Back in the day, when the government wanted to count the population they didn’t stand for any nonsense. You had to be what you said you were, and your answers would be checked. If you couldn’t prove that you were free or entitled to work for yourself you would be hauled back to government work.

Here is a transcript of a piece I found in the Sydney Gazette of Saturday 16 November 1816 on page 1 which searching Trove for news of a particular convict. You can find the original here, but I have included the full transcript, for which I’d like to thank those wonderful people who correct the text on Trove, particularly cjbrill, who corrected this one. I have changed nothing except the spacing.

WHEREAS, during the late General Muster of the Inhabitants of this Colony, several Persons who had originally come into it as Convicts reported themselves at the said Muster as free, either by Servitude or by Pardon, or as being allowed to  employ themselves for their own Benefit by the special Permission of His EXCELLENCY the GOVERNOR; and whereas several of the Persons  who thus reported themselves did not produce any Certificate, Free Pardon, Emancipation, or Ticket of Leave, without which the Truth of their said Statements could not be satisfactorily ascertained; and there being much  Reason to believe that Imposition is frequently practised in this Respect, the Names of those Persons who at the late Muster did not produce any Certificate, Free Pardon, Emancipation, or Ticket of Leave, but who represented themselves absolutely free, or conditionally so, by Virtue of one or other of the above named Documents, is now published, in Order that each of these Persons may be apprised that unless he or she do, in the Course of Six Months from the present Day, obtain at the Secretary’s Office, either a certified Copy of such Certificate, Free Pardon, Emancipation, or Ticket of Leave, as they represented  themselves to have been once possessed of in the Event of his or her having actually lost the Original, they will be considered as Impostors, and immediately recalled to Government Work as Convicts still under the Sentence of the Law.

No. Name. Ship came in. Residence. Occupation.

