Favourite Discovery

Week 7 #52 Ancestors 52 Weeks

Having just read an article entitled “What Kind of F-ing One-Name Are You” By Roger Goacher [1], i would say that I am a “Flesher”. I like to flesh out the lives of our ancestors and seek additional information from a range of sources. So I do I have a favourite discovery? No I don’t believe so. I do though have a few favourite tools and sources to help flesh out those discoveries.

Trove the Australian online repository for Australian newspapers, maps, music and archives from the National Library of Australia [2]. For the family historian a wide variety of information is available and is always worth a visit. Over the years the following facts have been gleened:

The Golden Wedding of Mr and Mrs HG Nosworthy was held on the 12th May, 1952 [3]. The article states that the couple were excellent citizens and they would support any worthwhile effort both physically and financially. The article continues with information about the event, people present, a little of the history of the couple and the family. Helping to flesh out a little bit more about the NOSWORTHY family.

Of course not all articles in Trove are joyous as they can tell of tragedy or mischief and mayhem including the following example: Fatal Collision on North Road, which tells the story of the car accident where a man, his wife and three children were injured [4]. The man and his wife both passed away as a result of the accident.This article and several other provide detail of the death of my grandparents

The State Records of South Australia along with Family Search over the last 2 years have gradually added a range of records online. These are a boon to the family historian who is a flesher. The digital records that we can now access include: insolvency registers, soldier settlement records, school admission registers, inquests and police reports to the coroner 1879- along with ships papers rather than just the shipping lists. Often though when looking through the records, there is nothing to find. But every now and again we come across a gem. The ships papers for the Caroline tell us that Edward Waller Loades was hired on as the school master for the voyage and he received 5 pounds in payment [5].

There are a multitude of resources available to help us find our favourite discovery and the unlocking of the digital tools in FamilySearch will allow many of us to verify those discoveries we made based on indexes, when we did not ahve access to the original document.

Happy searching.

[1] Goacher, Roger, (2003). What Kind of F-ing One-Namer Are You? Journal of One-Name Studies, January-March 2003

[2] Trove access online at trove.nla.gov.au

[3] Family Notices (1953, May 18) The Naracoorte Herald. (SA: 1875 – 1854) p.7. Retrieved Mar 1, 2020. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article 147101361

[4] Lorry, Car and Cicycle (1941, January 30). Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 – 1954) p. 13. Retrieved Mar 1, 2020. http://nla.gov.na/nla.news-article 92403828

[5] Family Search – Records relating to offical assisted immigrations – Crown Lands and Immigration Office – Immigrations ships’ papers 1849 – 1885. GRG35/48/2/10/1855 Caroline, 1 Jan – 31 Dec 1855