Beenleigh War Memorial Project (revised edition)

Society logo

Press release from Logan River and District Family History Society:

Sleep on! Australia's noble sons, we bow our heads to thee
Who fought and made the sacrifice to keep Australia free.

The dignitaries watched the cloudy skies on that afternoon of the 21st November 1925 as the good citizens of Beenleigh and environs gathered for the unveiling of the R.S.S.I.L.A. Beenleigh Sub-Branch Monument. In the crowd were the proud families and friends of those who had volunteered to serve, some of whom made the supreme sacrifice, in the Great War - the 'War to End All Wars'.

Who were these young people who had so bravely responded to the call to arms?

Many of their families live in our community today and some of their names are recorded on the monument in the heart of Beenleigh. This project was initiated prior to the centenary of WWI when several of our members, led by Kevin Egan, researched the 61 names on the Beenleigh War Memorial and published (in 2009) the first CD that contained information about the memorial and some general data about the soldiers and WW1.

Dianna Ottaway came across the CD in 2014 and decided that she would expand it to include men and women from the greater Beenleigh area who had served. Dianna, aided by Diane Schulz, has spent several years researching and recording these 236 stories. The stories tell of their daily lives rather than of battalions and battles, which have been well-covered elsewhere. This revised edition includes many more names than the original. The list of names is on the Society's Web site, www.loganriverfamilyhistorysociety.com.au.

The project has been published as a collection of stories, plus other information, on a USB drive which can be purchased, for $30, from Logan River and District Family History Society. The vast collection of research behind the stories is a useful resource for anyone researching the families of these volunteers. This is being kept in digital form at our research rooms. Anyone wishing to access it should contact the society (non-members pay a research fee).
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Enquiries: contact Logan River and District Family History Society, PO Box 601, Waterford QLD 4133, or email loganriverfhs@hotmail.com.

(I don't usually publish press releases, but in this case I did so in response to a request from a very dear friend. This post first appeared on https://qld-genealogy.blogspot.com/2021/03/beenleigh-war-memorial-project-revised.html.)

Passport Records

It's great to see more Queensland records being added to Findmypast - for example, the indexes to passport registers 1915-1925 and passport registers and receipts 1926-1939. Most applicants lived in Queensland but some gave an interstate or overseas address including England, Canada, Papua, Ceylon, Fiji and China.

The National Archives of Australia and Queensland State Archives hold various series of passport records. They include:

• Immigration Department: passport clearance register 1926-1935 (Qld State Archives series 7149; one item). This register gives the passenger's name, ship and date of arrival, State of disembarkation, ship and date of departure, passenger's reason for returning overseas, and whether he/she was planning to return to Australia.


• Immigration Department: passport receipts 1930-1939 (Qld State Archives series 10222; thirteen items). These are duplicates of passport clearances issued to assisted immigrants. They give the passenger's name, ship and date of arrival in Australia. Some also give the ship and date of departure and how long the person expected to be away.


• Passport registers 1915-1974 (National Archives of Australia, Brisbane Office). After the Passports Act 1920, Australian residents over sixteen years of age needed a passport if they left the country. This did not apply to those going to New Zealand, Papua or Norfolk Island. Others who were exempt included merchant seamen and defence force personnel on duty. The National Archives Brisbane Office holds passport registers 1915-1974 and various other records of people departing Australia. Some of those passport registers have been indexed in the Queensland Passports Index 1915-1925.

If a person 'vanished' (either temporarily or permanently), passport records are definitely worth a look. They can also reveal interesting information about overseas holidays or trips to visit relatives.

NOTE!  The transcription on Findmypast is a useful finding aid, but it does not include all details, so it is essential to get a copy of the original document. If you can't go to the Archives yourself, ask about my copying service.

For other countries, these links take you to lists of passport records on:

• Findmypast (including the British Index to Register of Passport Applications 1851-1903)


• Ancestry (including records for the USA, France, Portugal, Latvia and other countries).

(This post first appeared on https://qld-genealogy.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/queensland-passport-registers-1926-1939.html.)

