Australian Cemeteries

Great news!! Australian cemeteries now have a new home with their own domain.
http://www.australiancemeteries.com/
You may want to update your bookmarks, however if you go into the old ozgenonline.com/aust_cemeteries site, you will be transferred quickly to the new site. It looks just the same as the old one, but is much, much quicker, making it easier to use.

To forget one's ancestors is to be a brook without a source,a tree without a root.
Chinese Proverb

The Mutch Index

Thomas Davies Mutch (1885 - 1958), by unknown photographer, courtesy of State Library of New South Wales

This useful genealogy resource, especially for the early years of the Colony, is the Thomas Davies Mutch Card index to births, deaths and marriages, 1787-1957 (known as the Mutch Index). State Records holds a microfilm copy (Reels 2125-2129) of the original index which is held by the Mitchell Library.

The Index is believed to cover all relevant extant records relating to New South Wales from 1788-1828, except for the Newcastle Register and the Methodist Church records, and selected records to 1957. Later entries are from tombstone inscriptions and the most recent from news-cuttings and relate only to comparatively few families. A list of the records included is at the beginning of the index, and further information is available from the Mitchell Library.

MUTCH, THOMAS DAVIES (1885-1958), journalist, politician and historian, was born on 17 October 1885 at Lambeth, London, eldest child of William Mutch, Scottish omnibus driver, and his second wife Sarah, née Davies. He arrived in Sydney on 24 March 1887 with his parents and four half-brothers. Educated at Double Bay Public School, he left home and school after his mother died in 1899 and worked for four years in outback shearing-sheds. An enthusiastic reader, he absorbed socialist literature and the bush tradition.

A professional genealogist, Mutch was a council-member of the Society of Australian Genealogists in 1945-46 and was elected fellow in 1946. He compiled a comprehensive index to the early settlers of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land from parish registers, convict indents, musters and land records; the 'Mutch Index' is now in the Mitchell Library. A trustee of the Public Library of New South Wales (1916-58) and a member of the Mitchell Library committee (1924-58), he secured Jansz's original charts for the library, successfully lobbied for establishment of the State Archives in 1942, and in 1945 persuaded the National Library of Australia to co-operate in a joint copying project of documents relating to Australia in the Public Records Office, London.

He died of cancer at his Clovelly home on 4 June 1958 and was buried in the Anglican section of Waverley cemetery after a service in St James' Church. The Society of Australian Genealogists established the T. D. Mutch memorial lecture in his honour.

Letters of a Nation

As part of Australia Post's Letters of a Nation campaign, they have developed an online archive that will preserve all letter submissions and act as a resource tool for generations to come.

The Letter Archive can be searched via category e.g.Friendship/Mateship/Romance;
Migration; Family/Childhood/Children/Home; Culture/Arts; Humour; Sport;
Business/Commerce/Employment; Protest; Politics; War; Life events(births,deaths,marriages); Religion; Milestone events i.e. Federation, Bicentenary; Environment; Education; Health/Healthcare; Social trends/Change (movements, fashions); Science/Technology/Research/Innovation.

Or search Letter Archive via era..
1809-1849; 1850-1899; 1900-1909; 1910-1919; 1920-1930; 1930-1939; 1940-1949; 1950-1959; 1960-1969; 1970-1979; 1980-1989; 1990-1999; 2000-2009.

You can also submit your own letters to the site or subscribe for updates.

Example: A father's letter to his son after release from a POW camp.
Ron Castle, the son of a POW soldier in the Second World War, was Australia Post's Letters of a Nation campaign first submission.
The letter is written from Ron's father, Charles Castle to Ron telling him he looks forward to catching up on 'some great times, just you and I'. The letter is particularly poignant; because for fifteen months Charles' family did not know if he was dead or alive following a telegram advising that he was 'Missing in Action'.
As it was, Charles was actually a Prisoner of War soldier in Malaya throughout this time.
Ron submitted his letter to give recognition to his father and to his father's mates who were not as lucky as he was to return home to their families.

The Old Bailey

The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913 is a fully searchable on-line edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court.

The Old Bailey, also known as Justice Hall, the Sessions House, and the Central Criminal Court, was named after the street in which it was located, just off Newgate Street and next to Newgate Prison, in the western part of the City of London. Over the centuries the building has been periodically remodelled and rebuilt in ways which both reflected and influenced the changing ways trials were carried out and reported.