1. Richard Hawke Alexander Sydney -

2.  Anthony Rope ditto Castle. Landh.

3.  John Cross ditto Port H. ditto

4. Mary Clark diito 2d. Sydney -

5.  John Glade  Atlantic ditto -

6. James Hague  ditto Windsor Landh.

7. Richard Ridge ditto Hawksb. -

8. Christ. Dodding ditto ditto -

9. Richard Verrier Active Sydney -

10. Timothy Doyle Nepean Smith

11. James Higgins ditto Hawksb. -

12. John M’Ewen ditto Liverp. -

13. John Taylor Albemarle Windsor -

14. Jas. Sutherland ditto Hawksb. -

15. John Brown ditto Hawksb. -

16. Owen Hobson Ann ditto -

17. John Campbell ditto 1st. Liverp. -

18. Wm. Aldridge A. Barringt. Richm. Landh.

19. Benjamin Elton ditto Wilberf. -

20. Wm. Reynolds.  ditto Hawksb. -

21. Joseph Hunt Barwell Sydney -

22. Thomas North ditto Richmd. -

23. John Caton Boddington  Hawksb. -

24. James Kenny ditto Liverp. -

25. Mary A. Parker Canada Sydney -

26. Thos. Douglass ditto 1st. Hawksb. -

27. James Kibby ditto 1st.  Liverp. -

28. John Dugan Coromand. Nepean Landh.

29. Wm. Stevens ditto Pitt Town -

30. Timothy Webb ditto Windsor -

31. William Webb ditto Hawksb. -

32. Jonas Mordecai ditto ditto  -

33. Joseph Smith ditto ditto -

34. Rich. Holland D. of Portl. ditto Landh.

35. John Williams ditto Wilberf. laborer

36. John McKenzie ditto Hawksb. -

37. Thos. Getham ditto ditto -

38. Thomas Knight E. Cornwal. Richm. laborer

39. Thomas Rudd ditto Liverp. -

40. Patrick Mason Friendship Hawksb. Landh.

41. James Timmens ditto Richm. ditto

42. Roger Twyfield ditto Hawksb. -

43. Hugh M’Avoy Glatton Sydney -

44. Joseph Oners ditto Windsor Landh.

45. Mark Doolan Gambier 1st. Sydney

46. Peter Patallo Ganges ditto -

47. Samuel Stevens ditto Richmd. -

48. John Fitsgerald Hillsboro’ Sydney -

49. Robert Ritchie Hercules Castler. Landh.

50. Stephen Dunn ditto Pitt Town -

51. Martha Eaton Lad. Penryn Sydney -

52. Thos. Woolton Minorca ditto -

53. John Hewitt Minerva Windsor laborer

54. John Everett ditto Hawksb. -

55. Joseph Burrows ditto ditto -

56. Nicholas Crosbie M. Cornwa. Windsor Landh.

5 7. Robert Allen ditto Richm.  -

58. John Riley ditto Hawksb. -

59. Michael Balf ditto ditto -

60. Wm. Horsford Matilda ditto -

61. John Booth ditto Port H. -

62.  Henry Hyam ditto Hawksb. -

63.   Steph. Richardson ditto Richm. Landh.

64. Daniel Phillips ditto Hawksb. -

65. Adam Bell ditto ditto -

66. Isaac Farmer Neptune Wilberf. -

67. Thos. Eager or Heather ditto Hawksb. -

68. Wm. Mackey ditto Richmd. -

69. Dan. Anshutz ditto Hawksb. -

70. James O’Neille Pitt Sydney -

71. Rd. Hammett ditto ditto -

72. James Higgins ditto ditto -

73. Alex. Cumberbech ditto ditto -

74. Joseph Pearce ditto Richm. Landh.

75. John May ditto ditto ditto

76. Thomas Brown ditto Hawksb. -

77. Matthew Elkins Perseus Windsor shoemaker

78. Joseph Butler ditto Wilberf. -

79.  J. Mainwright ditto Hawksb. -

80. Wm. M’Donald Queen Pitt Town Landh.

81.  F. M’Lawrence Queen Richmd. sawyer

82. Catherine Evans Royal adm. Sydney -

83.  Thos. Pateman ditto 1st ditto -

84. William Green ditto Brokenb. Limeb.

85. Donald Kennedy ditto Castler. Landh.

86. Richard Willis ditto Pitt Town ditto

87.  William Ezzey ditto Windsor ditto

88. Henry Rochester ditto Richmd. -

89. John Norman ditto Windsor -

90. Henry Tredaway ditto Hawksb. -

91.  James Dunn  Royal Adm. ditto -

92. Thomas Tailby ditto Liverp. -

93. John Summers ditto 2d. Windsor ferrym.

94. Patrick Byrne Rolla Wilberf. -

95. Cornelius Lyons ditto sydney -

96.  James Bradley Scarboro’ Sydney -

97.  Robt. Forrester ditto Windsor Landh.

98. Richard Hagley ditto Hawksb. -

99. William Smith ditto ditto -

100. Thomas Glaves ditto ditto -

101.  Wm. Hubbard ditto ditto -

102.  Jas. Ruse ditto ditto -

103. Jas. Spooner Salamander Sydney -

104. Jos. Welstead ditto Hawksb. -

105. William Pimblett surprise Sydney -

106.  William Knight ditto Port H. Landh.

107. Simon Freebody ditto Windsor ditto

108. Edw. Woodham ditto Richm. -

109.  John Sullivan Sugar cane ditto Hawksb. -

110.    James Knowland ditto Hawksb. -

111. Charles Barwick Wm & Ann Sydney -

112. L. Wetherhead ditto Hawksb. Landh.

113.  Thomas Noble – Liverpool -

114.  John Hopkins – ditto -

115.  Roger Fletcher – ditto -

116.  John Masterson – ditto -

And the foregoing Persons are hereby Apprised,that the proper Time to apply at the Secretary’s Office for the obtaining of the above Documents, is the first Monday in each Month.

By Command of His Excellency, J. T. CAMPBELL, Secretary.

 

When you are writing up your family history, don’t forget the weather.

Sydney is suffering today from a few days of hot weather. We are always shocked when it gets hot like this, with the north-westerly wind straight from the desert, and we hide inside with our air-conditioners. At least, that’s what I do.

Our reliance on domestic air-conditioning has developed during my life time. Where I grew up, in Dubbo in central western New South Wales, we got days like this quite frequently in summer. It’s a dry heat, with little humidity. We had an evaporative air-cooler, which was an air-conditioner-shaped box on a stand with wheels that you filled up with water and turned it on. It would blow air, cooled by the water, in the direction you pointed it.

In the evenings, when the sun was low but still quite bright, we would go outside and sit in the shade, much cooler than inside the house. Any slight breeze was made the most of out there. But of course the cooking still had to be done inside, on the stove or in the oven, heating the kitchen, at least, even more.

I went to a high school that was growing faster than the buildings to contain it. We had two demountable classrooms, which were spare classrooms that could be trucked in in pieces and put together onsite quickly. They had a metal roof and were like ovens in summer. We hated them. A class in one of those rooms was torture. I believe those classrooms are still there, in the same place on the edge of the oval, with air-conditioning in them, with more recently erected classrooms alongside.