Queensland Customs House Shipping Index 1852-1885

"Queensland Customs House Shipping 1852-1885 Passengers and Crew" is an exciting new index compiled from Brisbane Customs House records (Shipping Inwards Series J715) held at the Brisbane Office of the National Archives of Australia. It is a vital resource for genealogists and others who are researching merchant mariners or passengers from Europe to Queensland.

Note that this index includes over 90 voyages that are not in the Queensland State Archives online index.

Most voyages were to Brisbane, but there are a few from Brisbane to an overseas port. The ships sailed from Batavia, Boston, Dundee, Glasgow, Greenock, Hamburg, Hong Kong, Liverpool, London, New York, Newcastle on Tyne, Plymouth, Queenstown, Singapore, San Francisco, Sydney, the South Sea Islands and Southampton. (Queenstown is the old name for Cobh, the port for Cork, Ireland.)

For some ships there are two lists, one prepared at the time of departure and another on arrival. Some of the records are for ships that carried passengers but were not specifically migrant vessels.

Each person's entry may include name, title, age, sex, marital status, occupation, nationality, whether passenger or crew, comments, ship, year and port of departure/arrival, etc.

The index is available on CD-ROM from the Queensland Family History Society. It is also online at FindMyPast. Some given names are abbreviated in the records, so you may need to search for an initial or an abbreviation (eg, 'Chas' for Charles). Searching is free at FindMyPast. To see transcriptions you need either pay-as-you-go credits or a one-month or twelve-month subscription.

(This post first appeared on http://qld-genealogy.blogspot.com.au/.)

Hospital Admission Registers as a Source for Family History

A typical hospital admission register

Hospital admission registers provide a solution to many genealogical dead ends and brick walls!

People born in the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, America, Canada and other parts of the world appear in Queensland hospital admission registers. Biographical details supplied by the patient are often more complete and more accurate than those on certificates. A hospital register is sometimes the only surviving source of information about the ship on which a person arrived.

Many people spent time in a hospital far from their home. This applies especially to Brisbane (a large hospital capable of handling difficult cases), Cooktown (with many miners and sailors from ships in port) and Croydon (people came here from everywhere during the local gold rush).

The registers for Brisbane General Hospital, Brisbane Prison Hospital, and hospitals at Burketown, Cooktown, Croydon, Ingham, Muttaburra and Roma, are printed volumes with space for these details:

• name
• date admitted
• age
• birthplace (town, State/county and country)
• occupation
• religion
• ship of arrival
• how long in the colony
• last place of residence
• marital status
• place of marriage, at what age, and name of spouse
• names and ages of children living; number and gender of children deceased
• father's name and occupation
• father's present residence if living (or 'father dead')
• mother's maiden name
• disease or reason for admission
• date of discharge, or date and cause of death
• remarks (which may include medical history, social circumstances etc.)

Some Brisbane registers also give details of employment, wages, other sources of income, other wage-earners in the family, property, membership of clubs or benefit societies, and names and addresses of relatives or friends.

Note the provision for ship of arrival, place of residence, marital status, and father's present residence - details not found on a Queensland death certificate.

A few hospital records exist for other towns such as Mackay and Toowoomba, but they are less informative.

Dates of surviving registers and where to find them, plus thousands of names from my indexes to hospital records, are on my main Web site. Even if you don't think your family were ever in Queensland, follow this link to check the lists of names from Queensland hospital admission registers. Many people have been surprised by what they've found!

Queensland Genealogy News (BDMs, seminar, records)

(1)  Queensland Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages can now supply more death certificates as images, with 1939-1953 being added to the list. The Registry has also extended 'available births' to 1914, 'available marriages' to 1939, and (after I contacted them to point out the mistake on their Web page) 'available deaths' to 1984. (See also 'Free Certificates in Archives Files'.)

