Website Wednesday - Australian Cemeteries Index

While I love travelling and physically experiencing history, it is not always practical or possible to do so. Let's face it, sometimes life just gets in the way! Thankfully technological advances, talented people, businesses and organizations now provide us with work around opportunities that can help us jump over such hurdles and allow us to continue our journey. Over the past decade or so an assortment of websites have provided me with information that advanced my research, solved mysteries, revealed fact from fiction and encouraged and nurtured my passion for genealogy, all from the comfort of my home office. With this in mind I thought that I would use this blog to record some of my favourites on 'Website Wednesdays'.
The Australian Cemeteries Index website by Reg McDonell has been a long time favourite of mine. Headstone inscriptions can be very revealing and are a precious resource for researchers. Having such a quality website, that is easy to use, has a searchable database and digital images of the majority the headstones listed, at your fingertips whenever you like is a wonderful.

Example of the website information

Inscription details for my Great Great Grandfather James Donnelly (1841-1900) and his son Edward (1868-1908)

Source: Inscription for James Donnelly (n.d.) Australian Cemeteries Index. Retrieved from http://austcemindex.com/inscription.php?id=8643832

Comments

The Kendall Children.

I started this post a while ago and was going to finally finish and post it yesterday however our four grandchildren came over and I got sidetracked. Our grandchildren range in age now from six down to one; they are so full of life (each of them lights up a room when they enter it) and we feel extremely blessed to have them in our lives. After spending the afternoon researching this post, their arrival made this tragedy even more poignant for me and so I appreciated their company even more than usual and hugged them a bit tighter too! This morning I woke up to a cold, wet and windy Wagga day and the thought of three little girls out in August weather like this, in light weight dresses with no shoes or jumpers impacted on me even more. Those poor babies! One of the girls was found still clasping her doll that she had carried with her over the whole tragic journey. When my husband and I were looking around the Wagga Wagga Monumental Cemetery some time ago we came a...

My First Fleet Connection - Mary Turner (aka Mary Wilkes/Wilks)

My 5th Great Grandmother Mary Turner (also known as Mary Wilks/Wilkes) is my earliest known and documented Australian relative. She was tried at Worcester on 5th March 1785 and sentenced to seven years. Mary arrived on the ship Lady Penrhyn in 1788. It seems the 5th of March was not an auspicious trial date for Mary in 1785 or later in 1789! On the 5th March 1789 she was tried for stealing six cabbages from the garden of William Parr, she was found guilty and sentenced to 50 lashes. Later in March 1789 she also was in trouble for her testimony in the trial of Royal Marines accused of stealing from the government stores (six of them were found guilty and executed) in which it was believed by some that she had perjured herself. Mary was sent to Norfolk Island in 1790 on board the ship Sirius . Apparently she stayed on Norfolk Island until 1793 when she returned to Port Jackson on board the ship Kitty . Her de fact...

Time for a happy dance! Well kind of .....poor Catherine!

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