Outback Family History – Tips and Tricks
In over the last 30 years or so in helping people to search their family history and of course my own family, a comment often made to me is-
‘Grandma’s death was never registered’.
However, I find that this usually is not the case and a registration not being found could be for several of the following reasons:
Note: In this article I will refer to the Registrar of Birth Deaths and Marriages for Western Australia. Each state runs their own Registry Office and each are operated differently and have different access regulations. Western Australian Registrar of Birth Deaths and Marriages search: http://bit.ly/2GRUcEK
- The most common reason, would be a spelling error. This could happen when the person is registering the event or when the Registrar is adding it to the records. But! its hard to know what to look for if you think the name may have been entered incorrectly.
In this case ‘less is definitely more’.
a) For a death try: delete everything in the search box except the surname and date range. Making sure you take note of the years covered in the online search:
Births 1841-1932, Deaths 1841-1971 and Marriages 1841-1936. (see below)
Example 1
This may help you to scroll through the results and see if you can locate the first name spelled differently, an example, from my own family: – Amelia for Nellie – Nellie for Amelia – Tilly for Philomena, Jack for Giovanni.
People changed their first names and had nick names just as often then as they do now. Although women often altered their names (as per above) it was ‘almost’ the sole prerogative of men to have nick names sometimes quite unrelated to their real name. I don’t know of any women with nicknames, but know that nearly everyone of my husband and sons friends have nick names and I don’t even know their real names at all sometimes.b) If you still have no luck, try shortening the surname by a few letters and use the ‘wildcard’ which is % – shorten Saunders to Sa%, this would also bring up Sanders etc. You can also just use the last part of a name such as %wood – this would bring up differences such as Attwood and Atwood.
c) Widen the range of search years: A birth, death or marriage that occurred late in a year may not have been registered until the following year. Alternatively, the event (particularly a birth) may have occurred in a year earlier than previously known. Sometimes in remote areas it could be even longer till the event is registered.
- For names such a O’BRIEN, don’t use any apostrophes. Any punctuation is not generally included in the online indexes.
- In the case of a stillbirth or a very young child try the following:
a) Look for a birth registration as well as a death registration. The rules are that both events should be registered but this often didn’t happen. You may know that the parents gave the child a first name but the record may just have Stillborn as a first name (see below), also you may think the child was unnamed, but find that a name has been entered which is always nice.
Example 2
- I have seen some names the wrong way round Allan JAMES became James ALLAN.If some of the children in a family are registered it is usually the case that all the children will be, but not in every instance.
- If you are trying to find the marriage partner for someone after 1936 you can try
The Reverse Marriage Index: - Searching for unusual names and the names of Italians etc can be most difficult. Sometimes you can come across five or six different spellings for one name. This could come about because of language problems, Illiteracy or even the anglicisation of names either by the person themselves or by others. So Bartolo may become Bert, Stephano could become Steve and Juan could become Joe. The possibilities are endless.
Just recently I came across the name of Jack DELLA in the Southern Cross Cemetery. This caused me no end of difficulties in finding a registration until, I eventually traced his name to be Giovanni DEL TOMASO. I would say that calling him ‘Jack Della’ was just easier! - While working on various cemetery records I try to include all of the name variations that I find as you never know which name people will be looking for and what name they knew the person by.
- If you are still having problems, you can do a search with just the first name and a date range. This of course will bring up lots of results if it is a common name but as you see with the story below, it sometimes pays off.
The following is about the registration of a death of a young boy who fell down a mine shaft near Broadarrow. His name reported in the newspaper article was ‘Rasmus CONNEY’. I was very interested to find out more about this young fellow as he died before the registry office in Broadarrow opened, so I knew he probably would be registered either in Kalgoorlie (East Coolgardie) or Perth or perhaps both. He also didn’t show up on our list of burials in the cemetery at Broadarrow even though it was reported in the paper that he was buried there. The search method I ended up having success with was, searching just his first name only,which was an unusual one. This is what I found:
CORNELISEN Rasmus Bede, Age 12, Father: Henry Benson CORNELISEN, Mother: Mary BEAHAN Born Paddington NSW, Reg 386/1898.
After finding the correct entry you can see what has happened, you just need to be a bit creative in your searches. Remember! If he had been known by his second name of Bede, (as is often the case), I would have not been able to find him using the above search method, to do this I would have had to use %Bede.
Where possible, when transcribing records for the Outback Family History website, I like to use the ‘local’ registration number such as ’31/1910 Mt Margaret’, this give you the individual registration number, followed by the year of registration (not necessarily the event year) and then the Registry District. The registry district would normally cover several towns so Cue would be in the Murchison Registry District, Paddington would be in the Broadarrow District and so on. When searching the online records and you find a number such as 1444/1902 and then no registry district, this means it is a Perth number. Some times you get the local number and sometimes the Perth one, there is no set rule.
