covering local and family history in the greater Barwon region
October 21, 2015 Leave a comment
What a horrible sight – the magnificent hedge around Colac Cemetery on fire – I’m amazed how quickly they got onto it and stopped it spreading even further. They got the bulldozers into action and that probably saved the rest of the hedge.
October 13, 2015 Leave a comment
It’s well overdue – a blog showing the entries added to the Geelong and District Database – especially as the last one was back in December 2014! That doesn’t mean that I haven’t been adding lots of entries – I just haven’t done a blog on the additions.
Since the last major update last December, there are now 1,646,239 entries in the Geelong and District Database. Latest additions include:
Details on these indexes can be found in the Geelong & District Potpourri pages.
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!
September 22, 2015 Leave a comment
Tomorrow = Wednesday 23rd September 2015 at 5.00 pm – that’s the last chance you’ll have for a month or two to access the services, library, microform, and archives of the Geelong Heritage Centre. The next access you’ll have will be in the wonderful new Geelong Library & Heritage Centre in Little Malop Street.
Don’t sit back and think you can email the centre to order copies – it won’t be happening as they have a massive job moving the collection [and items currently stored remotely] into the wonderful new building.
And if there’s something you just must have – why not visit some of the local history and family history societies? They have wonderful collections – documents, manuscripts, images, oral histories – an absolute treasure trove and you probably have no idea of their extensive collections!
Have a look at these societies – you might be surprised at just how many there are! And they’re open at different times on different days. For example – you can visit the Bellarine Historical Society on Sunday 4th October and search their wonderful collection or just browse and absorb the terrific museum collection.
And of course don’t forget the Geelong & District Database – more than 1.63 million entries for people and places in our region. There may be page references in local books that you can access through your local library or inter-library loan.
And while we’re talking about the library – if you use the new Geelong Library Catalogue you can search through the 2,471 Heritage Centre images online!
September 13, 2015 Leave a comment
The time has come, the walrus said … to make some room in my place. Consequently I’ve made the huge decision to move on some of my research library starting with my collection of hardback Sands & McDougall’s Victorian Directories. Needless to say they take up a lot of space!
I can’t find any of these digitised – and we all know that the 20th Century is often the hardest for us to research so these are ideal.
You’ll find them on Gumtree – just search for:
Keyword: Directory
Location: Ocean Grove
Any purchasers can collect them from Ocean Grove but they can also be posted – details provided on request. Three were posted in one box up to Melbourne recently so anything is possible.
Another option – if you finalise arrangements in time, they could be collected from the Geelong & District stand at the 2015 VAFHO Expo in Seymour on 17th October, 2015. Obviously that would save all postage costs.
September 7, 2015 2 Comments
I initially posted this on my Just Love History blog as the impact is a much greater area than Geelong and District.
Mark Beasley has confirmed that they will shut down at 5.00 pm on Wednesday 23rd September 2015.
Also take not of the message about the new library catalogue on the same blog!
If you haven’t seen them before, at this stage these are the new opening hours for the Geelong Heritage Centre when it opens in the new building:
Please spread this message far and wide!
September 1, 2015 1 Comment
A collection of 27 small black and white photos was passed on from the Apollo Bay area in Victoria. They have been scanned and made available on my Flickr Album and also my Pinterest Board. Any details on the reverse of the images have been included in the text / description, as well as actual print sizes. Have a look and see if you can help. The Pinterest Board is especially useful as it displays all images and the text in the one view.
Many had information on the back but not all and not always useful information! A couple had a date – 1923 and a few others were narrowed down to between 1927 and 1936 as they included the Ocean Grove – Barwon Heads bridge [built in 1927] and the Barwon Heads Boathouses [removed in 1936].
Some had stamps on the back – Kodak print and sometimes Velox. According to a web site this dated them 1940s-50s or 1960s-70s. From the images it is possible that these were reprints from negatives as some were obviously earlier than the suggested dates.
Some images were crisp, others not so – some have been enhanced a little to improve the clarity of the subjects.
One tantalisingly includes the words the Farmer boys. The “F” definitely looks like a capital “F”. So is Farmer the surname or were all the boys farmers by occupation?
There are three Christian names – perhaps three brothers:
There are a couple of locations mentioned :
The obvious ones – the Geelong Art Gallery and Eastern Beach – have been included in the scanned group as they may provide context or dates.
Can you help unravel this collection of photos?
August 28, 2015 Leave a comment
It is only a week away but a local group is organising a 50 year reunion for nurses from Geelong Hospital.
The group has managed to track down all the past nurses except one – Jo or Josephine CLEARY. She married Dr R N MATTHEWS who was killed in a car accident in 1972. They have spoken to some members of the MATTHEWS family who think she may have remarried but are not 100% sure.
CAN YOU HELP?
Please don’t post any personal or contact details here but get in touch with me via the Contact Us form and I will pass the details on to Judy Brown, one of the organisers.
August 17, 2015 Leave a comment
Sometimes it is so frustrating – a person filled out the Contact form on the Geelong & District [and Bellarine] web site asking if the Bellarine Historical Society had a photo of the Drysdale Blacksmith shop and also where they could get copies of the Ocean Grove Echo for 1967 and 1968.
As you can see by the photo – yes we had a photo – two in fact! And I was able to tell him where he could find the old copies of the Ocean Grove Echo.
The problem? He typed his email address incorrectly! His name is Kevin THOMPSON and obviously researching the BUTCHER family. If you know Kevin, please ask him to get in touch and make sure his email address is correct.
Unfortunately the “old-fashioned” form didn’t provide an option for automatically collecting the sending email address – I think I’ll have to update the form to link to the more modern ones on this Blog site which DO automatically collect the sending email address.
August 4, 2015 1 Comment
Exciting news for everyone! The Geelong Cemeteries Trust has been hard at work – two new HUGE cemeteries added to their online database. You can now search and locate graves online for the Colac Cemetery and the Queenscliffe Cemetery. Cemeteries managed by the Geelong Cemeteries Trust that are still to be added to the database – some of these may take a while as I’m not sure about the existence of the Burial Registers:
The first three of these can be found on Ian Marr’s Cemeteries of South Western Victoria web site – based on headstone information.
July 16, 2015 Leave a comment
![Bay View Hotel Portarlington [courtesy Naomi Henry]](https://geelonganddistrict.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/bayviewportarlington.jpg)
New lists and images for Hotels of Geelong and District. They are also available on one of my Pinterest Boards. This has been a huge project and still has a long way to go, but rather than making you wait until I’ve finished adding all the photos and details I thought I’d let you enjoy it sooner. Why are old hotel photos so enjoyable? There is now a Pinterest Board for a number of Geelong and District categories. Of course there are plenty more entries that could be added for the different categories and I encourage you to help me find images for them – please let me know!
