History Mystery Monday: how to find old local photos

We’ve looked at why it can be surprisingly hard to find historical photos of the local area. 

Now let’s investigate how to find the ones there are out there:

1. Search Trove. The National Library of Australia are the creators of this fantastic website which really is a treasure trove of Australian historical material. You can find photos from the collections of libraries, museums and archives from all over the country – as well as lot more. For more on using Trove, see our separate post on Trove and its new look. If you only take one of the steps listed here, make it searching Trove, because this is where you’re most likely to find an old Australian photo.

Some of the results of a Trove search for "Essendon Victoria"

2. Do some online searching. Use Google or another search engine to see if you can find any pictures online. Play around with the words you use to search, for example using people’s names, place names, streets the names of events – any words you can think of that might help you find a photo that someone somewhere might have uploaded. Play around with different combinations of words, and if using Google, try clicking on the Images tab to quickly see the pictures you’re search has found.

3. Search the pictures in our library collection. Moonee Valley Libraries has tried to make as many of the historical local photos is our collection findable as we can. This means we’ve put most of them online on our catalogue, which you can search to see the pictures. 

4. Search in local history books. This is another way the library can help: with our collection of books about the local area. Which books will help will depend on what you’re after, but the following books are often good for local photos:

Federation Times in Essendon and Flemington: a pictorial record, edited by Lenore Frost (2001) is the stand out book for local photos from the 1890s to the First World War. Great black and white reproductions of a wide variety of street scapes, events, group shots, postcards are more.
• The Stop-over that Stayed: a history of Essendon by Grant Aldous (1988) has lots of (mostly black and white) illustrations and photos of the area around Essendon, Moonee Ponds and Ascot Vale
• Steele Creek and the Lady of the Lake: the early history of Niddrie, Airport West, Keilor East, Avondale Heights, Keilor Park, West Essendon and Tullamarine (2013) has a few photos from the areas listed in the subtitle
• The Grand Mansions of Essendon and District 1880-1892, edited by Mary Cahill (2013) and The Fine Homes of Essendon and Flemington 1846-1880, edited by Lenore Frost (2010) are fantastic if you’re looking for old photos of grand homes from our area – or the wealthy folk lucky enough to have lived in them.
 
5. Ask around. For photos of ancestors, ask around amongst your family – particularly older family members, and anyone with an interest in the family history. For local photos, you could try asking friends and neighbours from the area, or even putting up signs in local businesses or anywhere that people meet, like halls, libraries or community centres. Or if you’re confident online, you might try putting your question to groups online – such as local neighbourhood groups (such as your local Good Karma network), or groups that share historical photos via Facebook.

6. Try local history groups. We have several local history groups that you could try contacting. Essendon Historical Society deals with history of the whole Moonee Valley area, and has an excellent photographic collection. There is also the Keilor Historical Society, the Airport West History Group and Flemington Heritage. Some of these groups have websites with some pictures, and/or social media where they share other photographs. Also, you might consider contacting them with a query.

7. Try other local groups or businesses. Depending on what you’re after, there might be other groups that might have relevant photos. If you’re after an old photo of a particular shop, for instance, it might be worth asking the current owner. Or if you’re after a photo of your ancestor who was very active in a local association that is still around today, you could contact them. As long as you’re polite and understanding of the fact that your query isn’t likely to be their first priority, it doesn’t hurt to ask. Even if they don’t have a photo themselves, they might be able to point you to other people, groups or publications that might help.

Hopefully this list helps uncover some great local photographs! And if you find local photos that aren't currently online, we'd love to see them.

And if you have any tips to add on finding historic photos from Moonee Valley it would be great if you would share them below.

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