Table of contents for Edition 17, 2021 in Traces

Annie Lock is a name synonymous with the work of Aboriginal missions. Hers was a unique service, but she was a unique woman who pressed forward and accomplished the most difficult undertakings, took astounding journeys into little-known territories, had powerful sway over others, and disregarded rules and regulations, always managing to come out on top. Through it all she maintained a simple trust in God, and an unswerving purpose to lead Aboriginal people to Him. These tributes were penned by self-appointed United Aborigines’ Mission (UAM) chronicler Violet Turner for the society’s magazine in 1943. Lock had been their longest-serving and most controversial missionary. It is hagiographic in tone, with just a hint of the frustration that even the UAM felt with their senior missionary who ‘rode rough-shod over rules’. Its…

Despite being unoccupied for more than 30 years, Days Mill has remained largely intact, with its original machinery still on site. It provides an outstanding historical record of 19th-century milling methods. From the aptly named Day Road, visitors pass the recently restored gatehouse, and venture down the driveway lined with majestic trees and authentic farm machinery to see the grand Victorian-era residence. The imposing three-storey mill building obscures the butchery, dairy, piggery, sheds and other buildings that make up the Days Mill complex. Included on the National Trust Heritage Register, its many buildings and artefacts, and its important role in the early development of the area, make Days Mill a culturally significant site. The mill and farm stayed in the Day family for four generations over more than 100 years,…

Writing engaging family history requires more than just research skills; authors need to craft engaging narratives and move their family history projects from the research phase into the all-important storytelling phase. There are many techniques in fiction and non-fiction that can help writers to develop compelling multi-generational narratives. The following essay by emerging Sydney-based writer Mandy Gwan was written in 2020 as part of her Diploma of Family History at the University of Tasmania. It is an outstanding piece of fiction that is based on a precious collection of early colonial letters, and is set in the context of thorough historical research. Written from the point of view of convict servant Priscilla Wemyss, Gwan’s piece explores a poignant moment in her life, while setting Wemyss in her social and physical…

National parks return to traditional owners In a historic deal in September this year, the UNESCO World Heritage–listed Daintree Rainforest (the world’s oldest tropical rainforest at more than 180 million years old) was returned to First Nations custodians. The rainforest has been home to the eastern Kuku Yalanji people for generations, and after four years of discussions they will now take over management of the park, in partnership with the Queensland Government. As part of the deal, custodianship of several further Queensland parks was given to First Nations groups. These include Cedar Bay (Mangkal-Mangkalba), Black Mountain (Kalkajaka) and Hope Islands – a combined area of over 160,000 hectares. Heritage laws found ‘grossly inadequate’ A parliamentary inquiry into Rio Tinto’s 2020 destruction of ancient heritage sites at Juukan Gorge, in Western…

Tongerlongeter and Montpelliatta were well aware of the fear they inspired in their enemies. Under their leadership, Oyster Bay and Big River war parties relentlessly terrorised the intruders. Chiefs, who wore distinguishing war paint, appeared doubly menacing. When Tongerlongeter and his warriors besieged their victims, they taunted them and shook their spears. When they fell upon them, they hurt them in ways that sent a chill up the spine of every colonist. The fear they produced in the minds of exposed settlers and convicts was often paralysing. In a shaky hand, one servant wrote to his master: ‘You have often been warning us against the natives. We always said they would never come here but alas they have made their appearance … poor Crowhurst and York [are] dreadfully speared. We…

One of these monuments stands in Rookwood Cemetery and is the grave of those who lost their lives on St Patrick’s Day, 17 March 1900, in a new colliery being sunk by Sydney Harbour Collieries Company. The company itself was listed on the London Stock Exchange, and its aim was to recover coal from around and under Sydney Harbour. A shaft at Balmain was its first attempt. The incident took place during the afternoon shift change for workers sinking a shaft for the new anthracite coal mine. The circular shaft was six metres wide. It was lined with bricks, but was braced with buntings and timber cross pieces at right angles to the shaft every two metres or so. These buntings were intended to serve as guide rails for a…