This site also includes historical background covering policing, crimes tried, trial procedures, judges and juries, trial verdicts, and punishments. It provides important information to help the researcher understand proceedings, especially in the case of punishments. Defendants could be given more than one punishment, and the actual punishment a convict received often differed from that specified at their trial. It is worth searching later sessions by the name of the defendant using the “Personal Details” search page to see if the sentence was mitigated.

Because the actual punishment a convict received often differed from that specified at their trial, It is also possible to search separately for information about pardons or executions. Although this information was not consistently reported in the Proceedings, there are regular reports of pardons from 1739 until 1796 and of executions from 1743 until 1792. Additional evidence about whether (and how) punishments were carried out can be found within the Associated Records.

Note on Punishments: A large number of eighteenth-century statutes specified death as the penalty for minor property offences (the "bloody code"), meaning that the vast majority of the people tried at the Old Bailey could be sentenced to hang (one could be executed for stealing a handkerchief or a sheep). Nevertheless, judicial procedures prevented a blood bath by ensuring that sentences could be mitigated, or the charge redefined as a less serious offence.

Through partial verdicts, juries reduced the charges against many convicted defendants. Through the mechanisms of benefit of clergy and pardons many more defendants found guilty of a capital offence were spared the death penalty and sentenced instead to punishments such as branding, transportation, or imprisonment. Many received no punishment at all.

National Archives of Ireland

Researching your Irish Ancestry can be notoriously difficult, but the National Archives of Ireland holds a wealth of information, searchable on-line.
Unfortunately almost all the records acquired by the Public Record Office of Ireland before 1922 were destroyed by fire and explosion at the beginning of the Civil War in June 1922 and as a result, the material now held by the National Archives dates mainly from the 19th and 20th centuries, although there are a few surviving court and exchequer rolls dating to the early 14th century.
However they are still well worth visiting, as they also provide excellent guides to searching the archives and researching Irish family history
Some of the most frequently consulted archives:
Archives acquired from private sources
Census 1901
Census 1911
Chancery pleadings
Chief Secretary's Office Registered Papers
Church of Ireland parish registers
Convict Reference Files
Coroners' inquests
Dáil Éireann records
Departmental records
Famine Relief Commission records relating to the Famine
Ferguson manuscripts
Genealogical abstracts (Betham, Crosslé, Tenison Groves, Grove-White and Thrift)
General Prisons Board
Incumbered and Landed Estates Court rentals
Irish Record Commission calendars
Lodge's manuscripts
National School applications, registers and files (pre-1922)
Office of Public Works
Official Papers
Ordnance Survey
Outrage Reports
Probate records
Quit Rent Office
Rebellion Papers
Society of Friends Famine Papers
State of the Country Papers
Trade Union archives
Valuation Office and Boundary Survey records
Will books and grant books

York Assizes

York Reference Library has an on-line index to records of prisoners brought to trial at York Assizes 1785-1851. http://www.yorkfamilyhistory.org.uk/assizes.htm
The Library's records give quite a lot of detail and, in most cases, there are also the results of the trials. Some of these are published on this website. For those not published York Library offer a look-up service and you can contact them at reference.library@york.gov.uk
This index of over 8,000 names has been divided into alphabetical sections, as follows:
A - B; C - D; E - F; G - I; J - L; M - P; Q - S; T - V; W - Y

Records include ID number, Surname, Forename, Age, Place of Origin and Date.
However, pre-July 1800, ages were not given, and after this time, place of origin was generally not given. There are occasional gaps.
This index was kindly donated to the Society, in 2003, by Conrad Plowman

Victorian Family History

Thank God for CD-ROMS or it would cost us a fortune to look up Victorian Births, Deaths and Marriages on-line. The Victorian BDM charge 99cents to view a page. This could add up to quite a bit if you are researching your Victorian Ancestors. Luckily Manly Library holds
Death Index, Victoria 1921 – 1985
Edwardian Index, Victoria 1902 – 1913
Federation Index, Victoria 1889 -1901
Marriage Index, Victoria 1921 - 1942
Great War Index, Victoria 1914- 1920 is not available The Victorian Registry of BDMs have taken the decision to cease supply.
On the other hand congratulations to Public Records Office of Victoria, who provide not only great indexing, but also a good selection of digital copies on-line.