VENUE: St Marks Church Hall, Scott Street, Bellerive
GUEST SPEAKER: Elisabeth Wilson
TOPIC: Using the Scottish Kirk Sessions records for family history
Each parish of the Church of Scotland has a kirk session, whose duty is to care for the spiritual needs of the congregation and maintain good order, including administering discipline and superintending the moral and religious condition of the parish.
In previous centuries this included poor relief and also dealing with such matters as illegitimate babies. The records are available to search free of charge on the Scotland’s People website.
This talk will explain how to use the records, despite the absence of any indexing, and how valuable they can be for dealing with researching brick walls.
Dr Elisabeth Wilson has a long-standing interest in Australian Christian history, with doctoral research on late nineteenth century British evangelists in Australia. Elisabeth has worked as an archivist, teacher, researcher, and genealogist. Her Tasmanian roots go back to the early 1840s, with not a convict to be seen, but both research and Ancestry DNA show her to be 75% Scottish.
Thu 16 Apr – 10 am Hobart Committee
VENUE: Branch Library, Bellerive
Thu 16 Apr – 1:30 pm DNA Group
VENUE: St Marks Church Hall, Scott Street, Bellerive
Thu 23 Apr - 2 pm Library Committee
VENUE: Branch Library, Bellerive
Tue 19 May – 7:30 pm General Meeting
VENUE: Old Sunday School, St Johns Park Precinct
SPEAKER: Alison Alexander
TOPIC: Outlandish or Euphonious? Aboriginal placenames in Tasmania 1803-1926
A small group from the Committee has taken on a project of reviewing the branch library and office space, including reorganising some of the shelving to make better use of the space constraints. This will include purchasing more adjustable shelving and then rationalising the layout of books, especially the oversize books, into logical locations. We will be maintaining the Dewey library organisational system, with any relocations carefully coordinated by our librarian, Judith Mudaliar. Yes, there will be change, but we plan to have an indexed resource with a map of the library (thankyou Pat Barwick) showing in which section a particular book or set of books is located. All this is to make better use of the space and to make it easier for anyone to find what they are looking for – some of us still can’t do this without help.
There is a cabinet in the library with a special hanging system for full-size old maps of districts in Tasmania. They are difficult to access and remove, so we doubt that anyone ever looks at them, or even knows they are there. One map – Buckingham (Hobart area) from circa 1890 - has been scanned and put on the computer system. If you are in the library, please check it out and tell us if you think it would be useful to have the rest of the maps scanned and made available.
For a high-resolution scan of a large map, the price was less than $2.00 so cost is not an issue. I’m a map person, so I’m biased.
Ros Escott escottros@esco.au
With the recent retirement of two experienced library assistants, we urgently need volunteers to take their places. If you can help for a session, please contact Judith Mudaliar at jude1710@bigpond.com.
Membership fees for the oncoming year 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027 are due now.
The renewal form was posted with the Tasmanian Ancestry Journal Vol 46 No. 4 in early March. If you have not yet paid your subscription and have misplaced the renewal form, please let us know at membership@tasfhs.org and we will arrange a replacement.
Payment methods are endorsed on the renewal form. Members can now renew online by debit/credit card through our website. Find more details here: www.tasfhs.org/renew
This will reduce the society’s bank charges and save time for our hard-working volunteers.
Direct deposit, cheques or postal orders are still acceptable.
If using direct deposit, it is very important that your 8-digit CRN is used as the reference. In the past a number of deposits have been made that can’t be identified due to lack of CRN details. The CRN is clearly marked on the front, bottom right-hand side of the renewal form.
Cheques are still acceptable and should be sent to:
Membership Registrar
TFHS INC
PO Box 326
ROSNY PARK TAS 7018
We look forward to your continued membership and hope you enjoy the articles in Tasmanian Ancestry.
Contributor: Garry Ling
Recently, FamilySearch expanded its free online archives with over 30 million new records from 28 different countries. Some exciting additions include 21 million court registers from Ireland, 3.6 million public records from the United States, and 2 million census and civil records from Italy.
