Learning webinar: Family history for beginners

Robert Hindley: Hello and welcome to Family History for Beginners. My name is Robert, and I'm one of the Family History reference librarians here at the National Library of Australia. Family history can be a fascinating, gratifying and instructive process, though it could also be frustrating when you hit a research brick wall or not know where else you can search for information. Today's session aims to provide you with all the necessary tools and information to start your research and uncover your family's unique story. I'll show you how to get started with your family history, eResources and the collections available at the Library and how to access these records as well as research tips.

Getting Started With Your Research.

Identify what you already know. A good place to start your research is identify what you know about your ancestors. Here are some questions to get you started. What was your ancestor's full name? Did he or she immigrate from non-English speaking countries such as China, Germany, or Norway? Did they anglicise their first or last name? Do you know your ancestor's birth, death, and marriage dates? Do you know which language, social, or nation group a previous generation of your ancestors belonged to? Did they live on a mission, reserve, or pastoral station? Did you know the name of the town your ancestor grew up in? Did they serve in any wars? What religion did your ancestor belong to? Capture what you know.

Once you have identified what you know, then you can start to capture details using a pedigree or ancestral chart. We have charts freely available to download or print from our Getting started section in our Family History Research Guide. Alternatively, you may like to contact your local historical society. There are some excellent First Nations family tree chart templates that can be downloaded from the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies known as AIATSIS.

A systematic approach, working backwards from yourself is the easiest way to trace your ancestry. It's best to work from the known to the unknown, one generation back at a time. Start by writing down your full name, date, and place of birth, followed by your parents' full names, dates, and places of birth. Then your grandparents' dates and places of birth on your mother's side, then their father's side, and so forth. If you're not sure about an ancestor's details, simply leave the form blank. Avoid guessing and supplying incorrect information. Remember to keep any information about a living person private.

Start Your Research.

Look over your family history tree chart to work out what gaps need to be filled. Choose an ancestor to discover more about them. Our individual research form, available to download or from the getting started section in our Family History Research Guide, can help with this. Plan what records to access and where to locate them. Records created at the time your ancestor was alive will be the most reliable. You may discover your great-grandfather's first job hidden in an electoral roll or your great-grandmother's passenger arrival to Australia, your ancestor's baptism record or even uncover that missing piece of the puzzle in a newspaper article that solves that family mystery.

Family members can often provide stories, memories, photos, or memorabilia about a deceased family member. Birth, death, and marriage certificates can often provide more information about an ancestor and include things like birth, death and marriage dates, place of registration, family members, age, occupation, and much more.

Libraries and archives can hold an array of documents and records in a variety of formats including online, print and microform. I'll shortly talk about what records the National Library holds, but would also encourage you to take a look at the National Archives of Australia website along with other state libraries, state archives, and local library websites to discover what family history resources they hold. These institutions would generally hold collections unique to their area. So if your ancestor lived in a particular state, then search the corresponding state library and archives. Family history databases can contain a range of digitised records and indexes searchable by your ancestor's name. Contact your local library to find out if they subscribe to any of these databases.

Ask for Help.

When you have hit that research brick wall. There are places that can help. Family history societies have expert knowledge in different aspects of family history and offer ongoing research support. Many societies provide workshops and hold local collections or indexes relevant to their area. Search online or contact your local shire council to find a society near you.

The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies, IATSAS, Family History Unit provides family history research assistance for First Nations people, particularly families affected by the Stalin generation. Visit the IATSAS family history page for more information.

For extensive or ongoing family history research, you might like to hire a private professional researcher. You can find a list of researchers on our website. You can find our Family History Research Guide under the Using the Library, then Research tools and resources located at the top of our home page. Our Ask A Librarian reference service provides research assistance at any stage of your family history research.

When submitting your family history inquiry, include as much information as possible such as full names, approximate birth, death, and marriage dates, town lived, spouse or family members, and what information you are seeking. You can also chat to us over the phone, mail us a letter, or simply visit us and talk to one of our librarians in the Library reading room.

Now that we have covered how to start your family history, let's talk about resources available at the Library.

Resources available at the National Library.

Next to the Ask a Librarian link, you will notice a Join the Login page. To be eligible for a Library login, you must live in Australia and supply an Australian postcode, email, and phone number. You don't need a Library login to search the Library catalogue, but you will need a Library login to view any physical material in our reading rooms or to access our licenced databases at home. I'll explain how to access these databases later on in the talk.

