Queensland

by Mary Geiger

When talking recently to a friend about searching on World Vital Records, I said that I never search for my main family lines of Smith and Brown as they always produce way too many results.

My grandfather Neil Smith was born in North Barnawartha, Victoria in 1879 and he, along with one brother whom I thought was his brother George, were the only ones to come to Queensland.

Regular readers of this blog will have noted that yesterday (21 Dec 2009) there was a Brick Wall blog by Rosemary Kopittke, another Unlock The Past (UTP) team member. A decision was made to include Brick Wall stories from other speakers so you will be seeing a wider range of solutions in 2010. Don’t forget to let us know any comments or your own stories and solutions.

This has been a special year in Queensland’s history.

As the Q150 website explains: “Proclamation Day, Thursday 10 December 2009, [marked] 150 years since the historic reading in Brisbane of the Letters Patent … proclaiming Queensland a separate colony to New South Wales.

Queensland’s first Governor, Sir George Ferguson Bowen, accompanied by his wife Lady Diamantina Bowen, witnessed the reading of the Letters Patent from the balcony of Adelaide House, now the Deanery of St John’s Cathedral in Ann Street, Brisbane.”

This is the first installment of a theme based blog on brick walls in family history research and how to break them down. Initially I will be using my own examples but I also welcome input from others who have solved their brick walls using out of the ordinary resources or searches.