Christmas Day was spent cooking a large hot meal with roast chicken and vegetables and plum pudding. Chickens were expensive in those days, without battery hen houses, and turkeys even more so. We always had a box of cherries that my grandfather would buy on his annual trip to Sydney. As a special treat we might have bottles of soft drink with dinner. After dinner we would go somewhere and sit, or lie, as still as possible.

Imagine, then, what it was like for our ancestors! What a shock this heat must have been, for those new immigrants!

The clothes of the eighteenth century did not leave any skin bare except for the hands and perhaps the forearms, so they would have been hot, even though they were made of natural materials. They didn’t just wear them once and toss them in the laundry basket, either, as we do. Water wasn’t on tap, for washing clothes, or people, or anything else, but brought by bucket from a dam or river. Kids didn’t play under the hose when it was hot, as we did.

Work had to be done whatever the weather, then as now. Offices weren’t air-conditioned, and I imagine the clerks with their beautiful handwriting in their shirtsleeves on days like today, trying not to get sweat on the big registers we look at now in the archives. The paper was thicker, and I guess it could withstand a bit of moisture!

Farming was mostly small holdings, with little money for livestock, let alone air-conditioned trucks and farm machinery. Farmers are tougher than most of us even now, in their shirtsleeves and hats, out in the fields mending fences, ploughing, harvesting, hay-baling… there is always a long list of jobs a farmer has to do.

Admittedly, they did build houses more practically in those days. Houses had high ceilings and many were of double brick. Farm houses had verandahs all around. But the corrugated iron roof was cheaper than tiles, and it’s incredibly hot to live under. Early houses were mud brick and thatch or corrugated iron.

We talk about global warming and so we may assume that the weather was different in  our ancestors’ day than it is now, but look at any newspaper of the period and you can see that generally it was much the same. Perhaps it rained more but that goes in cycles. They had drought, fires, floods, too much rain, not enough rain, and days that were just too hot to bear.

Just like us.

What to do

• Ask your parents what the weather was like for them when they were young. Did it get hot like this? What did they do to keep cool?
• Ask your grandparents and their generation the same questions.
• Look through local newspapers from this time of year. You may see stories about record temperatures, bushfires, dam water levels – similar stories to those we see today.
• look at climate statistics for your local area at the Bureau of Meteorology. Look at the average monthly temperature and rainfall and imagine what that meant for day-to-day living.
• Put on a long, high-necked dress and go shopping! (just kidding)

The Irish Times is celebrating 150 years of publication by allowing free access to its digital archive until the 5th March 2009. The first edition of the Irish Times was first published on 29th March 1869, and you can see it and read it for yourself. The website allows browing by date or searching for specific words (or parts of words) within a range of dates or across the whole 150 years.

You can search the Irish Times Digital Archive for the next few days at http://www.irishtimes.com/150/.

The first issue of the Sydney Gazette (image courtesy of the National Library of Australia)

The Australian Newspapers project coordinated by the National Library of Australia in conjunction with Australian State and Territory libraries was initiated to digitise early out-of-copyright newspapers. To complement this process an online service was planned to provide access to these images free of charge.

At least one newspaper was chosen for each state, including the earliest one for each state. New South Wales newspapers selected are:

The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser 1803-1842

The Sydney Herald 1831-1842 (became The Sydney Morning Herald in 1842)

The Sydney Morning Herald 1842-1954

The Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser 1843-1893

Digitising began in July 2007. Scanning has been been completed for these newspapers and the process of putting them online has begun. The Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation has donated $1 million to enable the digitisation of the Sydney Morning Herald to 1954.

Last month a beta version of the service was released. For New South Wales the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser is available from the first issue in March 1803 up to the end of 1815 and the Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser for the 1840s, early 1850s and early 1880s. This represents a total of nearly 13,000 pages, or roughly 5% of the total. Click here to see the latest statistics.

The website is terrific. It shows you the whole page and shows a transcript of each article on the side. You can enlarge each article individually and turn the whole page into a PDF file or image to be downloaded. A warning – the transcripts have been created using OCR, or Optical Character Recognition. The quality of the printing is highly variable and quite often the characters are mistaken by this automated process and so you see things like “V oTi.cK” instead of “Notice”. We can see by looking at the text that it is “Notice” but computers are not that smart yet.

Another thing to watch out for is the old use of the letter “f” instead of “s” so the word might say “reforted” instead of “resorted”.

There is advanced searching capability which is necessarily dependent on the OCR.

You can add tags and comments to articles, and you can correct the text that was generated automatically. If every one does this when they find an article it will be a great website very quickly, and much easier to search.