Example 3:
Smith John Age 43 Father: John Mother: Ellen Fairall Born Camden NSW Reg 927, Year 1898.
or
Sharp Robert C Male Reg Boulder 141, Year 1910
In the earlier years, before registry offices opened in each town, events had to be registered in either the nearest regional office, usually Southern Cross ‘Yilgarn’ pre 1896 or in Perth on the State Register. When all these smaller offices opened, an event was first registered with a local number and then a copy sent to Perth and then was given a ‘state’ number’, so most deaths after 1896 have two numbers if they occurred outside of the Perth district. This of course was a possible source of lots of transcription errors. I have both the local and the State copy of the death certificate for my husbands Gr Grandfather who died in Boulder, both are handwritten and not too far apart date wise but there are three differences in the information on the two certificates.
NOTE: If you would like to know the registry district for any place in Western Australia, just email me the place name and I will look it up for you @ research@outbackfamilyhistory.com.au
Over the years there have been different indexes available for people to do their own searches of the BDM records in WA. This has been a real help, as requesting searches to be done for you at the Registrar General is very expensive. The first records to become available was back in the days of micro fiche and microfiche readers. Many of you may never have used or even seen one of these.
Micro Fiche Reader
The first set records were called the ‘Western Australia Pioneer Index’. One big advantage of this, as compared to later versions, is that it give the place of death when searching for a death where the CD and online versions gives you the place of birth. I have always thought this was a mistake as when Im looking for a death, I want to know where it occurred and not where that person was born in NSW which is no help for finding a burial. Of course both would be nice.
The next step up was a CD of the Pioneers Index which like the microfiche was sold by the Registrar General. Both the Fiche sets and the CD are no longer able to be purchased but libraries and Family History Societies will often have them.
When the online version of the Pioneers Index which you see today was launched, people gradually stopped using the fiche and CD versions but the fiche and CD has one more advantage over the online copy. Online, some of the marriage partners are missing. I have no idea how many but I have come across several so there must be quite a few.
So all in all, the three versions have their advantages and disadvantages.
Im not sure when the close off for Kalgoorlie was but now all deaths are registered in Perth only which is a shame I think. It was only in my time, working at the Court House in Kalgoorlie that they took all the registry books back to Perth.
The following are the registry districts which mainly are in the area covered by Outback Family History.
East Coolgardie – 1896→ 2000 Includes the town of Kalgooorlie, Edjudina, Kanowna, Gindalbie, Widgemooltha, Goongarrie, and surrounding areas.
Coolgardie – 1896→1930 Includes Coolgardie and Kurrawang, Kambalda and surrounding areas.
Boulder – 1903→1956 – Includes Boulder, Fimiston, Kamballi and Kalaroo
North East Coolgardie – 1898→1917 – Includes the towns of Kanowna and Bulong and surrounding areas.
North Coolgardie – 1896→1930 Includes the Menzies, Kookynie, Niagara, Davyhurst, Comet Vale and surrounds.
Broad Arrow – 1897→1917 Includes the town of Broadarrow, Paddington, Bardoc and surrounding areas.
Mount Margaret – 1897→ 2000 Includes the town of Leonora, Lawlers, Gwalia, Beria, Darlot, Malcolm, Cosmo Newberry, Mount Margaret, Agnew, Laverton, Burtville, Wiluna and surrounding areas.
Murchison & East Murchison -1896→2000 Includes Meekatharra, Mt Magnet, Cue, Day Dawn Yalgoo and surrounding areas.
Black Range – Sandstone.
Yilgarn: – Southern Cross area.
News from the Registrar General of WA:-
The use of all Registration Districts was abolished on 1 Jan 2000, however, all registrations prior to this date still record the Registration District code as part of the registration number.
In conclusion I would recommend that you try to explore all possibilities and remember, people often supplied wrong information whether by mistake or on purpose, as there was not the cross checking and the proof of identity regulations we now have.
In my opinion the most reliable certificate records are in order:
- Birth Certificates: There is usually no reason to give false information (except perhaps the marriage date of the patents ). Both parents are usually present at the time.
- Marriage Certificates: As with a birth, both parties will need to be present but false details may be given especially as to ‘age’ of the participants.
- Death Certificates: These come last, and although they give a wealth of information sometimes the person who supplies the details may not know the person very well or may only know what they have been told.
If you can access the original handwritten certificate this is better than one that has been transcribed into different format. Each time a record is copied, there is room for error!
Last Tip: Always check ‘TROVE’ , In the days of no TV or radio families would usually put a notice in the local newspaper, especially for a death to inform friends and family and as a mark of respect. You could also be lucky and find an obituary article. Marriages were also reported on in great detail, such as who was there and what they wore and what present were received. If a notice of a birth was posted it may just be very brief, giving the parents and the sex of the baby and where it was born.
Good Luck in your search: If you require any assistance, Im happy to help. If I could ask that you first visit the Outback Family History web site to see what you can find for yourself. If you need any help you can email me at research@outbackfamilyhistory.com.au
Moya Sharp
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