Welcome!!

Greetings from Cobram Genealogical Group in Victoria. We hope you will find some interesting information and will free to contribute or make comments.




Thursday, December 23, 2010

November/December Happenings

At our November meeting we had guest speakers that night Danny and Michael Walsh from Lost n found Genealogy at Wangaratta, Victoria.

They are providing a service for Family History Groups and individuals and have somehigh end computer equipment including scanners at a3+  commercial quality laser scanners as well as high quality printers.  They also offer many other services including photo repair services, large chart printing, scanning and digitising data or recording and producing audio visual family trees. They will have access to the top 5 Family Tree programs in order to manage clients data.

They are prepared to travel to Family History Groups or individuals and give quotes on their work.

For further information contact them danny@lostnfoundgenealogy.com.au or michael@lostnfoundgenealogy.com.au

Other member suggestions for the night were:

UK certificates were available through FreeReg


Carr Villa Cemetery, Launceston, Tasmania was now online.

A member of our group had been researching a local airman Wallace Stillard who was killed in a plane crash in the 1940's at Wee Jasper. An account of the accident was in the Canberra Times and can be read here and in The Argus here.  There is also mention of this gentleman in the Airways Museum . Wallace was born in 1918 at Cobram, Victoria and the family had a farm in Barooga, NSW.

December's Meeting was our Christmas break-up dinner at the Barooga Sports Club. It was rather an eventful night with the weather blowing up and an almighty thunderstorm and downpour of rain which caused water to come flooding down the walls of the room we were have our meeting in and a was a bit of a distraction for our guest speaker to talk over.

Garry Jones from Cobram Community Enterprises spoke to our group on their program to assist communities in accessing funding through a fund raising program via the Bendigo Bank. There is assistance for particular projects and over $200 000 has been given in support to projects in the community. There are funds of up to $2000 available on a quarterly basis.

To be part of the program it is important to get the support of as many people in the community as possible. This requires them to simply pledge their Bendigo Bank account to assist this funding. The banks have these forms available or you can get more information from their website.

Other Information of Interest
Sale, Victoria Cemetery online
St Thomas Cemetery Upper Mangrove Creek - Hawkesbury Region NSW

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Stay tuned for more information on our group when we are back in action in February.
I might write something for my own blog in January so check that our early next year http://closeup1-myfamilyresearch.blogspot.com/



Monday, October 11, 2010

September Happenings

I have been a bit slack keeping the news up to date, but with a busy couple of months at work and a very cold wet and miserable few months over winter I was unable to get to a few meetings. So I will try and catch up on some of the news this month.

At our September meeting there were a few new purchases mentioned.
The group now have:
WA Inquests 1876-1903 An Index of Inquests as published in the WA Police Gazettes
The National Burial Index for England and Wales 3rd Ed
Patients in Melbourne Hospital 1856-1905
Other Local information:
Our Rate books have been sent off to be scanned. So it will be a great resource for the group and the local area to have those available.

News of Interest:
The GSV have a really good seminar on Two hundred Years of Death and Dying in Victoria on 30th October. Book at GSV - http://www.familyhistorybookshop.org.au/categories/GSV-Events/

Scotland’s People website has been revamped so have a look at what is now available at http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/

VicGUM newsletter had a review on the beta version of FTM 2011 by John Donaldson that if you are an FTM user like I am and would like to know what some of the new features of which there are 100 that will be available it is worth a read. A copy of this will be at our rooms. To become a member of VicGUM visit their website at http://www.vicgum.asn.au/

Links to Useful Sites:
I have had heaps of emails with interesting and useful sites over the last few months so I will list a few that I think are good.

London Lives - a great site with old documents relating to the London area for 1690-1800

Gazettes Online UK -  Visit the London, Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes for insolvency data, public notices or honours and awards (for government, business or individuals).

Friends of Cheltenham Cemetery - The Friends of Cheltenham and Regional Cemeteries Inc. covers two historic burial grounds in Melbourne's south-east - Cheltenham Pioneer Cemetery (Old Cheltenham Cemetery) (1864) and Cheltenham Memorial Park (New Cheltenham Cemetery) (1933).

