Today marks thirty years of employment with the Department of Health as a public health microbiologist.

Hard to believe I started on a two week Christmas vacation fill-in. Only two of us wanted to do the two week placement when offered it during our exams. The others all wanted a break. Finished the exams on the Friday and went into the job on the Monday. 

Had a good time and they apparently liked me as at the end of the two weeks they said to come back the next Monday!

I went for an actual interview in April the following year and got a permanent position. 

Suddenly in the July they realised that I had not had my medical so I rock off to that and now I have to confess a guilty secret.

I have lied on a government form.

They measured me and told me I was five foot tall. Being an honest person I said “No I am 4 foot 10 and a quarter inches (hey that quarter is important!)”

“No you are five foot”

“No I’m not”

“Look do you want the job or not?”

“Yes I do”

“Then you are five foot tall now sign this form”

And I did. In the 1980s the Queensland Health Department still had a height restriction. Females had to be five foot plus to be employed. 

So my thirty years might not have happened for the sake of  an inch and three quarters.

How many of your ancestors worked thirty years for the same employer? 

I have a few who have worked for the railway and some government departments. Many others have worked in the same occupation such as being agricultural labourers, granite quarrymen, shoemakers etc.

Latest announcement from Trove.

Good to see so many and even some Queensland ones.

Trove’s latest newspapers

Trove is pleased to announce that the following newspapers, digitised by the National Library through the Australian Newspaper Plan program, have been recently added to Digitised newspapers and more on Trove. Many of these newspapers are currently being added to Trove and further issues will become available shortly.

New South Wales
The Australian Workman (Sydney, NSW : 1890 – 1897)
The Bird O’ Freedom (Sydney, NSW : 1891 – 1896)
The Dead Bird (Sydney, NSW : 1889 – 1891)
The Workers’ Weekly (Sydney, NSW : 1923 – 1939)

Queensland
Brisbane Telegraph (Qld. : 1948 – 1954)
The Daily Mail (Brisbane, Qld. : 1903 – 1926)
The Evening Advocate (Innisfail, Qld. : 1941 – 1954)
The Evening Telegraph (Charters Towers, Qld. : 1901 – 1921)
Johnstone River Advocate and Innisfail News (Qld. : 1928 – 1941)
The Toowoomba Chronicle and Queensland Advertiser (Qld. : 1861 – 1875)

South Australia
Border Chronicle (Bordertown, SA : 1908 – 1950)
Critic (Adelaide, SA : 1897-1924)
The Express (Adelaide, SA : 1922 – 1923)
The Pennant (Penola, SA : 1946 – 1954)
The Terowie Enterprise (SA : 1884 – 1891)

Tasmania
The Derwent Star and Van Diemen’s Land Intelligencer (Hobart, Tas. : 1810 – 1812)
King Island News (Currie, King Island : 1912 – 1954)
The North Coast Standard (Latrobe, Tas. : 1890 – 1894)

Victoria
The Colonial Mining Journal, Railway and Share Gazette (Vic. : 1858 – 1859)
The Colonial Mining Journal, Railway and Share Gazette and Illustrated Record (Melbourne, Vic. : 1859 – 1861)

Western Australia
The Avon Gazette and Kellerberrin News (WA : 1914 – 1916)
The Australian (Perth, WA : 1917 – 1923)
The Avon Gazette and York Times (WA : 1916 – 1930)
The Blackwood Times (Bunbury, WA : 1905 – 1920; 1945 – 1954)
The Leonora Miner (WA : 1910 – 1928)
Narrogin Observer (WA : 1952 – 1954)
The Northam Advertiser (WA : 1895 – 1918; 1948 – 1954)
The Pingelly Leader (WA : 1906 – 1925)
Pingelly-Brookton Leader (WA : 1925 – 1926)
The Southern Districts Advocate (Katanning, WA : 1913 – 1936)
The Sun (Kalgoorlie, WA : 1898 – 1919)
The W.A. Record (Perth, WA : 1888 – 1922)
Yilgarn Merredin Times (Southern Cross, WA : 1921 – 1923)

Last weekend (3 & 4th October) I attended the In Time and Place conference . It was ably organised by History Queensland, Genealogical Society of Queensland and Queensland Family History Society.

The State Library of Queensland had provided some free registrations for non-metropolitan people who wished to attend.

It had two streams: one local history and the other family history.

There were also a number of exhibitors and they were stationed around the eating area. Unlike the NSW-ACT State Conference they did not do an open day the day prior to the conference.

Guild of One Name Studies/Society for One Place Studies table

Exhibitors included Ancestry, Boolarong Press, Brisbane City Council Archives, Finders cafe, Findmypast, Genealogical Society of Queensland, Gould Genealogy and History, History Queensland, Guild of One Name Studies, Moreton chapter of the fellowship of First Fleeters, Nepean Family History Society, Oral History Queensland, Queensland Family History Society, Queensland State Archives, Queensland Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Royal Historical Society of Queensland, Ryerson Index, Sean Murphy Books Toowoomba, State Library of Queensland, Toowoomba and Darling Downs Family History Society and Unlock the Past. 

So as you can see a lot of information providers and places to spend some genealogical dollars!

The Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages made an exciting announcement at the  conference which I have already written about on the Genealogical Society of Queensland blog which was that they have been digitising the marriage source documents so we will be able to get copies of marriage documents that contains our ancestors signatures rather than the copy of a copy we currently are able to purchase. Six to eight weeks for the first release so hopefully a Christmas present for Queensland researchers.

