Writing up your family history

The aim for all family historians is to write up your research. Tell the story behind those photographs and share it with other family members. You could create a heritage photo album, write a short article for a local history or family history magazine or newsletter or you could build a website. If your family was from Melbourne's north consider contributing an article to Wikinorthia, a website using wiki technology, where individuals can add and edit content.

Interviewing relatives is an important step in any family history process. Putting your family within an historical context can also add interest to your story. Check out this online time capsule. For some writing ideas visit Biography Assistant when you can concentrate on an individual. in your research.

If you are considering writing a book look at the criteria suggested by AIGS who award the Alexander Henderson Award each year to the best submitted published family history.

Be sure to visit your local library and see examples of how other people have published their family histories, including: Picking up the threads: the story of John and Ann Cracknell and their descendants by Lois Cracknell.
Other local family histories can be found in the local history collections.
See also Writing family history very easy: a beginner's guide by Noeline Kyle.

Shipping and immigration

Family History Fest sessions at Diamond Valley Library will continue on Wednesday October 8 with an information session on Shipping and immigration for beginning family history researchers.

Some online resources on this subject include, but are by no means limited to:

How to find shipping and immigration records: a starter sheet

Cyndislist – Australia – Convict lists, passenger ships

Shipping and passenger records

National Library of Australia – Ship and passenger records

Australia passenger indexes

Public Records Office Victoria, Immigration records and family history

Google news to digitise newspaper archives

Google Books is a great online resource for family history researchers. Google have recently announced that their Google News search will make millions of pages of archived newspaper content available for free. The new scheme will see Google linking up with a series of major newspaper and magazine publishers to digitise their print archives. To read more about this recent announcement by Google visit The Guardian.

New Genealogy Multimedia

New Genealogy Resources to the collections include the following titles:
CD-Roms
White Hills Cemetery Bendigo, photographs of headstones
Combined Anglican baptsims for Yea and Alexandra, Victoria 1868-1930
NSW Government gazettes 1832-1863
Police Gazette Victoria 1851, 1865, 1869, 1870, 1872, 1873 1888 (separate CDs)
Index to newspaper deaths in Victoria 1988-1992
Amercian Fever Australian Gold
Bendigo Goldfeilds Registry 1872
Government Gazette, Victoria 1891

Place a hold on the catalogue to borrow these items

Prime Minister has convict heritage

A 12 year old convict who arrived in Australian on the Second Fleet, a coin forger, an Irish foundling and free settler farmers are among PM's Kevin Rudd's forebears. A recent report in "The Age" describes the research undertaken by The Church of Latter-Day Saints which was presented to the Prime Minister last month. Read about it here.

Many convict records can now be accessed via the Ancestry database. Visit your local branch library at YPRL where you can access Ancestry via the library website at any computer.