(2)  Genealogy seminar, Brisbane, Sat. 1 Feb 2014 (Broncos Leagues Club, Fulcher Road, Red Hill). Four main presentations by renowned international speakers Chris Paton and Thomas MacEntee (both of whom I have heard and can recommend), plus short presentations by local and sponsoring partners, an exhibition, and special offers and hundreds of dollars worth of prizes. The four main talks are 'Irish land records', 'Scottish inheritance records', 'Building a genealogy research toolbox' and 'You use WHAT for genealogy? Wonderful uses for unusual tools'. You can book for the morning, afternoon or full day. Click here for more details of this seminar or here for other presentations by Chris and Thomas in Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide, Hobart, Sydney and Perth.

(3)  New records available at Queensland State Archives include Caboolture Divisional Board / Caboolture Shire Council rate books and valuation registers.

(4)  My weekly posts in the '52 Weeks of Genealogical Records' series will include many tips relevant to Queensland research.

More Queensland death indexes online

Queensland Registrar-General's indexes to births to 1914, marriages to 1938 and deaths to 1983 are now online - but note that some indexes (births to 1919 and marriages to 1939) are available on microfiche but not online.

Once you know a year of death, it's much easier to search for a recent Supreme Court probate file - which, if it exists, will include the death certificate, thus saving you a lot of money.

There are other tips about Queensland birth, death and marriage records on my Web site and in the book Tips for Queensland Research. See also 'Free certificates in Archives files'.

J is for Jurors and Justice Department

This week's 'Family History Through the Alphabet' challenge focuses on the letter 'J'.

J is for...

• Jurors.  Yesteryear Links published an index to jurors and witnesses in cases heard at Charters Towers (Queensland), 1920-1937, in the Circuit Court, District Court, Criminal Court, Police Court, Coroner's Court etc. The index gives names, addresses and often occupations of jurors and witnesses, and it states whether the original document includes that person's signature.


• Justice Department.  Queensland State Archives hold many series of Justice Department records for which there are indexes. They include Registers of Criminal Depositions, Inquests (magisterial enquiries), and Preliminary Enquiries. For one series of Preliminary Enquiries (1931-1961) there are separate indexes to the deceased and other people mentioned. If there was also an inquest, the Preliminary Enquiries file gives extra details.

You can find out more about all of these indexes by referring to my books Specialist Indexes in Australia: a Genealogist's Guide and Tips for Queensland Research, which are held by many libraries.

More tips for family history are in my other articles in this series. If the information and advice is useful, have a look at this page.

D is for Dunwich Benevolent Asylum

Continuing to the next letter, 'D', in the 'Family History Through the Alphabet' challenge... D is for Dunwich Benevolent Asylum.

Dunwich was established on North Stradbroke Island, Moreton Bay, Queensland, in 1865. When it closed in 1946, inmates were gradually transferred to Eventide at Sandgate. The function of Dunwich (as defined by the Benevolent Asylum Wards Act of 1861) was to provide for poor people who because of age, accident, infirmity or otherwise were unable to care for themselves. The inmates thus included not only the elderly but also younger people.

Sources (many of which are held at Qld State Archives) include:

1. Index to Colonial/Home Secretary's Office applications for admission to Dunwich with associated correspondence, 1890-1922.


2. Typed index to many Dunwich sources for various dates between 1859 and 1971.


3. Card index to Dunwich records.


4. Immigration Department register of applications for admission to Dunwich 1902-1904.


5. Index to Dunwich weekly returns from Qld Government Gazette notices, 1885-1907.


6. Index to Eventide (Sandgate, Qld) registers of deaths 1954-1959.


7. Index to selected names from 1860s/1870s Colonial Secretary's Office in-letters.


8. Home Secretary's Office: registers of letters received.


9. Indexes to various series of mental asylum records.


10. Index to old age pension records.


11. Police Station watchhouse charge books.


12. Books:  Brisbane: Moreton Bay Matters and Moreton Bay People, vols. 1-3.


13. Brisbane Courier, 25 Oct 1927, p.9: detailed article that includes photographs of the matron, nurses and other staff, Private WILKINSON aged 99, Mrs ROWE aged over 90, and other elderly residents.

