The North West Post (1887 - 1916) An index for Family Historians

Volume 6 1909

Publication No. 324   Size: A4   Weight: 430 grams

The North-West Post newspaper was first published at Formby, River Mersey (now the City of Devonport) on 02 April 1887, under the editorship of W. Fisher. It consisted of four pages of local advertising and news, published twice weekly, all of which makes wonderful reading for the family historian with the time to browse. The North-West Post became a daily in October 1905.

The paper concentrated its news gathering activities around the twin towns of Torquay and Formby, the coastal townships of Don, Forth, Ulverstone, and Penguin, and the inland townships of Latrobe, Sassafras, Kentishbury (Sheffield), Gawler, Castra, Sprent, and Abbotsham etc. The news is mostly local and "about people."

Searching through old newspapers, with their fine print and lack of bold headlines, in the hope of finding that elusive clue to an ancestor's origins is a task for the dedicated family historian. It is a time-consuming and frustrating exercise, not always successful, but never entirely wasted time. Being made aware of the diversity of the published news items and articles in the North-West Post, the Devonport branch of the then Genealogical Society of Tasmania Inc., undertook a long term project to produce an index to this newspaper, to be published in four or more volumes, of which this is the fourth to be published.

This index differs from most other genealogical orientated indexes to births, marriages, and deaths in that it includes (in note form) much of the information actually published at the time.

We felt that it may not always be possible for a researcher to immediately view the microfilm copy of the newspaper to confirm the relevance of an entry, especially as film of a small provincial newspaper such as this one may not be available locally. This does not negate the necessity to actually view the entry in its entirety but does give sufficient information to identify an individual where such information has been published.

Not only have we indexed the paid notices of births, marriages, and deaths, but we have included obituaries, descriptions of weddings, removals from the district, and descriptive articles by news reporters visiting country districts: in fact anything what we thought could be of interest to anyone looking to add flesh to the bones of their ancestors.

As in previous volumes a resume of information taken from the paper is set out in chronological order. Please note that the information in the text may have been taken from one or more news items or notices in the one issue of the newspaper.

The index to this volume also includes several areas of cross-indexing