Treasures from Trove - 28 March 1925

The Sydney Morning Herald from 1942 to 1954 is digitised on the Trove site from the National Library of Australia. The KHS blog will, from time to time, post articles from  Trove , relating to the history of the Ku-ring-gai  area.

The articles on Trove are a valuable resource for local history and genealogy research.

1925 'KILLARA.', The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), 28 March, p. 13, viewed 10 August, 2012, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16188139

Volunteering at KHS

We’ve changed a lot of things over the last year!

Are you a room volunteer who can’t seem to find where things are anymore? 

It’s difficult to keep up with changes if you’re on duty once a month!

Maybe you’re just not too sure how to use some of our new resources. 

Or maybe there’s an aspect of room volunteering that you’ve always wanted to learn.

We are holding a couple of training days - on Friday 5 April and Monday 22 April, from 10.30am.

There'll be lots of time for Q&A and for a social morning tea.

Please try to come along.

Anyone who is interested in learning what being a room volunteer is all about is very welcome too.

Please book (in the bookings folder or phone the rooms on 9499 4568) so we know how much morning tea to get in.

Awards for Society members

Seniors Week Mayoral Awards

Mayoral Awards were presented at a morning tea and seniors concert, on Friday 8 March to local organisations and individuals who had contributed significantly to the Ku-ring-gai community.

In the category Outstanding Individual Volunteers, Peter Bidencope and Lois McEvoy received awards for their outstanding service to Ku-ring-gai Historical Society.

International Women's Day Awards

Two of our members were recognised as 'Gems of Ku-ring-gai' on Wednesday 13 March at a morning tea. 
Ku-ring-gai Council created 'Gems' to recognise the work of local women who have helped make their community a better place, and to celebrate International Women’s Day.

Jill Nicholson and Marie Rumsey received well-deserved recognition of their contributions to the activities of the Society.

Congratulations to all four members!

KHS Member in Salt Lake City

I snapped this photo of KHS Family History Team member, Jenny Joyce, just after her first visit to The Family History Library in Salt Lake City today. You can read about Jenny's adventures in her blog posts  from Salt Lake City : jennyalogy.blogspot.com

Jenny Joyce

Jenny was also interviewed by famous US genealogist DearMyrtle in a Google Hangout on Air from the library this morning.

Trove Tuesday - Writing Competitions

Have you considered entering our Writing Ku-ring-gai History competition?

It's not too late and there are great prizes!
The competitions close on Friday 3 May.

Please go to our Society website for full details of the topics, to read the Terms and Conditions of the competition, and to download the entry form. There is no entry fee.

There are information flyers in our research rooms.

Here are a couple of clippings from Trove about history writing competitions from past years - maybe some ideas to get you started?

What is Trove Tuesday?

Well, it was started last year by blogger Amy Houston at Branches, Leaves and Pollen to celebrate the wonderful NLA resource Trove.

Don't forget to check our Calendar tab for other upcoming events.

Rootstech

Tomorrow Morning one of your Society bloggers is taking off to Salt Lake City to join 5,000 family history history enthusiasts at the Rootstech Conference. I am thrilled to have an opportunity to attend this megaconference and have a few extra days to research in The Family History Library. Jenny Joyce from the Society is also heading to the conference and will no doubt be blogging an tweeting about it. We will both have lots to tell you on our return.

It is not my practice to talk about personal things on this blog but I thought some of you may be interested in this particular bit of news. On the Familysearch Blog yesterday it was announced that my session will be one of 13 sessions of the 250 at the conference that will be livestreamed. That means that you can watch the session live over the internet at 8:00 am next Friday. More importantly all of the keynotes will be livestreamed plus some other sessions from family history megastars like Thomas MacEntee and James Tanner. After the conference you’ll be able to access recordings of these streamed sessions at rootstech.org.

I will be blogging about my adventures and experiences in Salt Lake City on my personal blog. My co-blogger, Jackie van Bergen, and I will continue to post on the Society blog during my absence overseas.

Lord Sydney: The Life & Times of Tommy Townshend

This Saturday 16 March at the Ku-ring-gai Historical Society's general meeting, author and former parliamentarian Andrew Tink will speak about his biography of the politician instrumental in the decision to found a colony at Botany Bay.

Please note due to Andrew having another engagement, this talk will start promptly at 1.30pm (earlier than usual), and will be followed by our monthly general meeting and then afternoon tea.

The meeting is held in the meeting room between Gordon Library and our Research Rooms in the Old Gordon Public School on Pacific Highway Gordon.

Visitors are welcome and afternoon tea is provided.

Trove Tuesday - Liberated Sheep

Here's an article with an uncommon misspelling of Ku-ring-gai (a double r).


It must have been quite big news, or just a slow news day in Dubbo to have made a newspaper so far away.

I like the phrase "some sheep were killed, and a number liberated about the country".

Some have asked us about Trove Tuesday.
Well, it was started last year by blogger Amy Houston at Branches, Leaves and Pollen to celebrate the wonderful NLA resource Trove.

Trove is a remarkable resource that helps all historians, both family and local fill in the stories and add a bit of extra 'colour' to their research.

This wonderful resource could also help if you are entering our 50th anniversary Writing Ku-ring-gai History competition.

Trove News

There is an ongoing program of digitisation for the Trove Newspaper collection. The Federation of Australian Historical Societies e-Bulletin No. 109 details information of recent additions to Trove. Copied below is that information.

It is wise to revisit Trove regularly and conduct one's searches again as new information is regularly appearing in these newly digitised papers.

