Two hours in the library

AMHERST HOSPITAL FETE, 1871. (1871, December 4). Illustrated Australian News for Home Readers (Melbourne, Vic. : 1867 - 1875), p. 219. Retrieved December 21, 2011, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article60448591

I had today off work and was without my children for most of the day. This close to Christmas there’s a lot I could or should have been doing…. but instead I made a flying visit to the National Library of Australia. I try to keep note of things I want to check or refer to at the library for when I have a chance to go there. I reviewed my notes and did a little preparation the night before. Although I only had two hours there I think I made good use of my limited time.

Last night I pre-ordered Amherst District Hospital 1859 to 1933 : the outcome of compassion by Bea. Brewster. It was waiting for me when I got to the library this morning. I wanted to find out more about conditions in the hospital where my ancestors had been treated. The sort of information I hoped to find was included in the book, although I haven’t had a chance to digest the material yet. 

One thing I did notice was that the publication included a drawing of the annual Amherst Hospital fete (1871) – a quick search of Trove turned up the cited article. The article claimed that the procession included almost 1,000 men, 300 of them mounted, dressed up in what sounds like a quite astonishing array of costumes. My great-grandfather (then aged 7) was treated in the hospital for an injury earlier that year – I wonder if he was at the fete?

I also checked my research plan* for finding James Bennett’s (1831-???) death. My last firm sighting of him was in 1883 – being checked out “cured” from Amherst Hospital, as it happens. I’ve also got a newspaper mention of him in 1896 when his wife died that I think indicates he was alive. She was referred to as “wife of” rather than “widow of”. I checked:

• Victorian probate indexes beyond 1925 (up to 1925 is available online)
• Victorian inquest indexes

No luck there, but at least now I know that I’ve looked. I was going to make my way through some local directories to see if I could find him and when he dropped out. I decided against attempting that this morning, as there was at least one other James Bennett living nearby and I wanted to collect more information to distinguish between them first.

I then turned my attention to two of my great-great grandparents whose burial place I knew from death records but I hadn’t ever checked for cemetery records. I found that the cemetery has a database online but I wondered if the microfiche at the library had more information. It didn’t, the information was exactly the same. Another case of well now I know.

The vast majority of my known relatives came to Victoria, but I was aware that early church records for New South Wales were available on microfilm at the library. Last night I checked my database for any early New South Wales birth deaths or marriages and found two that looked like good candidates. I’m not used to microfilm (on rolls). For some reason most of the records I’ve looked at have been on microfiche (flat sheets). I’m not sure if I could have kept going with genealogy if it was the other way around as the microfilm whizzing by made me feel quite nauseous! I worked out how the records were arranged and managed to find my target before I started feeling too woozy.

A little advance planning paid off. I think I got good value from my flying visit!

 

* “Research plan” is a bit glorified for a page with a few dot points but it did have the heading “Research plan” and (and this is important) I was able to find it when I wanted it.

My first FHL film arrives

Today was the big day. I used my first ever FHL film!

The film was the Amherst Hospital (Victoria, Australia) admissions register (over two films, actually). I have a copy of the Genealogical Society of Victoria's (GSV) Victorian Goldfields Hospitals Index on CD and knew that the families I'm currently focusing on had admissions there.

Preparation
While I waited for the films to arrive, I started searching the CD index for other ancestral families I knew were living in the area. What an exercise in frustration that was. The CD didn't run on my desktop computer. I can get it to run on a laptop, but the display doesn't work well on widescreen. I can only see the very top edge of some buttons at the bottom of my screen, and had to refer to the help file to find out what each button did.

I could have lived with a shonky user interface if the other features of the CD were more helpful. It was possible to search for a name, but little more. There was enough information in the fields returned to get a good idea of if you were looking at a person you were interested in, but it wasn't possible to filter the results by hospital (or anything else), and it wasn't possible to sort the results on any field. Even that I could have lived with but it limited exports to 200 at a time - which had to be hand selected from the full list of results returned for the search. Looking for relevant entries was going to take a very long time. I was starting to hate that CD!

Fortunately, I had decided to join the GSV and my membership came through while I was in the midst of grappling with the CD. I was able to access the members' version of their "Genealogical Index of Names" instead. Having given the CD a big thumbs down, I give the members' database a big thumbs up. It includes the hospitals database, has more searchable fields, and allows you to click through to additional information. A free guest version of the database is available, but the results give only a fraction of the detail of the full database. I think I'm going to get my membership value from that database alone. If you have research interests in Victoria it's definitely worth a look.

Comparison: Goldfields Hospital CD vs GSV members index vs Hospital admissions register

The index on CD contains:

• surname; 
• given name(s); 
• admission date; 
• age of patient; 
• patient's place of birth; 
• whether single, married or widowed; 
• occupation; and
• residence.

The members only index contains all the above plus: 

• discharge date; 
• religion;
• father's name; 
• mother's name; and 
• remarks. 

The register itself is labelled slightly differently. It has column headings:

• number; 
• name; 
• age; 
• date of admission; 
• residence; 
• natal place; 
• relatives names; 
• married or single; 
• religion; 
• trade; 
• former occupation; 
• by whom recommended; 
• Disease: primary, secondary; 
• date of discharge; 
• days in hospital; 
• result; and
• observations [which do not seem to be the same thing as the remarks].

Not all the fields are filled in for every admission, of course, but there's plenty of potentially interesting material.

Next post, I'll report my research findings.