When gold was discovered in Walhalla in 1862, people began to flock to the area, and more than 72 kilometres of mines were carved into the mountains. A permanent settlement quickly started to emerge, with a school, four churches, 15 hotels, dozens of shops, a jail, two breweries, and even a town newspaper and a photography studio. Timber became a key industry in the area, with more than 30,000 tonnes of local timber supplied to mining companies annually. Climbing steadily each year, Walhalla’s population soon reached more than 4000 residents, and the mountain town fast became one of the richest goldmining sites in the country. In the town’s heyday, more than 30 tonnes of gold was extracted from the Long Tunnel Mine alone, valued at more than $400 million; however,…

On 25 March, 1945, eight men from the shadowy Australian military organisation codenamed Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD) – popularly known as Z Special Unit – prepare to parachute into the remote, jungled interior of the Japanese-occupied island of Borneo, not far east of Singapore. One of their aims is to recruit the island’s indigenous Dayak peoples to fight the Japanese. Yet, most have barely encountered Asian or indigenous peoples before, and speak no Dayak languages. They have little idea of what awaits them on the ground. Decapitation by headhunting Dayaks? Capture by Japanese and slow death under torture? So begins the astonishing story of Operation Semut, an Australian secret operation that took place in the dying months of World War II. Small groups of SRD operatives, most of them very…

Then Officially opened on 14 November 1913 by Governor-General Lord Denman, the State Library of Victoria’s Domed Reading Room was designed by Norman G. Peebles, who drew inspiration from the British Museum in London and the Library of Congress in Washington. The octagonal space, spanning 220 square feet, was built using brick, reinforced concrete and glass. The space was designed to hold more than one million books and house 600 readers at a time. Of these 600 readers, the space accommodated 28 seated readers at the eight radial desks, supervised by library attendants at the central raised desk. The desks within the Domed Reading Room were also designed by Peebles, and made from Queensland silky oak. All furniture at the time cost £4300, with each component made in Australia (excluding…

This velvet-lined wooden box contains a lock of human hair held by an engraved, gold, bell-shaped clasp. The box has a glass lid, and documents are visible beneath the hair. The hair within once belonged to Eliza Bushe Wallen, who arrived in Melbourne in November 1852 with her parents and siblings. Wallen passed away less than two years after arriving in Melbourne, aged 17, of colonial fever (typhoid fever). After her death – according to popular Victorian-era mourning tradition – a lock of her hair was saved and preserved in this case. The gold clasp is inscribed with her name and date of death. This object was passed down through generations of the Wallen’s family, and was donated to Museums Victoria in 2017. Image and information courtesy of Jon Augier,…

The James family came to Molong, New South Wales, from London in about 1860; no exact date of their arrival in Molong is known. Around this time, Molong was like most towns west of the Blue Mountains – developing at a steady pace. The first dedicated public school was built in 1859, replacing other buildings previously used for educating children. Crown land in west Molong was opened up for purchase from about 1851 in two-acre allotments to encourage further settlement. Gold discoveries were still being made in areas around Molong, although they were not big rushes like those experienced in 1851 at the Ophir goldfields between Orange and Bathurst. The area around Molong saw more and more people passing through, and some stopping to settle. Molong had already had a…

MyHeritage New Zealand • Marriage Index, 1840–1901: 271,768 records• New Zealand Death Index, 1840–2021: 2,430,610 records• New Zealand Birth Index, 1840–1901: 2,037,711 records. Scotland • 1841 Scotland Census: 2,625,739 records• 1901 Scotland Census: 4,437,453 records• 1871 Scotland Census: 3,349,107 records• 1851 Scotland Census: 2,912,392 records. France • Church Marriages and Civil Marriages: 126,649,212 records• Church Burials and Civil Deaths: 149,151,219 records• 1901 France Census: 2,431,044 records. www.myheritage.com FamilySearch Argentina • Buenos Aires, Catholic Church Records, 1635–1981: 17,143 indexed records • Cemetery Records, 1882–2019: 105,358 indexed records• Corrientes, Catholic Church Records, 1734–1977: 5816 indexed records• Entre Ríos, Catholic Church Records, 1764–1983: 3069 indexed records• San Juan, Catholic Church Records, 1655–1975: 2118 indexed records. Australia • Victorian Wills, Probate and Administration Files, 1841–1926: 4854 indexed records. England • Cambridgeshire Bishop’s Transcripts, 1538–1983:…