturday 3 November 2018 from 10.00 AM to 4.00 PM each day. Entry is free. Daily activities include:

• Tours;
• Film screenings; 
• Author and genealogy talks;
• Dinner; 
• Displays and exhibitions; and,
• Food and music.

You can find out more about this and make bookings to events BOOKINGS HERE

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The Bonegilla Migrant Camp story

'At the end of WW2 the Australian Government introduced a program of migration to assist millions of displaced people in Europe and, at the same time, combat a shortage of labour in Australian industry. As housing was not immediately available for the growing population, the Australian Government provided migrants with temporary accommodation like that at Bonegilla [in Victoria] until they found jobs and their own places to live.'

The Bonegilla Migrant Camp was established at a former army camp near Wodonga, Victoria. It was the first home in Australia for more than 300,000 migrants from more than 50 countries from 1947 to 1971. They had diverse arrival and settlement experiences.

Bonegilla August 1949 (Photo. Nandor Jenes / SLV Pictures H2002.16)

 

'Many migrants recall arriving lonely and confused, unsure of where they were going and what they would be doing. Others saw Bonegilla as a place of hope, symbolic of a new start. In December 2007, Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre - Block 19 was recognised as a place with powerful connections for many people in Australia and a symbol of post-war migration which transformed Australia's economy, society and culture under the National Heritage List.Today, Block 19 is a public memory place. The site and its associated oral, written and pictorial records in the Bonegilla Collection at the Albury Library/Museum bring to light post-war immigration policies and procedures that changed the composition and size of the Australian population.' [Bonegilla Migrant Experience website, access. 6 Oct 2018.]

How do I say it?

"Depending on your cultural connection with Bonegilla, there are a number of ways to pronounce it. To many locals, it’s strictly ‘Bone - Gilla’ but to immigrants arriving from Europe after World War II, the word was often read as ‘Bonny-Gilla’ or ‘Bon-Eg-Illa’." Passport  for Bonegilla, Bonegilla Migrant Experience website.

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The GSV hosts a group which helps its members with an interest in non-British research: International Settlers Group. On 17 November their presentation is 'Andiamo - a Celebration of my Italian Family History' presented by Angelo Indovina. You can find out more about this group on the GSV website https://staging.gsv.org.au/international-settlers-group

Even though lots of things don't happen in January after our hectic Christmases, life actually keeps on going!  Just like the DNA DISCUSSION CIRCLE  which will have a meeting in January on Wednesday 9 th. at 10.30 am - 12 pm, as shown in our latest Ancestor journal in 'Around the Circles' (but unfortunately missed out in the 'What's On in January' section. Our apologies. 

You can find out more about this interesting discussion circle on our website HERE.

THE GSV CENTRE WILL BE CLOSED FOR THE CHRISTMAS -NEW YEAR PERIOD ON SATURDAY 22 DECEMBER TO TUESDAY 1 JANUARY INCLUSIVE.

Later in January the Early English (the Discussion Circle, that is)  will meet on Wed 23 and London Research on Thurs 24. 

The following week on THURSDAY 31, Stephen Hawke will talk on New Poor Laws - post 1834.

Plan your January and see the website to book and find out what other Classes and focussed research assistance is available (Scotland and Ireland).

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Once you have all the certificates - the names, dates and places - and have these imbedded in proprietary databases, and maybe you have graphically presented these as trees of various designs, is there any need to do more?

Do you need to put all those 'facts' in a written story?

And, a sensitive historian may ask, should you presume to put them in a story? When you look at the 'factoids' it does seem necessary to link them somehow, but once you start there can be a tendency to over-link them in ways not fully supported by the facts.

In her book 'Genealogical Proof Standard' Christine Rose puts forward five steps for genealogical proof: (CR Publications 3rd ed. 2009. GSV 929.1 ROS):

1) Reasonably exhaustive search for information

2) Complete citation of the source,

3) Analyse and correlate to assess the quality of the information

4) Resolve any conflicts AND

5) Arrive at a soundly reasonedwritten conclusion(my emphasis).