Some of the Archives sources give excellent biographical details. These may include address, age, country of birth, religion, occupation, length of time in Qld; married or single; names, addresses and circumstances of applicant's sons and daughters; names, addresses and circumstances of other relatives; names and addresses of employers during the past 2 years, and length of time with each; real or personal property; aid received from hospitals or other charitable institutions during the past 2 years; reasons for desiring admission; through whom applying; and applicant's signature.

For a detailed explanation of the sources available (with Archives location numbers where applicable) and access restrictions that apply to some records, see the most recent edition of my book, Tips for Queensland Research. It is described on my Web site.

You will find more tips for family history in my other articles in this series. If the information and advice is useful, have a look at this page.

C is for Cooktown, Croydon and Cunnamulla

For the letter 'C' in the 'Family History Through the Alphabet' challenge, I was tempted to write about cemeteries, churches and family surnames such as Campbell, Capsticks, Clark and Corduex. Instead I decided to list three Queensland towns whose records I have indexed.

C is for...

• Cooktown.  In the 1800s, Cooktown was the main port for the North Queensland gold fields. Local hospital records, which are very useful for family history, give information about people from all walks of life, including miners, sailors and railway workers. Many had spent time in other parts of Australia and in New Guinea and New Zealand. I have indexed Cooktown Hospital admission registers and some local petitions and school records.


• Croydon.  Another North Queensland mining town for which I have indexed hospital admission registers. During the 1880s, 70% of those admitted to Croydon hospital were born in Britain or Ireland, and about 15% were born in Australia's southern states, especially the Victorian goldfields. Some residents of Croydon moved to Western Australia when gold was discovered there. The index to Croydon Hospital admissions is now online, with Archives source location numbers.


• Cunnamulla.  My home town! I have indexed various records for Cunnamulla, Eulo and Thargomindah in southwest Queensland.

You will find more tips for family history in my other articles in this series.

Revenue from ads goes to Kiva

Mental Asylum Case Books

Family historians may be surprised to find relatives' names in indexes to mental asylum records. Many patients spent only a short time in an asylum, and their descendants would probably not know about that.

Part of an entry in a Goodna Asylum case book

Reasons for the onset of mental illness (as stated in case books) include childbirth, epilepsy, head injury, alcohol, syphilis, congenital defect, jealousy, 'domestic troubles', bereavement, and 'deserted by the father of her child'.

Goodna Asylum case books often give the patient's admission date, discharge or death date, age, marital status, number of children (and age of the youngest), occupation, country of birth, residence, religion, mental disorder and its onset, changes in behaviour and general health, and a physical description. Some entries include names of 'insane relatives' (here or overseas), references to time spent in other asylums, or comments such as 'good bowler at cricket'. For some patients there are letters or photographs.

For patients transferred on 10 Jan 1865 from the Lunatic Asylum, Brisbane, to Woogaroo Lunatic Asylum, case books also give the date of first admission. Until Woogaroo Asylum opened in 1865, psychiatric patients were treated at the old convict hospital, and in some cases there are references in prison records.

Information from case books has traditionally been available only to close relatives in special circumstances via Right to Information - but I have details from case books for some patients admitted more than one hundred years ago. To help family historians, I have indexed those names (and many others). I have also created a mini-guide, Researching Mental Asylum Patients.

Note that case books are completely different from Public Curator insanity files, which are much easier to obtain and potentially even more useful for family history.

If you need help to get copies of historical records for Queensland mental asylum patients, follow this link. Each page with a list of names has details of my research and copying services.

Index to Register of Land Sold 1842-1859

A new addition to the Queensland State Archives Web site is an index to a register of land sold, 1842-1859.

Be sure to read the background and explanatory notes before you use the index.

Index to Funeral Records 1972 - 2010

Would you think to look in Queensland for records of a burial or funeral service that took place overseas, including New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Fiji, Sweden, Greece, Hungary, Austria or the Netherlands?

Cemeteries and crematoria from all of those countries (plus all parts of Australia) are mentioned in records of Gregson and Weight, funeral directors at Caloundra, Maroochydore and Nambour on Queensland's Sunshine Coast.

