Family History

(Photos make blogs look better!)

I know how much everyone loves dealing with family history questions. I am perfectly happy for people to send them straight to me but for when I am not here I thought I'd give you a quick outline of how I deal with them.

- First I check the catalogue using anyword - you never know.

- Then I look at Sherry Morris' Biographical Index of Wagga up to the 1920s. There are a vast number of entries on this CD-ROM (kept in Local Studies, first row, top right) and sometimes the entries are very basic, other times quite detailed.

- If the entry says they were involved with a particular industry eg. wine, brewery or flour mills then I look in Sherry Morris' Wagga Wagga Industries, the first 80 years: 1846-1926.

- If I can't find anything (not everyone does something noteworthy) I point them to the cemetery transcription books in RG. To check if someone died in Wagga check the historical indexes at http://www.bdm.nsw.gov.au/familyHistory/search.htm

- There is also the wonderful option of giving them a green brochure and sending them to the Family History Society, Archives or the Mormons. If there are no green brochures at the desk, there should be more in the drawer in the genealogy brochure file.

There is a folder in the drawer at the reference desk that has lots of Family History tips in it - check it out.

Ancestry.com does not have births, deaths and marriages (bdm) information for Australia. It has some early electoral rolls and various other records. For bdms go straight to the state bdm registry.

Word processing

I have just been working on some Web 2.0 stuff and came across a free, online word processor. I think it used to be called Writely but is now Google Docs and is good because you can do all the basic word processing stuff - even powerpoint presentations - and people can work on the same document simultaneously. You can invite collaborators or just viewers. It is, apparently, a legitimate alternative to Word.

TRAC Geography Assignment - Option 3

Urban Growth and Decline in Wagga - see http://www.cchange.org.au/resources/1/190307Riverina-MurrayPopOverview1996-2006.pdf
Also see Wagga Wagga City Population Statistics in Local Studies collection 304.6009WAG.

Anglican College (TRAC) Geography Assignment - Option 1

This is the first option for the assignment:

Land and Water Management at Lake Albert

The 2005 Wagga Wagga Development Control Plan – Lake Albert Catchment – this is more recent than what we have in Local Studies
http://www.wagga.nsw.gov.au/resources/documents/26_Lake_Albert_Catchment.pdf

Specification for the Preparation of a Land and Water Mgt Plan.
http://www.wagga.nsw.gov.au/resources/documents/Ap28_Land_and_Water_Management_Plan.pdf

New South Wales Land and water management

http://www.murrumbidgee.cma.nsw.gov.au/index.php?id=325

In Local Studies
Lake Albert Urban Water Reuse Demonstration Project, Survey Report – 628.38HIG
Lake Albert Monitoring Report 333.9163
City of Wagga Wagga Plan of Management, Lake Albert Southern Foreshore – 333.9163 WAG
Lake Albert Catchment, New guidelines for Sustainable Development – 333.9163WAG
Submissions for the Lake Albert Catchment Study – 333.9162 SUB

Electoral Rolls

Hi All
Yet again we had a client insisting that they have been told that we hold all Electoral Rolls. As you know we only have a hard copy version for the year 2000 in Reference Genealogy. According to the AEC website at http://www.aec.gov.au/Enrolling_to_vote/About_Electoral_Roll/How_to_view_electoral_roll.htm every AEC office has the Commonwealth electoral roll available for viewing in electronic format. Our nearest AEC office is in Narrandera. The roll is not available for sale in any format.

The State Records Authority website http://www.records.nsw.gov.au/archives/archives_in_brief_5_1390.asp contains further information relating to past electoral rolls and where you can view them. If you click on "community access points" at the bottom of the page it will take you to a map. Wagga's community access point is CSU Regional Archives in Hely Avenue.
Hope this is helpful.
Margot

Preservation of Memorabilia

Hi All
A query this time from a client wanting to know how to preserve her genealogical resources, including photographs. This web site from the Department of Veteran's Affairs http://www.dva.gov.au/media/publicat/2001/memorabilia/index.htm contains a publication called "Caring for Your Wartime Memorabilia". This online publication was very useful containing information on handling, storage and cleaning of items.
Regards
Margot

Videos Available online

Hi All
Just got a telephone query re videos on the human body. Did you know that you can access a large video collection using our online databases? Go to our Online Resources page on the Library Website and select Science Reference Centre. Click on the Images/Video button and then search within this collection. There is an animation of how the human body works with sound. This client had a home computer and was going to access this video from home.

Just a note if you try this on staff computers. Web Marshall blocks a number of these videos. Try them out at home.

Happy searching
Margot

Land title search

I had a lady in looking to find out who owns a particular property in Victoria. She was trying to avoid paying her solicitor to find out. I tried looking up the Valuer General, which had been suggested to her, but couldn't fid what she needed. In the end I went to http://www.myrp.com.au/ where you can look up any property in Australia and it will say when it was last sold and if it is a rental. From that she was able to deduce that the man still owned the property. You can buy reports from them with more information as well. I would upload an image but that seems to take forever on work computers!
From Amy (I accidentally forgot to log in as myself).