To sign up, click on Join the Library. You can fill in the online registration form. Getting a National Library login is free. It means even if you live interstate or can't get to the National Library in person, you can still access a huge amount of information, resources, and collections.

Before I talk about how to search the Library's catalogue, I'll direct you to our comprehensive Family History Research Guide. You can find the guide by Googling National Library of Australia Family History. Or if you're already on our website, you can scroll to the top of our home page and select Using the library link. Then click on the Research tools and resources title.

To view the Family History Research Guide, click on the thumbnail image. This is the easiest way to find records in our collection relating to family history. Some records you can access from home, but other records are only available here in the Library reading room. If you do come across a record that you can't access from home, then submit an Ask a Librarian inquiry requesting a lookup. Alternatively, contact your state, territory or local library to find out if they hold this record.

If I scroll down, you will see popular family history topics such as Australian birth, death, and marriage records, Australian electoral rolls, indigenous Australian family history, convicts, and Australian immigration and shipping, Chinese Australian family history, and much more. Take time to have a good look around these research guides as they include a wealth of information.

The Family History Research Guide has multiple pages identified on the left. I've already chatted about the Getting started page, but you may like to take a look at our Resources page, which includes a PDF index to resources only available in the reading room. Other libraries list the websites to state and territory archive, Societies show state and territory family history societies. Research services lists the professional researchers and family history blogs. You may find particularly helpful at two most common family history question blogs available on our Library webpage. In these two blogs, we cover how to find your birth certificate and the time you are born, getting started with your First Nations family history, accessing electoral rolls and post office directories, how to find burial records and inquest records, as well as using maps for family history research.

Let's go back to the research tools and resources by hitting the back arrow button. On the right side, you'll also notice the main research guide page. Click on this link to view a list of all the Library research guides. The guides are arranged alphabetically and you can use the drop-down button under the Explore Our Research Guides to browse by category. The family history and genealogy category, indigenous Australia, newspapers and maps could be of interest. This page also gives you the option to access the Library's eResources page, videos, which include past family history webinars. Webinars can also be accessed from the learning page under the Using the Library at the top of the toolbar or by googling the NLA YouTube channel.

Let's go back to the Library's home page. To find what you're looking for in the Library, start with Search our collections on the home page. The National Library allows you to search across three pathways at the same time; the catalogue, eResources and finding aids. This means that you conduct a wide search across the Library's physical and digital collections, as well as eResources such as online journals and databases. It's an excellent starting point for any research project.

Alternatively, you can choose to search in just one of these three pathways. Enter a search term into the Search our collections box and click on the red search button. For example, if you want information, we hold on a particular convict ship, type in the name of the ship. For example, Earl Grey convict ship. Results will be sorted by relevance and arranged by catalogue, online articles and eBooks, online journals and finding aids.

The search results will appear in three different pathways. Under catalogue, you'll see physical printed items and digitised images in the Library collection. Under online articles and e-books, you'll find full text online articles. Under Finding aids, there are results from descriptive lists of large archival special collections. Scroll through the list to find the item you're after.

When you see something that interests you, click on it for more details. The catalogue is where you'll find books, pictures, maps, all history, interviews, manuscripts and more. You can search the catalogue to find out if we hold a published family history by typing in the surname, followed by search term, family history or genealogy. Both terms are interchangeable and all depend on how the book has been catalogued. For example, if I was searching for any published family histories for the Williamson family, type in search term, Williamson family history or Williamson genealogy. If you don't find the name you're looking for, don't despair. The Library also holds an index of published family histories in Australia that lists a large number of family names.

The Australian Family Histories: a bibliography and index by Ralph Reid is one that we often refer to. You can also find this book at state and territory libraries as well as many public libraries across Australia. You also might like to do a similar search for any published local histories or indexes using the name of the town again, followed by the word family history or genealogy. For example, Newcastle genealogy or Newcastle family history. You can then filter results using the options on the right-hand side such as the location, published, or year dates.

If you click on an entry at the top of the catalogue record, there are two buttons, a request button, which means you can request to view the item in the reading room. Now, most family history books at the Library will not be available online. But if you live close to Canberra, you could submit a request for the book through the Library catalogue using your Library login to then view the book in the Library reading room. Alternatively, you can search Trove to find out if a library closer to you holds this book. I'll show you later how to search Trove.