I recently bought Caloundra Family History Research Inc.'s new index (on CD-ROM), Gregson and Weight Funeral Directors, Caloundra, Maroochydore and Nambour - Index to Funeral Records 1972-2010. It lists (in PDF format) about 20,000 names (in two sections, 1972-1999 and 2000-2010), with surname, given name, age, death date or funeral date, place of burial or cremation, and a reference number. Aliases or nicknames are sometimes shown. Appendix 1 lists all cemeteries/crematoria mentioned, and explains how to contact them. Appendix 2 lists hyphenated or 'double-barrelled' surnames, which were not always recorded correctly in the index.

This very affordable index will be invaluable for finding deaths that are too recent to be in online civil registration indexes. There is a good explanation of abbreviations and the arrangement of entries, and a contact address for Gregson and Weight; but although the introduction says, We would be pleased if researchers would advise us of any inaccurate information, the author/publisher's address is not shown. The publication also lacks a proper title page (which should show title, author, publisher, date and place of publication, copyright notice and ISBN).

For more details about the index, contact Caloundra Family History Research.

Postscript, 2014: There is now an online database for various other Queensland funeral directors' records including Alex Gow, K.M. Smith, Cannon and Cripps, Metropolitan, Tucker and Nankivel, Lorisch, and Le Grand.

Orphanage records now accessible

Some children, though not actually orphans, were admitted to an orphanage because parents or other relatives could not take care of them. This often happened if the child was illegitimate or when a parent was ill, imprisoned or in an asylum. Many orphanage records give the reason for admission, parents' names etc.

Some Queensland orphanage records have recently been opened to the public. The following records are now available in Qld State Archives ArchivesSearch (check periodically in case more are added):

• St. Vincent's Home (Nudgee): Index to admission registers 1866-1905, and admission register 1866-1908.
• Diamantina Orphanage and Receiving Depot: Index to admission registers 1865-1905, and admission registers 1865-1908.
• Meteor Park Orphanage (Neerkol), Rockhampton: Admission registers 1885-1909.
• Industrial and Reformatory School for Boys: Admission register 1871-1906.
• Industrial and Reformatory School for Girls, Toowoomba: Letterbooks of the Superintendent 1881-1895.

If you are looking for more recent records, see the Brief Guide to Orphanages and Children's Homes.

My book Tips for Queensland Research has advice about indexes and records for Townsville, Mackay and Rockhampton orphanages.

'Failing to contribute to support of children in an orphanage' is one of the offences mentioned in Police Station summons sheets. Children charged with 'being a neglected child' are mentioned in police watchhouse charge books.

Orders to administer: inventories 1953-1978

Supreme Court (Southern District) orders to administer - inventories, 1953-1978 (Queensland State Archives series ID 17985) consists of only a small number of files, but they include some persons whose intestacy file was lost in a fire.

The 'orders' give deceased's name, residence, occupation, date and place of death, and an inventory. The file number in this series corresponds with that in the index to Public Curator orders and elections.

(This is an extract from my book Tips for Queensland Research.)

Police Summons Sheets

An interesting series that I recently used for the first time is Rockhampton Police Station summons sheets 1898-1905 (Queensland State Archives series ID 6545). The three volumes (item IDs 212364-212366; previous system A/146-A/148) cover 1 Nov 1898 - 13 Jul 1900, 29 Apr 1902 - 1 Sep 1903 and 6 Nov 1904 - 7 Feb 1905. Details shown are date, plaintiff (sometimes 'police'), defendant, offence, judgement and magistrate's name. Entries are chronological.

A wide variety of offences are listed. They include larceny; assault; insulting words; obscene language; excessive use of liquor; boarding a train while in motion; breaches of various Acts and By-laws; child desertion; wife desertion; disobeying a maintenance order; failing to contribute to support of children in an orphanage; and affiliation. ('Affiliation' refers to a court order against a man alleged to be the father of an illegitimate child, requiring him to make payments towards the child's upkeep.)

One entry in A/146 shows that Bob LONG, charged with 'larceny, lollies', was 'convicted but not punished upon condition that his father flogs him'.

To check whether similar sources exist for other towns, search for the phrase summons sheet in ArchivesSearch.

