~ 8th August 2007 ~  

MEETING DATES 2007

Meeting held 2nd Wednesday of the month at 10am in the Tebbutt Room, Windsor Library

INFORMATION

REMINDER - Visit to State Records

On Wednesday 12 September, at 10am Hawkesbury Family History Group will be visiting State Records at Kingswood. There will not be a normal meeting held on this day, due to the excursion. See leaflet for more information. Bookings are essential as places are limited. Phone 4560-4460 or see Kristine after meeting. Meet at State Records 143 O'Connell Street, Kingswood.

HISTORY WEEK - FAMILY HISTORY WRITING WORKSHOP

The Library has organised a workshop with Dr Noelen Kyle called "Your Writing is Going Where? : finding your place in history Memory and Mystery in Family History" as part of the NSW History Week celebrations. The workshop aims to assist people writing their family history or memoirs with suggestions, ideas & tips for writing to be provided. On Wednesday 19th September 2007 - 1 pm to 4 pm.This is FREE but bookings are essential, ring 4560-4460 to book.

NEW BOOKS AVAILABLE

There are 2 new books  of interest compiled by Rod & Wendy Gow. For further details see the web site at http://www.ceinternet.com.au/~rgow/  or contact Rod & Wendy Gow, 50 Ferry Lane, Cundletown NSW 2430. They are :

"Windsor & Richmond Gazette newspaper 1906-1910 index to births, deaths, marriages, inquests, obituaries, probates, etc." which includes entries for the Hawkesbury, Nepean, Hills, Parramatta & many districts. With 6,000+ entries, this is the 3rd in this series, indexes for 1911-15 & 1916-20 are already available. The index for 1901-1905 is currently a work in progress and will be released later this year.

"Parramatta Chronicle Newspaper 1843-45 : Index to court cases, births, deaths, marriages, inquests, insolvencies, Tickets of Leave, etc." Book is A4, with 7000+ entries, 156 pp. Price : $30 (Also on CD Price : $30) All items include postage anywhere within Australia.

BLUE MOUNTAINS - PIONEER REGISTER VOL 2

Just a reminder for anyone with an ancestor who lived and worked in the Blue Mountains of NSW, up to 1930 interested in contributing information for the Pioneer Register Vol. 2.  Forms can be downloaded from the BMFHS website, www.rootsweb.com/~nswbmfhs/wip/p_register.htm  Closing date for submissions is 30 September 2007. The website provides more information.

"How I got started on family history?"  - from member(s) John & Chesne Jones

We have always had an interest in history but very little time to pursue it.  Both of us had heard the stories of our families from our parents and other family members.  Each of us had been told we had a forebear who had fled to Australia from a tyrannical nobleman father.  Most family historians are familiar with such stories.

In 2000 Chesne realised that in the preceding few years a number of her family members had passed away taking with them the stories of their lives and their families.  So one afternoon she sat with her mother at the computer talking about her family and typing the details as they went. This resulted in two pages of information that in itself led to more questions many of which her mother could not answer.  Chesne soon entered that strange world of birth, death and marriage indexes, transcription agents etc.  Before long she was finding information she never knew existed.  She was hooked!  

With this quest for information and Chesne being Chesne, John was soon being asked a lot of questions about his family.  It is said that genealogy is a contagious disease.  John was soon digging into the past for himself.  

Shortly after this we started attending the Hawkesbury Family History Group meetings and now seven years later we are still learning new things from the excellent speakers.   We greatly value the time at the meetings where those attending share their knowledge and experiences for the benefit of others. 

Information has to be recorded somewhere.  Chesne prefers it to be on paper - any bit of paper, whereas John wants to have this information readily available for later reference, so he aims to record everything on the computer and then file the bits of paper in an orderly manner.  There appears to be a tacit agreement between us regarding this.   

So many research tools are available due to the efforts of people who record and photograph headstones, index newspapers and other items.  We believed we should also  help to make research work more readily available, hence our work as volunteers at State Records. 

As for our noble roots - they were a good story.  The facts about Chesne's lady are much sadder and John's bloke is quite elusive.

~ Let us know of sites, that you have tried with (or without) success ~