Eltham Cemetery - Searchable interment registers

Berwick Cemetery Trust - Cemetery Register and Compartment Maps.

Headstone Photographs in Victorian Cemeteries - You are able to request photos of headstones for photos listed on a number of Victorian Cemeteries.

RootsIreland - One of the largest databases of Irish records. Have just added records for Laois and Offaly.

County Cork Historical Records - Searchable records available in Cork, Ireland.

HAT History of Australian Theatre - a database with archives of people involved with theatre in Australia.

Australian Newspapers - You have to keep going back here because they are adding more papers all the time.  The Western Argus for WA newspapers is the lates.

Meeting on 13th October will post more information after then. ☺




Thursday, June 3, 2010

May Meeting

It was a cold old night for our AGM and that kept a few people away. Most of the positions remain unchanged except our Treasurer will be Jan Hickey, Rick needing a break from the job after all those years doing a wonderful job. We are keeping our fees the same again this year.

When all that business was over we got on to our normal meeting. Some points of interest that came up, were that we now have funding to have the Rate Books for Cobram digitized. This will be done through PROV and we will have a copy of this to keep in our rooms for access. The years they cover are 1953 to 1986. More news will be announced when these become available.

Currently doing research on a local Tocumwal Family with connections to Cobram.

Robert Samuel Hutson son of Samuel John Ives Hutson and Ann Teitz. I am collating more information on this family if anyone is interested.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

April Happenings!

Our monthly meeting was held on April 14th at our rooms at the Old School House. We had a very imformative evening.

Our newest member K. Dyer had in his possession an old diary that had belonged to his great great grandfather Joseph Bird Burgess who kept diaries every year of his working life as a piano tuner. Sadly, it seems only the 1872 edition survived. Mr Dyer kindly read some excerpts from the diary relating to his ancestors visits to the Cobram district. He has consented to us publishing some of the entries on this blog. So stay tuned in the coming months for more on this. 

Just a bit of background information on J B Burgess:
Joseph Bird Burgess (b. 19.6.1830 Watworth, Kent, England, and died 20.3.1907 Geelong, Victoria, Australia). His wife Margaret nee Foster (b. 23.3.1833, Gillingham, Kent England, and died at Hay, NSW 10/1/1895). They married on 1/8/1852 at Bredhurst, England, and sailed to Port Phillip on the 895 ton S.S.Wandsworth. He was 23 years old, and his wife 19 y.o. They left England on 7/9/1852, arriving Port Phillip 1/1/1853.



"JBB" was a pianoforte tuner and Professor of Music. He was a very religious man, who enjoyed singing, tuning pianos, writing and selling music, hated the hot weather day and night! And continually worried about his financial position...


JB's 1872 diary contains information of all his trips tuning pianos in the Southern Riverina, and northern Victoria during that year.


Sunday, April 4, 2010

March Happenings!!

At our March meeting we were lucky to have our newest member Shauna Hicks come and give a talk to the group on "Demolishing Brick Walls". Shauna has a wealth of knowledge on Genealogy and all things historical. She was able to give us a number of new avenues available on the web in searching for records that we may not have earlier had access to. Some of our group member were overwhelmed by the use of nings, blogs, rss feeds and all the other social networking tools available. Hopefully, in this blog members can break down the barriers and learn how to access some of these tools.

Shauna has just published an interesting book on preserving your family archives, titled "Your Family History Archives". This has some very useful information on protecting your archives and family history for future generations. I highly recommend everyone has a read of it.

Shauna Hicks
Partner Groups
Unlock the Past
WorldVital Records Australasia

Some other recommended site for helpful information that were mentioned during the talk that people should have a look at are
Judy Webster's Site

TROVE - National Library of Australia

World Connect - Rootsweb

Shauna mentioned the use of nings in research. Ones that she mentioned which I have now become a member of are:

Genealogy Wise

Looking 4 Kin