Other 'unusual' sources are described on my Web site, which lists over 70,000 names from records in Archives.

Gympie Police Charge Bench Books

Queensland State Archives item ID 324223 (previous system B/3056) is an index to Court of Petty Sessions (Gympie) police charge bench books, 14 Jan 1890 - 27 Jul 1931. It is alphabetical only by first letter of surname. Entries usually give date, name, offence and how disposed of.

Two letters inside the front cover are about James Edward MADDEN and J. HOLT (probably Joseph James HOLT). HOLT committed suicide on 21 Oct 1893. He had asked that two people in NSW be notified, and the document gives their addresses.

This departmental index for 1890-1931 makes it easier to find entries in the actual bench books, which are much more informative. I myself have indexed persons arrested and victims of crime from Gympie bench books for an earlier period (1884-1886).

Free Certificates in Archives Files (Thrifty Thursday)

Before buying certificates, check whether there is a free alternative!

The sources mentioned below are in Queensland, but similar records exist in many interstate and overseas repositories.

Before buying a certificate from the Queensland Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages, check whether that certificate is included in a file at Queensland State Archives. If it is, you can either take a digital photograph or save an image to a USB memory stick free of charge. (The Archives keep changing their Web site, so use Google to find the current URL.)

At the Archives you can often see certificates that you cannot buy from the Registry (because of differences in access restrictions). Certificates in archival files are often more accurate than typed copies issued by the Registry now.

From about the mid-1890s onwards, most Queensland Supreme Court 'will' files, and some 'intestacy' files, contain the death certificate. There are also probate files in Queensland for many people who died in other States and countries.

I sometimes find that the information on the death certificate in a probate file and the information on the certificate you bought from the Registry are significantly different! In one case the certificate in the probate file listed children who were not mentioned on the copy my client had bought from the Registry. In another case the probate file's copy showed that a person had lived in both the Northern Territory and Queensland (and how long in each place), but a more recent typed certificate from the Registry did not mention that.

I have seen birth, death and marriage certificates (including some from overseas) in many series of records. They include (but are not limited to):

• Supreme Court probate files ('wills' and 'intestacies'), divorce files and equity files
• Public Curator insanity files and Supreme Court insanity files
• Lands Department selection files
• Colonial Secretary's Office correspondence
• Police staff files
• Court of Petty Sessions maintenance records
• Police watchhouse records.

More information about those sources is in the book Tips for Queensland Research. For wills and probate records see also Queensland Genealogy and Archives Research Tips.

Postscript 1:  For the rest of Australia, see Kerry Farmer's suggestions re certificates.

Postscript 2:  A friend and I are creating an index for certificates that we find in odd places in Archives files. In the future, names from that index will be added to my main Web site.

Supreme Court equity files

I chose this week's topic, Queensland Supreme Court equity files, in honour of Marianne Eastgate, who passed away on 5th September. Marianne was the driving force behind the Pre-Separation project that indexed virtually all records of the Moreton Bay District of New South Wales before it became Queensland in 1859.

Marianne's many other contributions to family history include an index to Queensland's Supreme Court equity cases 1857-1895. The cases include gold miners' disputes; rights of minors, incapacitated persons, lunatics and inmates of asylums; disputes over wills; liquidation of companies; and people with money in a bank. The files contain many birth, death and marriage certificates (including some from overseas), land records, powers of attorney etc. The index, which includes names of most plaintiffs, defendants and witnesses mentioned in the files, is in the Public Search Room at Queensland State Archives.

Supreme Court deed poll records

There is now a 100-year restriction (it used to be only 30 years) on access to Supreme Court deed poll records at Queensland State Archives - but you may be able to apply for access to restricted records via Right to Information. Start by reading the Research Guide to Court records, on the Queensland State Archives website. (They periodically change the website address, so I won't put a link here. You'll find it easily with a Google search.)

Shooting accidents/homicides 1935-1959

Queensland State Archives item ID 318535 (A/45246) is a Police Department file consisting mainly of newspaper clippings about shooting accidents (and some homicides) 1935-1959. I have indexed part of this file and some names are on my main Web site.