The second button, order a copy, will take you to our copies direct form to order a copy of an item. If a book is in copyright, there may be limits on how many pages in the book we can copy for you. You can always contact your local library to organise an interlobby loan and another library that holds this book may be able to send the book there for you to use. There is a cost for this service. Please contact your local library for more details.

For more catalogue search tips, watch our How to Search the Catalogue video located on our getting started page. Let's go back to the home page.

EResources.

EResources include online digital items that the National Library has licenced for you to access. Here you'll find full-text journals, newspapers, eBooks, dictionaries and other databases. eResources or electronic resources are databases. All the Library databases are listed via eResources page. You can access this page from the National Library Home page. It is nice and easy to spot on the right-hand side of the screen. When you get to this page, you'll have to accept the terms and conditions.

To access a list of databases, click on the browse eResources tab in the middle of the page. Databases will either be free, licenced, or on-site. Databases that are freely accessible websites will be identified with a world icon. Licenced databases will be identified with a key symbol. And on-site databases identified with a National Library of Australia building icon. You can access any licenced databases from home by logging in with your Library login at the top of this page with the yellow banner.

The on-site restricted databases can only be accessed in the Library reading rooms. If there is a particular database you would like searched, submit a request via the Ask a Librarian service or contact your state territory or local library to find out if they have the database you're after.

You'll notice on the eResources page that databases are listed by category. If you click on the genealogy category, you will notice on the left side of the screen it will subdivide the databases. This is handy if you were searching for ancestors from a particular state or territory. For example, if I knew that my ancestors from Victoria, then I'll click on the Victorian option. It automatically lists all the Victorian family history databases and indexes. You'll be able to access all the databases listed in the genealogy in the reading room.

Anyone searching First Nations family history, you might like to explore the Indigenous Australia category to find out what databases we hold. Websites listed here such as the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and the State Library of New South Wales Australian Indigenous Index could be of interest.

Popular family history databases include Ancestry Library Edition and Findmypast. These databases can only be accessed onsite in the Library reading rooms, but many public libraries and historical societies subscribe to these databases.

Trove.

The Trove website includes digitised historical newspapers, pictures, manuscripts, oral histories, maps, books, and archive websites. It brings together the catalogue records of over 900 plus Australian libraries, archives and museums, big and small. It makes their collections searchable through one easy portal. But it's much more than just a search engine because it brings together so much Australian content and makes it available online, and it's completely free.

You can start with a simple name search. If I type in Edward Lee, for a broad search it brings up over 20,000 results. Search results are arranged by different content zones. Explore newspapers for articles or even archive web pages for family trees published on old websites. To narrow your search results, you could place the name in quotation marks followed by the town your ancestor lived in. For example, "Edward Lee" + Ballarat. Using this technique, we are now down to 2000 search results instead of the 20,000 results.

For family historians, however, Trove is most famous for newspapers from 1803 to 1954. Some later issues of newspapers such as the Canberra Times have been made available with the permission of the publisher. There are two ways of finding newspapers on Trove, searching and browsing. The method you choose would depend on the amount of information you have already.

Let's start with browsing. Use this option when you know exactly where the information you want has been published. For example, if I was after a death notice for George Wilson published in Bendigo Independent on July 1905. The other way to find articles in Trove such as obituaries is by searching. Let's go back to the main Trove page. If we still use the example of George Wilson in quotation marks followed with the word Bendigo and click on the search results example, "George Wilson" + Bendigo, click the See or Newspapers and Gazettes results. Go to the Refine your results filter option located on the right side and tick the relevant boxes such as Victoria or the Family Notices option located under the category, then decade and year. You can then click on each article to view.

You'll notice that once you open up the article, there are options located on the left side of the page, which will allow you to print or download a copy of the article. For more search tips, I would suggest watching short videos on the Trove Help page as well as the How to Research on Trove blog found on the research page.

I mentioned earlier that you could search Trove to find if another library holds a particular book you're after. Let's search for example for a family history topic such as How to Write your Family History and use the drop-down button to select Books and libraries option. Click on the title, then scroll down and select Borrow to find the libraries listed by state and territory. If the libraries listed here are not close to you, then as I mentioned earlier, you may like to organise an interlibrary loan through your local library.

For anyone who's planning to publish their family history in a book, the National Library would love a copy to have in the collection for others to see. For more information, visit our Legal deposit page.

Newspapers.