Other countries with significant record additions include the following:
/www.familysearch.org/en/blog/new-records-march-2026
Discover free resources, guides, and tips to help you on your journey to discover your ancestors. https://sog.org.uk/learn/learning-hub/
www.family-tree.co.uk/how-to-guides
www.family-tree.co.uk/how-to-guides/how-to-use-maps-for-family-history-research/
Lois Calvert's Tasmanian and Norfolk Island family history memoirs written as Tasmanian and Norfolk Island essays is now online.
The website also includes a slightly updated version of Lois and her mother Edith's book, The Johnsons of Castle Hill (1996) and other essays about the Johnson family. Lois is a sixth generation Tasmanian. On her mother's side, she is descended from the convict Joseph Johnson who arrived with the first British settlement in 1804. He was pardoned after seven years and went on to become a successful landowner and farmer in the Kempton (Green Ponds) area. Signage at St Mary's Church of England, Kempton states that 'Land and money towards the completion of the church was provided by Joseph Johnson (1774-1852), a wealthy emancipated convict who had large and holdings in Green Ponds'.
https://loiscalvertmemoirs.com.au/
From the ABC Hobart Radio, Mel Bush interviews Alastair Douglas OAM who reminisces about the organisation and aspects of the 3 Peaks Race. These races began in 1989 and continued for 25 years until 2013. Interview starts at 43 minutes 20 seconds and goes for about 17 minutes. www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/hobart-sundays/sundays/106524218
If you are interested in further information about the 3 Peaks Races, their website is www.threepeaks.org.au/
Presented in partnership with the School of Humanities, University of Tasmania.
We invite you to join us for our annual research seminar. This seminar will focus on the ways convict women navigated the rules and regulations of the convict system: did they submit or did they rebel? Did they choose a path somewhere in-between? Was it a conscious decision or a ‘choice’ they were forced into? What were the consequences of the path they took?
The registration details and pricing are now available on our website. You have the option of attending in person or online via Zoom webinar. Registrations for in-person attendance should be finalised by 27 April 27.
Our venue for 2026 will be the Stanley Burbury Theatre at the University of Tasmania, a spacious facility enabling easy social distancing and parking. If you are attending the seminar in person and would like the opportunity to connect on the day with other attendees who may be researching the same convict women you can register your interest by emailing recollectionstas@gmail.com with the following: your name; the name of your convicts; the name of the ship they arrived on and the year they arrived.
If you have any queries, please contact seminar@femaleconvicts.org.au We look forward to seeing you at the Seminar!
Contributor: Chris Spry
Use these searchable databases to locate a burial/cremation in cemeteries in suburban and outer suburbs of Melbourne. The GMCT database lists all burials in the one plot, and this feature has recently been made available on the SMCT database
Greater Melbourne Cemetery Trust: https://gmct.com.au/find-a-grave
Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust: wwww.smct.org.au/deceased-search
There are some very old cemeteries here, with burials in the late 19th century. Use these sites in conjunction with other relevant sources including -
Victoria BDM index - www.bdm.vic.gov.au/search-your-family-history
Trove for names and addresses associated with the person and BDM events: https://trove.nla.gov.au/search/advanced/category/newspapers
Deceased estates: https://prov.vic.gov.au/explore-collection/explore-topic/wills-and-probates
Headstone inscriptions - index only www.ancestry.com/search/collections/61309 : Ancestry subscription required to see the record or come into the branch library and use our Ancestry.
And it is the unexpected finds that can be quite exciting for the researcher.
Happy hunting.
The following items were accessioned during March 2026
*Colwell, M. Whaling around Australia
Dunn, C. Norfolk Islanders at Hobart - the early years -1805-1809 629.28 COL 994.82 DUN
TFHS Inc. Hobart Branch Undertakers of Hobart. Index to Millington Pty. Ltd Funeral Records Vol. IV, Part 14 June 1985-July 1988
Q 929.31099461 UND
* Denotes complimentary or donated item