MAJOR additions to database

Finally I found the “missing” register of midwives for 1921 – this completes the set of Midwife Registers from 1916 to 1956 from the Victoria Government Gazette.  In the process of indexing it I spotted a familiar name – Lily GRANT, the great aunt of my former partner.  I couldn’t resist including this photo – one of my favourites – it’s Lily with her four sisters. It was taken in 1916 on her younger sister Janet’s wedding day [L-R: Dora, Ethline, Lily, Janet and Mary].  The wedding took place at their home ‘Chesterfield’ at 221 Noble Street, Newtown.  It was five years later, 1921, when Lily was registered as a midwife.  She went on to become a Registered Nurse and eventually ran her own private hospital in Blackburn.

With the Midwives completed, indexing is now progressing on the first six registers for Nurses have now been added to the database – these also continue through to 1956 in the Government Gazette.  These are not all “local” girls as the registers include girls from Melbourne and all over Victoria who did their Nurse Training at Geelong Hospital or Colac Hospital.

But the really BIG addition comes from the PROV Assisted Immigrants to Victoria index.  Over the years we have identified the ships that brought Assisted Immigrants to Geelong, or more specifically Point Henry.  We have extracted all passengers and list references for these ships.  If they landed here, even if they moved on to other areas, they spent at least SOME time in our region.  Many people don’t realise the importance of some of these “duplicate” passenger lists – some identify passengers who were eventually moved from the ship at Point Henry to the Immigration Depot in Geelong.

Although many of these entries are available through PROV, Ancestry, Findmypast etc. this database gives you different options for searching that might help find that elusive ancestor.  Make sure you read the Search Tips to understand the string, wildcard and group search options.

As an example, search for:

INDEX ENTRY     bridg

TITLE                      immig

and you will find lots of entries for Bridget etc. but not just from this new Assisted Immigrants index – you will also find local entries from Assisted Immigrants Remittances; Orphan Immigrants; Immigration Depot Funerals; and Immigration Depot Returns.  Leave out the title to find other local entries from almost 140 indexes in the database.

We now have 1,478,815 records in the Geelong and District database.  I thought 1.5 million entries by the end of 2014 would be a challenge but hopefully an achievable target.  So much for that theory!  We have no excuse for not achieving that target now!  After I’ve taken a breath I need to start working on the Unassisted Immigrants who landed at Point Henry / Geelong.  This is what’s been added since the last major update on 27 December 2013:

• Geelong District: Assisted Immigrants – limited PROV index – 39,202 entries
• Geelong District: Midwives from the Victoria Government Gazette 1921 – 36 entries
• Geelong District: Nurses from the Victoria Government Gazette 1925-1930 – 355 entries

Details on these indexes can be found in the Geelong & District Potpourri pages and the Geelong & District List of Books.

And don’t forget to search again for your ancestors in the Geelong & District Database – they could have been in the last load of additions!