Newspapers can be a fantastic way to discover an array of information about an ancestor. You can search for birth, death and marriage notices, employment or business details, discover residential addresses, find out if someone served in the war, court cases, immigration, and property purchases. Newspapers can also provide a great social history about the area and time they lived. And newspaper collections include digitised historic and modern newspapers accessible online as well as newspapers in microform and paper formats. You may like to check out our Australian newspapers and overseas newspapers research guides for more information.

You can find out what we hold in our catalogue. Searches can be made by title or place of publication. If the name of a newspaper is known, search by title such as Ballarat Courier and use the drop-down button to select the title field and limit search to newspapers. Click on the Find button. You will notice results can be refined using options located on the right-hand side such as the decade.

To locate newspapers published by town, city, state, or country if the titles are not known, type in the area followed by the word newspaper. For example, Perth newspapers or Western Australian newspapers, and use the drop-down button to select newspapers. Click on Find. You will find results can be limited using options located on the right side. You can even select newspapers in different languages.

I spoke earlier about digitised Australian newspapers in Trove. I mentioned that the majority of these newspapers go up to the end of 1954, but for digitised newspapers after this state, you may like to explore our eResources page. Let's go back to the eResources portal. Select the newspapers and media category. Once again, click on the plus sign. A list appears on the left side of the screen and again is arranged geographically. If I click on the Australia section and scroll down this list, it'll list all databases alphabetically.

One particular website I'll mention is the Ryerson Index. This is free to access. The Ryerson Index is an index to death notices appearing in current Australian newspapers and includes some funeral notices, probate notices and obituaries. The index covers mostly new South Wales newspapers, although some newspapers from other states are included.

A popular database for family historians is the Sydney Morning Herald Archives, 1955 to 1995, and Sydney Morning Herald and The Age Library Edition, which covers both papers from 2006 right up to the current issues. This is handy if you are searching for Sydney Morning Herald articles after the Trove cut-off of 1954. To access this database from home, you'll need a Library login.

For anyone with British or Irish ancestry, the following newspaper databases found under the Overseas section could be of interest: British Library Newspapers, 1732 to 1950. Irish Newspaper Archive, 1763 to current. The Times Digital Archive, 1785 to 2019. The Telegraph Historical Archive, 1855-2016. The Sunday Times Digital Archive, 1822 to 2021. Gail NewsVault allows users to simultaneously search or browse across these UK newspaper databases.

Birth, death, and marriage records.

Birth, death, and marriage records are a basic and vital part of any family history research. They can provide important details about your ancestor, such as full name, birthplace, dates, age, occupation, spouse name, and family members. Historical death certificates for New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria will even identify where the deceased was born and how long they've been living in the colony. You never know if a hidden but important piece of information will be on a birth, death, or marriage certificate. A library does not hold any birth, death or marriage certificates. Certificates can only be purchased from the state or territory birth, death and marriage registry office where the event occurred. Search online to find the appropriate website.

The National Library and state Libraries do hold historical BDM indexes to help you find registration details. Check out our Australian birth, death and marriages research guide for more information.

Shipping.

Passenger records can be a very useful source of information for family history research. Records could include the passenger's full name, date of arrival, name of ship, age, occupation, country of origin, and marital status of the passenger. A wealth of information for any family historian, however, early records could be limited in content and may be confined to the family name and just an initial with no given names or a title such as Mr. or Mrs, and no other information. This of course makes it difficult to confirm if a passenger record is the person you are searching for.

There is a vast array of shipping and immigration records available. Before you start your research, it's best to have an understanding of how these records are arranged. Prior to 1924, the administration and recording of shipping and passenger arrivals was the responsibility of each Australian colony or state. The surviving original records are now held in each state archive or state public records office. You can find some records digitised on these state archive websites or search family history databases such as Ancestry and Findmypast to find passenger lists. Search our Australian shipping and passenger research guide for more information.

From 1924, immigration became the responsibility of the Commonwealth government. And as a result, all subsequent records relating to immigration, passenger arrivals, departure records, and naturalisation are housed at the National Archives of Australia. Contact the Archives to access these records.

Electoral rolls.

Electoral rolls can be a great way to find out more about your ancestor. Family historians can find out the residential address of a person and help locate other family members living at the address for a certain year. Find out the profession of a person on an electoral roll can be valuable information. Know your ancestor's trade or occupation could explain the location of an address. They could have moved according to the type of work or could live close to their workplace or business. Finding out the occupation could also prompt further investigation into their business or company records.