The conference was held at the Riverglen conference centre at Indooroopilly. I got there early as I was also an exhibitor for the Society of One Name Studies and also the Society for One Place Studies. Janice Cooper was also on the stand for the Society of One Place Studies although her conference duties kept her very busy.

Geoff Doherty and his sash

There were a number of very helpful people to answer questions who could be distinguished by their sashes which made it easy to find them.

I am only going to talk about a few of the presentations as there have been a number of bloggers who have already posted. See  Shauna Hick’s post where she lists a number of other posts.

Denver Beanland opened the conference for the180 or so attendees.Then time for the first keynote Dave Obee, a well known Canadian genealogist, editor and writer talking about A sense of time and place: putting ancestors in context and showing the closeness between Australia and Canada. Dave was an informed and entertaining speaker. He loves our Trove (as of course we all do too!) and talks often about in Canada as newspapers all over the world fill their paper with news. So he suggests to his Canadians they should check out Trove to see  what Canadian news has been mentioned then check out the microfilms of the Canadian papers having an approximate idea of time frame.

Dave Obee

This is very true and in my own research I had found out about a grave robbing in Kent from a South Australian paper. It had not been reported in the Kent paper due to a very important person’s death taking prominence.

Then we had a dual session and I went to Duncan Richardson talking on “Beyond distinguished gentleman” which was on using letters, diaries and anything you could to hear the real people and not just the formal things written down for posterity. people say it is just letters or diaries so not important to keep for posterity but if we don’t keep these we never find out the emotions and thoughts behind what has been written for history.

Janis Wilton spoke on Connections: talking local and family history Oral history is a true marker as you are hearing people speak and remember in their own words what has happened, how they felt, their impressions and knowledge and reactions to events. Certainly memory of the past can be influenced by further knowledge gained after the event but  oral histories add so much colour and knowledge. Literally colour in one example, as when Janis spoke to a relative about the photo of the house the person said the colour the house was painted when she was a child (which was the time frame of the photo) rather than the white it was painted when Janis knew the house.

Take the time to capture your family or local community while you still can. 

Rosemary Kopittke spoke on Suffrage in Queensland and it is important to realise it is suffrage for men as well as women as women as there were requirements for men to have the right to vote. The knowledge of who has the right to vote at which time in which areas allows us to know in which records we can find our people.

Lots of food was available at the various meal breaks and a number of us met up at the buffet dinner. It was nice to get together in person rather than just online.

Sunday the first keynote was Shauna Hicks and if you ever get a chance to hear this presentation run don’t walk to it! Shauna kept us all enthralled!

It was a fantastic interweaving of time, place, history utilising a wide range of records and using context. You can’t work out why without the context.

Dave Obee gave a presentation on Mythbusters: challenging some common beliefs. A good presentation. You could hear the audience sighing and agreeing with each of the myths as they arose.


I was last on the day speaking on The Words of the People: treasures within government inquiries This fit in very well with a number of other talks as it was about hearing the words of the people from the past. These inquiries are in an inquisitorial format where a person is asked a question and they answer and the words are transcribed as spoken without being “interpreted” for posterity. Examples of the types of inquiries are Royal Commissions, inquests, some trials, etc.

One of the examples I used was from the 1842 Royal Commission on Employment in Mines in England. For those of you who have miners in your family you should read these accounts.

Then it was time for the closing session and the all important announcement who had won the many raffle prizes (I didn’t win any but many people I knew were lucky). The big gift basket prize was won by Janis Wilton who asked for it to be redrawn as taking it on the plane home wasn’t really possible

All in all an excellent conference and kudos to all the people involved in the organisation as I know how much work has gone on behind the scenes in the lead up to the conference.

Hopefully another society will take up the gauntlet and host the next conference in two years time.

Leslie & David abt 1943

Remembering today my father David Smith, who would have been 75 this year 16th February, but who was taken too soon, 26 November 2003.

He was born 16 February 1940, Dartford, Kent, England to Lilian and Leslie Smith. Both Lilian and Leslie were staunch Salvationists.

Lilian, Leslie and baby David 1940

Leslie was sadly killed in the Second World War and Lilian and David emigrated to Australia arriving aboard the Asturias 4 June 1949. Leslie’s brother Frank had emigrated to Australia arriving aboard the Largs Bay in 1934.It had been Leslie’s dream to visit his brother and Lilian decided to do so in search of a better life in Australia after the rigors of a post-war England. Life was still difficult in Australia and David was placed in the Salvation Army home in Goulburn while Lilian worked at the People’s Palace in Sydney. She was able to eventually find work in Goulburn.

David with his dog before they went back to England 1953

After the year with the family they returned to Australia. David joined the New South Railways as a porter and gradually worked his way up to shunter. He had wanted to be called up for National Service and when this didn’t happen he joined the Army instead in 1958 and gets transferred to Brisbane

David Smith 1960 3RAR Enoggera Qld

He met Violet Busby at a church picnic and spent some time with her on the drive home as she had gotten travel sick on the bus. He drove her home and they started dating and in March 1961 they married.

David Smith & Violet Noreen Busby March 1961

From there they would start their new life.

Today Father’s Day in Australia, remembering my father David Smith lost too soon.