Traces

And, with 2017 stretched ahead of us, there’s no better time than now to map out our research goals for the year ahead and work out how to navigate any roadblocks along the way. For starters, why not kick off the year with a history or genealogy cour

Revamped Scottish research resource ScotlandsPeople has had a major redesign. It’s now easier than ever — and free of charge — to search indexes to records, including births, deaths and marriages (although charges still apply to view or download reco

What initially drew you to colonial cemeteries? I have been fascinated by cemeteries for more than 20 years. Originally I was curious about early headstone designs and the history of monumental masonry and sepulchral art in Australia. But my interest

JAMES (‘Jem’) Davis and David Bracefell were convicts at the Moreton Bay penal settlement (in the location that is now Brisbane) in the late 1820s. The settlement was established for hardened and recidivist offenders as a way of dealing with runaways

THERE WERE tears, anger and, above all, sustained protests before Crown Street Women’s Hospital closed on 31 March 1983. For some, the memory of that hospital, affectionately called ‘Crown Street’, still evokes an image of pregnant women struggling u

BELIEFS IN superstition and fatalism were common amongst civilians and combatants alike during the First World War. Many soldiers carried charms and nearly every war memoir since has a story of someone who was saved by a cigarette offered at the righ

ON THE first day of 1901, at Centennial Park in Sydney, Lord Hopetoun proclaimed the inauguration of the Commonwealth of Australia. That day, the six customs departments and their staff formally joined the Commonwealth, but the postal and defence dep

Passchendaele: Requiem for Doomed Youthby Paul Ham (Random House, $45) Within the deluge of new publications marking the centenary of the Great War, Paul Ham’s Passchendaele stands out as a well-researched and sensitively written contribution. The bo

I’VE LONG envied my contemporaries’ fond recollections of family road trips from Sydney to the Gold Coast. So as we mourn the loss of car manufacturing in Australia, I figure it’s a good time to catch up on this rite of passage. My mission is to head

THIS IS my second great aunt, Mary-Anne Mullavey (née O’Donnell), with her nine children in 1897. From left to right: (standing) Rose, twins Anne and Margaret, Charles and Julia; (seated) Ellen, Elizabeth, their mother Mary-Anne, Mary and Bridget. Ma