Australian Commonwealth electoral rolls up to 2008 can be accessed from the National Library or any state or territory library. You can find a list of the Library's electoral roll holdings by state and territory, which are available from the Australian electoral rolls research guide. You'll be pleased to know some Australian electoral rolls have been digitised and can be accessed via the Ancestry and Findmypast databases. Each database will provide different years so you can do a Google search to find out the years digitised for each state and territory. Contact your local library to find out if they subscribe to these databases.

The current electoral roll can only be viewed at a national or state office for the Australian Electoral Commission located in the Capital Cities. Visit their website for address information.

Research tips.

Here are some tips for you to consider as you piece together your family history puzzle. Use primary sources and cross-reference your information. Don't fall into a trap of believing every family history story you hear or every published family tree you see online. A good researcher always backs up their family history with supporting primary documents. A record created at the time you're a researching will be the most reliable, such as birth certificates, passenger arrival records, electoral rolls, naturalisation records, court documents, newspapers, jail records and so forth.

Primary documents can also be used to cross-reference your information. Instead of relying on one piece of information, look for multiple sources so that you can confirm the same details. This helps you verify your ancestor's identity, find any inconsistencies, or maybe provide you with new information. If birth, death or marriage dates don't add up or you suspect the person you're researching could be someone with the same name, then use another document to confirm details.

Consider name variations. If you're having problems finding information about an ancestor, you may like to consider if they had a nickname, whether they're better known by their nickname. For example, if you had a Margaret in the family, were they better known as Peggy? Did your ancestor have a stage name? Have you searched for records using married and maiden name? Could your ancestor's name be spelt a different way? For example, the surname Thompson could have been spelt Thompson or Thompsen. Like so many immigrants from non-English speaking backgrounds, names may have been incorrectly transcribed, and there were different spelling variations in how names were recorded.

Names can also give a clue about your ancestor's heritage. Given names or middle names can often be a clue in connecting families in the tree. Your grandmother may have been named after her grandmother or may have been her mother's maiden name.

Expand your research.

If you were getting no results from an ancestor, then start to expand your research. By this I mean try different search techniques when exploring indexes and databases, as well as checking a wider range of records. For instance, instead of searching indexes and databases with the full name of your ancestor, you could try just searching by their last name and limiting your search to a particular town or date range. This will bring up a larger search result, but could identify ancestors for spelling errors or variations, which is quite common with non-English names.

Expand your research to other family members or a spouse. This approach may help you find further information about your ancestor indirectly. You may find by searching for another family member or spouse will include clues to their location, which can help locate record you are after.

Another suggestion is to expand your search geographically. Your ancestors may have travelled between states or colonies for various reasons. They could have been a convict transported to different settlements, crew member who jumped ship, or may have tried their lucky New South Wales in Victoria Goldfields. Think about the social history or the time and place you're researching. Discovering what was happening at the time your ancestor was alive can help you better understand your ancestor. Were they away serving in any wars? Did natural disasters, such as floods or fire, destroy local archive records? Influenza outbreaks and communities may of course temporary closures to church services, so baptism records may not accurately reflect the year of birth. It was common from married female ancestors to be identified by their husband's name in the newspaper. For example, in the newspaper, they could have been noted as Mrs. Edward Lindsay.

Another consideration is the economics of an area may have had an impact on your ancestor's movements. Did your ancestor move towns to follow the work? You can use a number of resources to explore your ancestor's social history from census, electoral rolls, church records, directories, to maps.

Newspapers, however, can be the quickest way to find a wealth of information, not only about your ancestor, but about local and national events. Cite or reference your documents. Cite, note, or even take a photo with your phone, digital camera on records you find and resources searched. Keeping a research log allows you to keep track of records that you've searched and records that you plan to search. Note details of the item including any collection or index titles, page numbers, microfiche, film numbers, URL or website addresses, and where you found the item, whether it be from a library, archives, website, database, or other source. Make a note of any unsuccessful searches to avoid searching the same resource twice.

I hope that this Family History for Beginners webinar has been helpful to you. If you'll like more information about the Library's family history resources, I recommend viewing our Family History Research Guide. This is a great starting point for you to find out what we hold.

Now, if you can't find what you need, if you have a specific question, our Ask a Librarian reference service provides research assistance at any stage of your family history research. When submitting your family history inquiry, remember to include as much information as possible, such as full names, approximate birth, death, and marriage dates, town lived in, spouse or family members, and what information you're seeking. Thanks for attending this session and good luck with your family history research.