"The National Library of Australia (NLA) is pleased to announce the following newspapers which have issues that have been newly added to Digitised newspapersand more on Trove. Many of these newspapers are currently being added to Trove and further issues will become available shortly.

New South Wales
Globe (Sydney, NSW : 1911 - 1914)
Irrigation Record (Sydney, NSW: 1913 - 1917) Digitisation generously supported by Griffith City Library, McWilliam’s Wines & Murrumbidgee Irrigation Ltd.

Queensland
Queensland Country Life (Qld. : 1900 - 1954)
Sunday Mail (Brisbane) (Qld. : 1926 - 1954)
Western Star (Roma) (Toowoomba, Qld. : 1948 - 1954)
Western Star and Roma Advertiser (Toowoomba, Qld. : 1875 - 1948)

South Australia
Bunyip (Gawler, SA : 1863 - 1954)
Port Lincoln Times (SA : 1927 - 1954)
Port Pirie Recorder (SA : 1918 - 1919)
Southern Argus (Port Elliot, SA : 1866 - 1954)

To ascertain the latest titles which have been added to Trove, subscribe to one of NLA Web feeds. Through Trove, the national resource discovery service, there is free online access to over 8 million pages from over 350 Australian newspapers. All of the digitised newspapers are fully text-searchable and users can enrich and enhance the data through subject tagging, text correction and annotations.

Titles have been selected by the NLA in consultation with the state and territory libraries. A number of the titles are being digitised with the generous support and funding from a range of organisations.

For those libraries and organisations wishing to digitise a newspaper title, please see our Contributor guidelines. (For additional information please email NLA atandp@nla.gov.au).
A list of newspapers scheduled to be digitised through the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program over the coming year is shown on the website:www.nla.gov.au/content/new-titles-coming 

(Source: Dr Hilary Berthon | Australian Newspaper Plan | National Library of Australia | Canberra ACT 2600 | e: hberthon@nla.gov.au | t: +61 02 6262 1642 | f: +61 02 6273 4535 -www.nla.gov.au/australian-newspaper-plan - 12 February 2013)"

They found us on Facebook

A section of the front cover of the pamphlet

Thanks to our presence on Facebook a local resource is on its way to our Society.

The Whitehorse Historical Society in Victoria offered us a pamphlet, The 18th Battalion (The Kuring-gai Regiment) Sergeant's Mess Rules, that had been donated to their Society.

In their offer sent by email they said " We know of your Society via Facebook".

Thank you to The Whitehorse Historical Society for contacting us about this resource.

An interesting family history day

Last Saturday at our family history group morning session, Jenny Joyce showed us how to use the new Familysearch website. 

Recent changes have made it easy to narrow down the search to only look at relevant records by narrowing down the search by country and then narrowing down the results to only the collection you are interested in. 

We also looked at how to Browse the collections, and looked at some of the collections that are only available as images, not as the result of an indexed search. 

Group leader, Jo Harris then showed us a few other websites, like Papers Past, which allows searches of historic newspapers from New Zealand, and an English site about primitive Methodists. 

In the afternoon session, Jenny gave a talk about how to date photographs. She started out by discussing the main types of photographs that have been used since the first photo studios opened in England and Australia in 1841, and their distinguishing characteristics. The types discussed were daguerreotypes, calotypes, ambrotypes, tin types, carte de visites, cabinet prints, platinotypes and postcard photos. 

Several members of the group had brought photos, which Jenny did her best to help date. One of the photos we were lucky to see was an ambrotype, something that not everyone has in their collection.

When Jenny couldn't provide a date for a photo (like one that was shown of people in swimming costumes, and another of a vintage car) she pointed out what aspects of the photo could be investigated to help narrow down the date.

A key message that came out of the talk was the need to take the mount of a photograph (if there is one) into account when dating photos.

We were reminded that if we scan photos, we should make sure to include the mount, including the corners of the mount as these are also dating clues.

“Writing Ku-ring-gai History” Competitions

Do you fancy yourself as a published writer? …or are you a budding historian?

Have you always wanted to write but never quite found the motivation?

Would you like to help us celebrate our 50th anniversary and win a prize?

Then, enter one of our competitions. 

There are five age categories, four for school students and one for adults. The topics focus on Ku-ring-gai history, buildings, events and/or families and there are great prizes.

The total prize pool is $2000.

The competitions close on Friday 3 May and will be judged by members of KHS and local authors.

Short-listed entries will be displayed in the Gordon Library and then published in a small booklet available later in the year. Yes, you could be published!

We hope this will encourage you all to discover the extensive resources of Ku-ring-gai Historical Society and in the process learn more about the wonderful community we live in.

Please go to our Society website for full details of the topics, to read the Terms and Conditions of the competition, and to download the entry form. There is no entry fee.

There are information flyers in our research rooms.

Don't forget to check our Calendar tab for other upcoming events.

The support of the Ku-ring-gai Council and the Turramurra and Lindfield Community Bank Branches, Bendigo Bank for these competitions is gratefully acknowledged.

Infolass

Infolass aka Liz Pidgeon, is the Local and Family History Librarian at Yarra Plenty Regional Library in Victoria. Liz was the recipient last year of the The Margery C Ramsay scholarship by the Library Board of Victoria, for her project “Local and Family History Services in the UK and USA.” 

The Infolass Blog

As part of the reporting process for her study tour Liz committed to writing a blog about her journey. So far she has written very informative posts supported by photographs about her visits to various repositories and archives around London. If you would like to read about these institutions you can follow Liz's journey through the UK and US by reading her blog at http://infolass.wordpress.com.