So your investigation is not finished until you do step 5. It is not the after-thought following the discovery of facts; it is an essential part of the process. 'Soundly-reasoned' requires writing up (or if you prefer, 'writing down' - strange language English).

This is the focus of the GSV Writers Discussion Circle. Its members help each other as they attempt to turn their carefully assembled facts into a 'soundly reasoned written conclusion'. More than that, the group suggests ways to make the written conclusion attractive to its intended audience.

The GSV Writers group is open to all GSV members as part of membership. It meets monthly on the first Wednesday at which about 20-30 of its over 90 members provide comments and suggestions on submitted draft histories or discuss some aspect of the craft. It also has a closed Facebook group for online discussion. You can see more about the group on the website HERE and their program for 2020 is now available - GSV WRITERS PROGRAM 2020

The group provides the ongoing articles for 'Getting it Write' in Ancestor journal. A list of past articles is available on the GSV website. There are a number of award-winning published authors in the group and many who are just starting to write. All are friendly. Where else could you get twenty editing reviews of your writing free?

Joining this group is a good way to tackle your genealogical objectives for the year.

The GSV also offers a course on Writing Family History presented by Margaret Vines, commencing 7 February - BOOKINGS ESSENTIAL. See HERE.

So no excuses for 2020! This is the year to 'get it down'.

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Sadly wars produce a wealth of records of the  lives  lost and entangled in these conflicts. 2018 marks the end of the WWI Centenary. This war gave Australia and New Zealand the story of Gallipoli, but Australian and New Zealand volunteers were already in Serbia, treating wounded Serbians, before the ANZACs landed.

Because of the Gallipoli Campaign, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria invaded Serbia to secure a land supply corridor to Turkey. The Serbian Army was forced on a deadly retreat over the wintry mountains of Albania to the Adriatic coast, an event sometimes called the Albanian golgotha. Australians and New Zealanders accompanied the Serbian Army on this long march. When the fighting shifted to the Salonika or ‘Macedonian’ Front, many served there with the British Army, the Royal Flying Corps, two AIF units and six Royal Australian Navy destroyers in the Adriatic and Aegean Seas. Some died in action, others from disease.

Several hundred doctors, nurses and orderlies treated the wounded and sick in an Australian-led volunteer hospital and in British and New Zealand Army hospitals. The author Miles Franklin was a medical orderly supporting the Serbian Army; her memoir is quoted extensively in a new  book. Fifteen hundred Australians and New Zealanders served on this little known yet crucial battlefront.

There will be a commemorative presentation about the service of these Australians in WW1 and a launch of a book about them - in Melbourne on 8 September and at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra 15 September.

REMEMBRANCE EVENT NEXT SATURDAY IN MELBOURNE

On Saturday 8 September The Australian Serbian Cultural Foundation is presenting an evening of remembrance and commemoration of the Australians and Serbs who served together in The Great War. Doors open 6.30 pm (for 7 pm start) at Holy Trinity Serbian Orthodox Church Hall, corner Nicholson St & Glenlyon Rd, Brunswick East.

This event is open to the wider Australian and Serbian community. Entry is free.

Special guests from Australia and Serbia will present remarkable accounts and experiences of these Australian and Serbian men and women, who served in that war:

• 'Albanian Golgotha, 100 years later' - presented by Marko Nikolic and Nenad Mitrovic, who are part of a team which in 2015 retraced the epic withdrawal of the Serbian King, Government, Army and civilian refugees in 1915/16 across the Montenegrin and Albanian mountains,
• Richard Cook, the grandson of an Australian Nursing Sister who served in Serbia in 1915,
• Margaret Brown, the grandniece of an Australian soldier who fought in Serbia and on the Salonika Front in 1915-16, and
• Bojan Pajic, the grandson of a Serbian soldier of WWI, who will present his newly-published book Forgotten Volunteers – Australians and New Zealanders with Serbs in World War One.