If you sign in you can add your own private comments and tags to articles. This is very useful for your own research – you can add tags for the name of your ancestor and the type of article.

The National Library and everyone involved are to be congratulated for getting this project off to such a great start.

One of the best ways to fill in some detail of the lives of our ancestors is to find a mention of them in a newspaper, or, better still, a whole article or obituary. In small country towns such as those in which many of my ancestors lived the death of a prominent local citizen was a newsworthy event for small local newspapers. No-so-prominent citizens may have been included in birth, death and marriage announcements, gossip columns, and legal notices such as for the granting of probate. Even if we can’t find our ancestor or other relatives by name, we can still get a very good idea of what their lives were like.

Current newspapers

For current newspapers try the Guide to Australian Newspapers which has a town search in the top right corner. Entering “Blayney” gave a list of three newspapers that all include Blayney in their coverage, with links to the individual newspapers. Even if your family no longer lives in the area these newspapers can give you an idea of what life is like for the locals and how it may be different from yours. For example, the website of the Blayney Guide has news from the Blayney Chronicle and a link to Sydney for Kids. It is easy to forget that for kids that grow up in the country a trip to Sydney is a big deal, as it was for me when I was growing up in Dubbo. A newspaper story discusses locks being put on another of Blayney Shire Council’s bores to stop people from stealing the water, and another gives the finding that residents of western NSW are more likely “to be overweight, binge drink, and smoke” than in the rest of the State (Blayney Chronicle, 31st May 2007, 11:10am).

Old newspapers

For historical newspapers that may no longer be published you can search in the catalogue of the State Library of NSW (or the National Library of Australia or your State library in other states). The National Plan for Australian Newspapers is a joint project between the National and State Libraries to locate, collect and preserve every newspaper published in Australia. Searching in the catalogue of the SLNSW shows me what is actually immediately available to me (with a delay of 20-30 mins) in the library itself. A keyword search for Periodicals Only for “Blayney” gives a list of 18 results which are either newspapers or council reports and publications. The dates for available issues are given and whether they have been microfilmed or kept in offsite storage. Once you have found the paper and the date that you want you request the microfilm at the Library, wait a short while for it to be retrieved, stick it on one of the microfilm readers with the larger screen, find the page you want, and print it off. Couldn’t be simpler.

Australian Periodical Publications 1840-1845 is an Australian Co-operative Digitisation Project that has digitised and made available online periodicals that began publication in 1840-1845 relevant to Australia. They may have been published beyond these dates. Pages have been scanned and made available as multi-page PDF files. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) does not appear to have been used to enable indexing and searching of names and other words. The free software Adobe Reader is required to read them. Even if you can’t find mention of your ancestors’ names in these publications there is a wealth of more general material that can give you an idea of what life was like for them.

An example, chosen at random, is the first issue of the South Australian Colonist, which began publication in London in 1840, which gives a copy of the commission of, and detailed instructions to, the first Land and Emigration Commissioners to enable them to sell “waste Crown land” and use the proceeds to bring emigrants out of England to settle in the British Colonies; first-hand accounts of immigrants and settlers and instructions for new or prospective settlers; and a report of the Aborigines’ Protection Society, all in the first six pages! The last page contains advertisements for ships about to sail to Australia, land available for purchase, and other necessary equipment such as iron bedsteads that folded up and attached to the chest for travel (presumably it attached to one’s luggage, not to one’s person!).

Early Sydney newspapers

Of course, the early papers of New South Wales were begun before these dates. The first Australian newspaper was the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser. The first issue has been digitised by the State Library of NSW and can be seen here. Further issues up to 1842 are available in Mitchell Library on microfilm. The Sydney Morning Herald, which followed after 1842, is available on microfilm at the State Reference Library of the State Library of NSW from the first issue in August 1842 up to three months ago, with more recent paper issues available on request.

A brief history of newspapers in Australia can be seen at the Australian Government’s Culture and Recreation Portal here, and another one, from the National Library of Australia, here.

Yellowed cuttings from newspapers are often found in scrapbooks or loose among the old photographs with no note of which paper they came from or on what date. It is very satisfying, to me anyway, to have a photocopy of the relevant page in a newspaper that shows the name and date of the newspaper as well as the small portion that was cut out in which my ancester was mentioned.

Further information, including available indexes, can be found in Cora Num’s excellent Websites for Genealogists.

Further reading

Vine Hall, N. Tracing Your Family in New South Wales, 5th Edition, Adelaide: Gould Genealogy, 2006.

As well as the chapter in this book on newspapers I suggest following the many links to websites inserted through the text.