Traces

This magazine is for people passionate about Australia and New Zealand's genealogy, history and heritage. Whether you want to explore convict history, find your Anzac, identify photographs or trace your family tree, our trusted expert advice will help you discover your past.

Welcome to the 15th edition of Traces!

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Traces

Heritage News

FREMANTLE MARKETS • Built in 1897, Fremantle Markets has a rich history that has helped to make it one of the most-visited places in Western Australia.

The friendly games • Stories of love, war and unity during the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.

How a biography brought me to family history • Back in the early 2000s, the Australian Dictionary of Biography decided to prepare a supplement volume of ‘missing persons’ to try, in some small part, to counterbalance the dictionary’s preponderance of entries on wealthy white men. The editor said, ‘You’re Tasmanian, would you like to do an entry on Musquito?’ I had only a faint sense of who Musquito was. Little did I know, I would still be writing about him today.

SQUIZZY TAYLOR

Re-reading the signs of our times • By revisiting the work of Australia’s sign-writers, not only do we gain insight into the ‘invisible’ workers responsible for some of the most visible aspects of our cities, but we also develop a unique perspective of Australian history.

The life, love and art of William T. Cooper • William T. (Bill) Cooper was a prolific artist throughout his life, most notably as a painter of birds, but also of mammals, landscapes, seascapes and plants – numerous plants.

The wreck of the preussen • Discrimination, vaccination and federation in colonial waters

Before the Armistice: Vera Deakin’s search for the missing • Vera Deakin, daughter of former Australian Prime Minister Alfred Deakin, became the inaugural secretary of the Australian Red Cross Society’s (ARCS’s) Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau in 1915, first in Cairo and later in London. Cooperating with the British Red Cross Society (BRCS) inquiry bureau, Vera showed outstanding leadership of her team of volunteers. Both bureaus used ‘searchers’ who sought details in military camps and hospitals about soldiers listed as missing or killed.

Murder in Tungamah • The township of Katamatite is a small community on the way to Tungamah in northern Victoria. In modern times, it’s considered a remote town, but in 1914 it was an isolated part of the world that became the site of a truly heinous crime.

The real Michael Howe • For more than 200 years, the story of bushranger Michael Howe has been greatly distorted, with the facts buried beneath murky layers of falsehood and political disinformation.

The tale of Miss Jessie Dunraven Burls • A fiesty Australian temperance worker in the 1910s and 1920s, Jessie Burls reinvented herself from a poor, rural Tasmanian girl of convict ancestry into a descendant of the Irish nobility. Both Jessie and her convict grandmother, Johanna, took respectability into their own hands.

Heraldry in family history • If you’ve discovered a family crest or coat of arms on your old family documents, you’re one of a lucky few Australian researchers.

Working on Aboriginal stories

THE PORTRAIT DETECTIVE • The year 1854 was a time of huge change in our country. Colonies had started to separate from New South Wales and self-govern, Cobb & Co had just come into being, Indigenous men sought work opportunities with the Native Police Corps as trackers and bush guides, burlesque and theatre were huge, and people were pouring in from around the world in the hope of discovering gold. Oh, and a little event called the Eureka Stockade was about to kick off.

What’s new online? • The latest updates and additions to historical collections available...