Online Treasure Troves

I’ve recently spent many happy hours trawling through online treasure.

No – not shopping (well, not this time anyway).

Archives. So much rich and wonderful archival data is now available online that it’s hardly necessary to visit in person. Although, obviously, visiting in person is still wonderful.

Trove

From the comfort of my couch, for example, I can read almost any Australian newspaper or periodical published before 1954. Trove, an initiative of the National Library of Australia, is extraordinarily well named. These days it offers far more than just digitised newspapers but they’re such a delight to browse that it’s hard to tear myself away in order to look at old maps. Or photographs. Or music scores. Or how to research the history of your house.

For me, currently, the main attraction at Trove is The Dawn. Louisa Lawson published this journal between 1888 and 1905 and every extant copy (yes, there are some missing) can be read online. Far more than just the content (which is great, just saying) I can also see the layout, the ads, the images, the typos and misprints.

But if you want to wile away a lazy hour, try using Trove to search on the name of one of your Australian ancestors. Or any elderly Australian of your acquaintance. You never know what might appear in their local newspapers – an article about their sporting team, a birth notice, a society event, an advertisement, a funeral. Each one a fascinating little window into the past.

Sands Directories

In the past few weeks I’ve also dived into the Sands Directories. Like an old-fashioned White Pages directory, these artefacts from the late 1800s and early 1900s list the head of every household and business in the Sydney metropolitan area and in rural centres too.*

I can search by street, or I can search by last name. It’s astonishing.

I’ve been able to trace, for example, the various CBD addresses of The Dawn as Louisa Lawson moved her growing printing operations. I followed up a hint that she lived for a time in Manly, and was able to confirm it. And I can see when she moved to Marrickville (in 1905, when she was 57) and that her youngest son Peter moved his family from Rockdale to Marrickville – presumably to be nearer to her, in her retirement – a few years later.

State Libraries

The state library websites and online catalogues are great fun to browse too. Not only to discover what they have on hand, but to be presented with digitised manuscripts, scrapbooks and photos. The Mitchell Library, for example, holds this fabulous scrapbook full of Lawson family photos and drawings.

My favourite is this drawing at right, by Louisa’s second son Charles.

It’s worth joining your State Library (it’s free) just to be able to fully access their online resources.

World Class Artworks

Museums, art galleries, libraries – they all dedicate time and (a great deal of) money to these digital resources that bring their treasures into our homes. Go on, indulge yourself. Visit the Louvre. The V&A. The Getty.

You’ll be all the richer for it.

* The Melbourne version, called the Sands MacDougall directories, are online via the State Library of Victoria.