Moonee Valley Family & Local History Blog

The Irish Vanguard by genealogist Barbara Hall which was recently released is the fifth and final book in her Ireland to Botany Bay series, tells the story of The Queen and the convicts that travelled to Australia in 1790 and will help to shed light on an important chapter in Irish Australian history. The book is located at 929.3944 HAL

' Criminal Ancestors: a guide to historical criminal records in England and Wales' by David T. Hawkings is a revised and updated study that includes material held by all County and Borough Record Offices, The National Archives, police archives and other repositories. A genealogist who discovers a criminal in the family tree will find this book an invaluable guide. Convicts online - The State Library of Queensland released its British Convict Transportation Database covering the years 1787 to 1867. This details about 123,000 of the 160,000 convicts who were transported to the different Australian colonies in this period. The Tasmanian Convict database is also worth checking out. This is a comprehensive list of all convicts transported to Tasmania from 1804, and includes those who committed crimes within the colony and who were convicted locally up to 1893. The State Records of NSW continues to add to its excellent series of online indexes, although it doesn't provide di...

Two CDs have just been added to the collection here at the Sam Merrifield Library. One is The Argus Newspaper Index, with Births from 1914-1931, and Marriages 1931-1941. This is one of the Digger Indexes; a CD version of a familiar work, Charles Bateson's "Convict Ships 1787-1868 tells the story of the transporation of prisoners from Britain to Australia, these CD Roms are now available in the Local History Room @ Sam Merrifield Library.