Guest Blog Post: Using Australian Post Office Directories to Trace Ancestors

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Oct 272010
 


As we prepare for the AddressingHistory launch we are delighted to welcome another guest blogger to the AddressingHistory blog.

Shauna Hicks has been tracing her own family history since 1977 and holds a Diploma in Family Historical Studies from the Society of Australian Genealogists. Having worked in government for over 35 years, primarily in libraries and archives in Brisbane, Canberra and Melbourne, Shauna is currently Director of Shauna Hicks History Enterprises and regularly blogs about genealogy news, events and experiences.

Shauna is a collaborative partner in Unlock The Past a new venture promoting history, genealogy and heritage in Australia and New Zealand. She is a Fellow of the Queensland Family History Society; a recipient of the Australian Society of Archivists Distinguished Achievement Award and in 2009 received the AFFHO Services to Family History Award.

Shauna has written a piece for us on the usefulness of Post Office Directories in her own family history research.

Using Australian Post Office Directories to Trace Ancestors

Post office directories (PODs) have similar contents regardless of where in the world they were published. In Australia due to our smaller population in the 19th century, PODs tend to list most people (usually the head of the family) who were resident in a given area. Even miners can be found if they stayed long enough in an area to make it on the annual POD. While there are State based directories, there are also individual ones for capital cities and for regional areas. There were numerous publishers over the years but well known names include Sands and Wise.

An example from my own family history will highlight both the usefulness and the potential traps of using directories for family history research. All information should be confirmed by at least two different sources.

The 1898 Wise Directory for Queensland lists my Scottish gg grandfather John Carnegie as a selector living at Toorbul, 41 miles north of Brisbane. Listed as a selector indicates that he had land and a land search revealed he selected two farming areas. John’s daughter Clara married Charles Davis and a Charles Davies is listed as a selector living at Toorbul. Researchers need to be flexible with spelling as in this instance Davies is in fact Davis.

The 1909 Wise Directory still has John living at Toorbul but he died in 1903 so researchers need to be aware that directories may not be totally accurate but provide clues to be followed up. Similarly a Chas Davies is still listed at Toorbul and illustrates how given names may be abbreviated and taken into account when searching. Charles disappeared in the Western Australian goldfields ca 1895 so he wasn’t there in either 1898 or 1909 but had been living there prior to going to WA in 1893.

The majority of Australian PODs have been digitised by Archive Digital Books Australasia and are available for individual sale. They are also in the collections of FindMyPast.com.au and Ancestry.com.au. Western Australian PODs are searchable online 1893-1949 for free at the State Library of WA.  A useful article by Graham Jaunay on Directories and Almanacs is available online and in my article Find Your Ancestors in Church Publications Part 2 I used directories to find out what churches existed in places my ancestors lived.

Over the years I have found Australian PODs extremely useful in my research and with digitised copies and online access it is easier than ever to use directories. I already know that John Carnegie’s wife Helen Stratton was the daughter of Charles Straton listed in the 1842 Oliver & Boyd’s New Edinburgh Almanac and National Repository as a writer in Montrose. The Stratton family moved to Edinburgh and lived there between 1847 and 1859. I am really excited and looking forward to accessing Edinburgh directories online and finding out new information on my families.

Guest Blog Post: Using Post Office Directories to Research “Lower Class” Ancestors

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Aug 252010
 

Today we are excited to introduce our first guest blogger, Emma Jolly. Emma is a professional genealogist and historical researcher (more information on her website: www.genealogic.co.uk), she is also the author of Family History for Kids. Emma has written for us about how she has found post office directories, like those in AddressingHistory, valuable whilst undertaking research and particularly focuses on those people who may not traditionally appear as prominently in the directories.

Using Post Office Directories to Research “Lower Class” Ancestors

Most family historians know how useful post office directories can be in researching ancestors of high social status or those with shops. But directories often seem less useful for investigating the lives of the working classes.

London Post Office directories are similar to those in Edinburgh and have helped me to trace owners of private schools, china shops, lawyers and senior members of the clergy. However, I have also used them to find out more about members of the working class.

Although the Private Residents section tends to include middle or upper class inhabitants, the Trades section can include workers like cabinet makers, commercial travellers or laundresses. And the appearance (or not) of your ancestors in a series of years provides an insight into the success of their business over time.

For those tracing the history of a school, the directories’ school lists are essential for pinpointing when the school opened and any subsequent name changes. Street and public house name changes can also be thus identified – useful for all in streets, and for those who either worked in or regularly visited local pubs.

The descriptions of areas of the city tell us about the nature of your ancestors’ immediate environment in that specific year. Was it ‘healthy’ or ‘populous’, rural or industrial; how many railway stations did it have, and were there any trams? What workhouses existed and where in the city were they?

My great great grandfather, William Jolly, lived and worked as an apprentice blacksmith in the Auchinblae and Fordoun area in 1861. Even though I have visited this quiet and remote region, I may never have known that it once included “a thriving modern village” without the use of a local directory [Pigot and Co.’s National Commercial Directory of the whole of Scotland, and of the Isle of Man 1837 (Kincardineshire)]. And the description of the flax mill and the weaving industry in which “the greater proportion of the industrious classes here find employment” could explain why William’s sisters were later working in a flax mill in the town of Montrose.

When trying to track a likely church for a baptism or burial for any class of ancestor, the list of churches with denominations for the relevant year can help to simplify the search. In the later Victorian years, churches were built regularly and our ancestors often shifted adherence. With a shorter list, the research should be less arduous.

A glance at the Commercial section for businesses in that street where your ancestors lived [by using censuses or BMD (Births, Marriages, Death) certificates] gives an indication of the world with which they were familiar. A street of hotels, or coffee houses; piano makers or dressmakers; schools or factories – what did your ancestors see everyday? Was there a library on the corner, long since closed, where they could educate themselves in adulthood?

I have traced Londoners of every social class within the city and to as disparate parts of the globe as Scotland, France and India. Directories are always useful in my research and if I can access them online, then, all the better.

If you are would like to contribute a guest post to this blog on any topic related to the AddressingHistory project then please email us: addressing.history@ed.ac.uk.