The future of genealogy in Australia
MARCH 2017 marked the 40th anniversary of when I first started researching my own family history. Having watched the television series Roots, I was totally hooked on the idea of tracing my own family stories and learning more about my ancestors. It even led to a career change and I was able to work in a number of major archives and libraries within Australia where I had the opportunity to research my ancestors firsthand.
Compared to what we have today, back then — the 1970s — was like the Dark Ages. There were no computers, few indexes, no internet, no email and Queensland did not even have a genealogy or family history society. I still have the first genealogy book I ever purchased, Roots and Branches: Ancestry for Australians by Errol Lea-Scarlett and it was not published until 1979.
Looking back, it is hard to imagine doing research by writing letters and waiting sometimes months for answers. Fortunately family history research became popular in Australia from the late 1970s and genealogy and family history societies were the place to go for help and to learn about resources. Society members transcribed monumental inscriptions