The GSV has been assisting Bojan Pajic to trace and contact descendants and relatives of Australians and New Zealanders who served in Serbia or alongside the Serbian Army on the Salonika Front and nearby seas in World War One. Over 100 have been identified and contacted.

Finally, after several years of research and writing, this story has now been told in a book recently published by Australian Scholarly Publishing. The book will be launched by Emeritus Professor David Horner AM at the Australian War Memorial on the 15 September 2018.

Copies of the book can be obtained from the publisher by emailing them at e: enquiry@scholarly.info or you can arrange for a copy to be brought to the event next Saturday by emailing the author at bjpiris@gmail.com

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This Serbian research is a reminder that, whereas the GSV helps Victorians, their stories and the GSV's resources are truly international. And this is not limited to the British Isles. The GSV has a specific group for its members - the International Settlers Group - focused on non-British research. Go HERE to see when they meet and how they can help you.

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Bushfires have shaped this country for millennia. And our human activities have shaped bushfires.

I am reminded of reading the history of the white settlement of South Gippsland - The Land of the Lyre Bird : a Story of Early Settlement in the Great Forest of South Gippsland(Korumburra and District Historical Society Inc. 2001 ed.). The firsthand recollections describe the huge efforts in the 1870s and '80s to clear the ancient bush to establish farms. There was plenty of rain; slogging through the mud was the norm. And then came the devastating bushfire of 1897/98 where the early community battled the fires that engulfed this regularly rain-soaked Korumburra district, W.H.C. Holmes recalled vividly that 'there was not an inch that was free from showers of sparks driven by the wind from the blazing trees alight from root to topmast branch. ...it was almost dark at 4 o'clock; through the black pall of smoke the fire appeared a livid blue, giving everything a weird and unearthly appearance: the sun looked like a big copper ball through a red-black smoke haze. All night 18 of us battled ...and most of the workers were at last unable to see; some were totally blind.'

This is again the picture we are seeing all over Australia this summer. Very sadly our communities are in great danger, at the moment especially those of our Member Societies of Benalla, East Gippsland, Jamieson, Lakes Entrance, Mansfield, Mid-Gippsland, Sale & District, Wangaratta and Yarrawonga. 

Our thoughts and support go out to all our regional Member Societies and their communities.

Please support the Victorian Bushfire Disaster Appeal. Money is needed for daily living items for displaced people, for feeding and sheltering volunteers and animals. 

DONATE HERE

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Picture: Gippsland, Sunday night, Feb 20th, 1898, John Longstaff, NGV. 

To celebrate National Family History Month August 2021, there are prizes in a draw for lucky winners - if you enter by next Monday 30 August.

Subscriptions, gift vouchers and other items, which are desired by family historians, are on offer.

To enter the prize draw you only need to send an email to info@familyhistorymonth.org.au including your name, postcode and email address. 

List of prizes on offer below or the link: https://familyhistorymonth.org.au/competitions-in-august/

A further CLOSING CEREMONY PRIZES DRAW is available for those who register and attend the Closing Ceremony at which Fiona Brooker will talk via Zoom on Tuesday, 31st August 2021 at 6.00 AEST.

Fiona will give a presentation on:

The 1939 Register for Family Historians

Following on from the declaration of War, on September 29th 1939, the details of the population of Great Britain and Northern Ireland were recorded and identity cards were issued. This talk will look at searching the 1939 Register and what to do with the information you find.

About Fiona Brooker

Fiona is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG). With a background in adult education, Fiona loves to teach family history and digital scrapbooking. There is nothing better than getting someone else addicted to the hunt for their ancestors. Beyond her own research she has served as both President and Treasurer of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists (NZSG) and worked with local branches

Details about accessing the Zoom talk will be available here or on our Facebook page 1 week before the event. It will also be available from our website for 1 month afterwards).

BE QUICK - ONLY DAYS LEFT TO ENTER