Welcome to all members of the Glenorchy branch of PROBUS. This page is here for a while so you can review any content from the presentation in June 2025. It will be removed at the end of the year, so there is plenty of time to get started with your family history project.
This is only a very basic introduction to family history research. Many will have already done much more than this.
Family history research starts with you. Everything is evidence based, even for yourself. So dig out that birth certificate and marriage record(s) and the journey begins.
Think of all the facts you research as the skeleton of the. family history work. It is essential, but you also need the stories to make a complete body of work.
While you can, talk to your relatives and get the stories often not written anywhere. With permission, do audio recordings because once the stories start to flow, you won't be able to write fast enough.
I still regret not recording the stories of some older relatives when I was younger. Now the record function of my mobile phone ensures the stories will not be lost. ONLY RECORD WITH PERMISSION.
To help with recording the facts and stories, the full picture is aided with the use of genealogy software. I use this one and it works very well. I opt not to use popular online databases as I find them unreliable. Find this one here: https://www.rootsmagic.com/
Roots Magic lets you add all your relatives and their relationship to each other, as well as space to tell stories.
The software lets you access your information with several views. This is the family group view.
Where do you find all the facts? Birth, death and marriage records form the framework, but there are more. Divorce records, education, employment and much more.
For all of us in Tasmania, recent records can be found (for a price) on this Government web site if you are related to the person. These are the rules for accessing birth records.
Very similar rules apply to death records.
And these rules for marriage records. These are all different and relate to providing privacy for people who may still be living.
For the more recent records in Tasmania, this is the schedule of fees to access a single record.
Where can you look to find the older records? Those historic members of your family before the years when the Tasmanian Government can do a search for you.
The Tasmanian Archives is the most useful place to look. The Tasmanian Archives have most records digitised and online, so research can be done from home. In the past it would require a visit to the Archives and searching through microfilm. Now with "Name Search" it can be very quick, but care still needs to be taken.
TROVE is another valuable tool. It is a national collection of digitised records including newspaper from across Australia. While digitising continues, the records go until around 1960. More recent newspapers can still be found at the archives on microfilm.
This is an example of a search result in TROVE. The digitised record on the right and the text on the left. WARNING: using TROVE can be very addictive.
The National Archives is a great source of records since Federation, and includes detailed military service records.
This is an example of a military record for one of my relatives.
Th military records offer a lot of detail where active service was undertaken by the person of interest.
I found out this research tool at the State Library. You can use your library card and password to access (among other nice stuff) all the most useful newspapers online and for FREE! And for people with failing eyesight like me, you can zoom in and see everything without glasses.
A good range of titles are available...
Ancestry.com is a useful tool to do research, but there is a component of information on there that could be better described as guesses rather than documented research. Ancestry requires a subscription, but it is free to use if you are at a library. Ancestry is also a populare place to do your DNA testing. More about DNS another time.
Family search is another online family research database that is largely free. Operated by the Church of Latter-Day Saints it is generally reliable.
Many of us have convict ancestors. This is my 3rd great grandmother - an AI generated image based on her convict description as there were no photographs at the time.
I am happy to help anyone with research tasks. My web site is the one you are looking at right now. The links page has a number of useful web sites for undertaking research. Thank you for your interest.