Family matters

Researching your home

Researching your home

August 28, 2024

Collections, Family matters, Research guides, Research tips & tricks:

Are you interested in the history of you home? Or would you like to discover more about the home your ancestor lived in?

Unless it’s a well-known property, it’s unlikely you will find a detailed history but there are ways you can try and find details about the house and the occupants who lived in it.

In today’s blog, we will look at what resources can be used to research the history of your house.

How our ‘genies’ saved the census

How our ‘genies’ saved the census

July 29, 2024

Ask a librarian, Family matters, Our stories, Victorian history:

Researchers visiting the Library are often dismayed when they discover that prior to 2001, there are no surviving census returns for individuals in the Colony of Victoria. What were the reasons behind the destruction of our census records? And how did our ‘genies’ save the day?

New family history ebooks

New family history ebooks

January 31, 2024

Family matters:

The State Library Victoria’s ebook collection continues to grow at a rapid place. We now provide free access to over 200,000 ebooks on such topics as social sciences, family history,… Read More ›

Online Collection Spotlight: British Library Newspapers (1732–1950)

Online Collection Spotlight: British Library Newspapers (1732–1950)

September 27, 2023

Collections:

The British Library Newspapers database (1732-1950) includes over 240 newspapers sourced from the British Library. Find out more about this incredible resource – the depth and scope of this collection being unparalleled.

Mysteries from the Rosenberg Collection of Vincent Kelly’s Bendigonian portraits

Mysteries from the Rosenberg Collection of Vincent Kelly’s Bendigonian portraits

August 30, 2023

Family matters, Photography:

Explore some of the mysteries in Vincent Kelly’s Bendigo photographic portraits.

Your ancestor’s world – 19th century Victoria

Your ancestor’s world – 19th century Victoria

August 1, 2023

Family matters, Research tips & tricks:

Welcome to National Family History month, a month dedicated to family history research! 
Alongside your family history explorations, local and social history research can help us to understand something of the motivations, places, lives and times of our Victorian ancestors. In this week’s blog we include few snapshots from our collections and beyond, to help you build a picture of the journeys undertaken and of the Victoria your ancestors may have inhabited in the nineteenth century.

Rennie Ellis, 1987. H2011.130 1563

Online Collection Spotlight: Access Australia by NewsBank

July 8, 2023

Ask a librarian, Collection spotlights, Research tips & tricks, Tips and tricks:

Are you looking for an article from the Coburg Leader in 2010? Want the week’s top stories read out to you while you prep dinner? How can you search for articles about affordable housing across many trusted Australian news sources all at once? For all these answers and more, read on to today’s online collection spotlight.

What’s new in eresources

What’s new in eresources

May 15, 2023

Ask a librarian, New to the collection:

There have been a few new additions to our online eresources lately. These can be explored from outside the Library if you are a Victorian-resident Library member – log in with your Library member number, or sign up for membership online to begin. Let’s take a look at what’s available.

Celebrating our nurses: the history of nursing in Victoria

Celebrating our nurses: the history of nursing in Victoria

May 12, 2023

Collections, Family matters:

International Nurses Day is celebrated on Friday 12 May – the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth. In today’s blog we explore the history of nursing in Victoria and take a glimpse at the nurses featured in our collection.

Trove: a treasure chest of family history gems

Trove: a treasure chest of family history gems

March 30, 2023

Family matters, Research tips & tricks:

If you’re a family history researcher in Australia, chances are you’ve stumbled upon Trove. The Trove digitised newspapers and gazettes collection is an invaluable resource for family historians, and allows for free, remote access to over 1000 historic Australian newspapers and gazettes, no matter where you are in the country. Let’s see what family history treasures we can unbox in Trove!