Our complete activity programme for the second half of 2005 is available here. Bookings for most activities can be made and paid for online. Places are still available for:

Looking at Occupations & Trade Journals - Saturday 3 September, 10:00am-12:30pm
How much was a plumber paid in 1905? How do I find out the names of tradesmen who worked in my ancestor's town? What will I find in a trade journal? Join Ralph Hawkins, SAG archivist, and Lisa Murray, historian, as they discuss the relevant records and books in the SAG collections.
$22 ($18 for SAG members).

I've found the document - but now I can't read it! - Saturday 10 September, 10:00am-12:30pm
Sources to help you read old handwriting, presented by Heather Garnsey (NB: this is not a training course in palaeography, but a guide to 'self help' in this complex subject).
$22 ($18 for SAG members).

NSW & ACT Association of Family History Societies Inc. annual conference, at Cowra - Fri/Sat 16/17 September
The Annual State Conference is a great place to meet up with other family historians. This year it is being hosted by the Cowra Family History Society - go to their site for further details.

DNA and Family History - Saturday 24 September, 10:00am-1:00pm
A History Week presentation: Join a representative from The Children's Medical Research Institute to learn more about DNA and human development. Ray Thorburn from the Kiama Research Institute will be speaking on the hands-on work involved in researching the medical history of a family.
$25 ($20 for SAG members).

Bookings are ESSENTIAL for all these activities Payment required with bookings. Click here to book and pay! Or telephone us at (02) 9247 3953. Or visit our website for details of all our courses and other activities, refund rules etc. All sessions held at Rumsey Hall, 24 Kent St, Sydney, unless otherwise indicated.

Check out these spots on the web!

National Library of Scotland maps
We've previously (September 2003) drawn attention to the National Library of Scotland's great collection of online maps. They've recently added a nice little group of 16 plans of farms and accompanying descriptions, forming the earliest detailed comprehensive mapping of Assynt, in the northwest highlands - Sutherlandshire.

Mapped by John Home for the estate owners in 1774, the 16 plans were accompanied by a wide variety of information, such as agricultural practices and potential, the main resources of the region, accurate measurements of land under crops or used for the pasturing of livestock, and attractive and useful vignettes of the inhabitants, their clothes, houses, and lives. The plans are at a scale of 20 Scots chains (of 24 ells or 74 feet each) to one inch, a ratio of roughly 1:18,000, so are very detailed.

We don't imagine there are many readers who will find these particular plans of use, but they are indicative of the growing range of old maps coming online, and remind us that it's worthwhile checking from time to time for new material that has become available in our ancestral areas.

Australian timeline
A timeline is often a useful means of putting a family history into its historical context. For instance, illustrating how the timing of emigration or other family events related to the geopolitical events that were occurring at the time - events that may have contributed to or triggered significant family decisions.

A site that provided a useful parallel history of Australia with the World, displaying events of interest over the past 200 years, was previously on the State Library of Victoria's First Families 2001 site. Now withdrawn, apparently because of privacy concerns, the First Families 2001 site nonetheless lives on, one of many Australian web sites that have been archived by the National Library of Australia's Pandora site, at http://pandora.nla.gov.au/tep/10421. From there you can readily find the timeline, and indeed explore the rest of the First Families 2001 project.

It's also worthwhile visiting the Pandora site - it provides access to a wide range of Australian web material that no longer exists on the web at all, or to earlier incarnations of present web material. Worth bookmarking!

Miners' rights
Kae Lewis at www.kaelewis.com has made available a searchable database of about 6,000 goldminers who bought miners' rights in Thames, on the Coromandel peninsula of New Zealand's North Island in the period May to September 1868. Many of these goldminers came from Victoria when the gold there had run out.

The search engine allows for searching by name only - surname only; both forename and surname in that order separated by a space; or surname, forename separated by a comma. The results list then shows all the matching records - the number and date of the right issued, the name, the location for which the right was issued, and a comments field - all the information available from the indexed records.

Family groups often presented themselves together to apply for their Miner's Right, so will have successive identification numbers, and the same date of issue. Examples exist of brothers, father and son(s), even husband and wife, brother and sister as well as cousins and friends from the same home town. Finding such a group with the right ancestral names may be conclusive evidence that you have found your family of interest.

However, with so little information recorded, it is usually impossible to be certain that an individual with a particular name was "yours" - particularly if a common name. Further local research will then be needed, for other evidence, such as electoral or family BDM records etc.

This database is presently small, so the chances of a hit are also pretty small. But those who followed the rushes often left very few traces, so any new resource is a welcome one and we hope that Kae will continue her transcription.

Check out these items from our shop!
But don't forget that they're only a small part of a great collection of family history book titles available on-line, as well as local histories, CD-ROMs, charts and genealogical software - all at competitive prices!

Writing and Publishing Your Family History - a labour of love by Lesle Berry - just $15.50 plus p&p. This booklet touches on all aspects of writing and publishing your family history: deciding the format, planning how to achieve it, and preparing the manuscript for publication. Softback, A5, 28 pages. [more detail]

The Second Fleet: Britain's Grim Convict Armada of 1790 by Michael Flynn - $59.50 (hardback) or $44 (softback) plus p&p. Reprint of this authoritative account of the Second Fleet. Includes biographies of the convicts, seamen, soldiers, officials, wives and children who sailed in this fleet. 800 pages, fully indexed. [more detail]

Websites for Genealogists by Cora Num - just $18.00 plus p&p. The 2004 edition of this ever popular guide is an alphabetical address book, containing up-to-date URLs for over 1,640 useful and well-designed sites for family historians. A4, 146 pages, softcover, indexed. [more detail]

Family History for Beginners and Beyond by Eunice Fletcher (ed.) - just $22.00 plus p&p. 13th edition of this deservedly popular book. A comprehensive manual, going rather beyond the needs of mere beginners. Softback, 156 pages, A4. [more detail]

All the above items available on-line, or by mailing, calling or faxing us with your name and credit card details - contact details at top.

Or visit us at 24 Kent Street and see our whole range.

Charges for postage and packing vary with destination and weight - minimum $6.00. For detail, see here.