This evening an item came up in my Google reader which made me exclaim a delighted “Oh!”.
One of the many great features of the Trove site is all the RSS feeds. As all of my immigrant ancestors settled in Victoria, I have signed up to the RSS feed for newly added titles from that State. It has been fantastic seeing more and more newspaper names relating to regional areas appearing.
This one in particular made me sit up and take notice because my COUPER branch had a long history in the Oakleigh area, being some of the earliest pioneers and also sitting on council. They also have the sad distinction of the known first burial in Oakleigh Cemetery – Christina Couper was buried there on 11 December 1860, aged just 7.
Naturally I jumped right in. A search on COUPER gave me 69 hits. Many of them were advertising for “Dr Couper-Johnson”, and not likely to be of interest to me. When I eliminated those I still had 22 results. Sadly, 21 of those results are still undergoing quality control so I can’t see them!
The one result I can see is notes from an Oakleigh Shire Council meeting, where my butcher ancestor’s request to renew his slaughtering licence was considered, but postponed. I will have to do a manual search for meeting notes for the next month to see what happened. I know that he continued as a butcher for many more years, so presumably he got the licence but there must have been a reason for consideration of the request to be postponed.
OAKLEIGH SHIRE COUNCIL. (1888, December 22). Oakleigh Leader (North Brighton, Vic. : 1888 - 1902), p. 7. Retrieved August 4, 2011, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article66176226
I must remember to search on Cowper and other variations as well.
Moving on there were tantalising glimpses of promising articles which were in the results but not yet viewable. Like this one:
What sad event?! What was his role in it?
There were also several mentions of a D.Couper in Court of Petty Sessions reports. I will just have to wait and see what they contain.
Something to look forward to!
Ah, I am very envious Shelley. I have been waiting for a particular paper to be digitised on Trove all year. Until recently the schedule said it was due to appear on Trove this year, but a new schedule now says 2011-2012, so there is the possibility it won't appear until next year. Oh well, it will be worth the wait.
ReplyDeleteLet us know what you find out about your Coupers when the articles are fully available!
Tanya