Join us for History Council of NSW celebrations for History Week when we host Writing A Distant Dream – Pioneering Saga: Author Talk by Pamela J McGlinn. Pam loves family history and has written three novels incorporating facts from her family research. Pam will talk about writing her family history, pioneers of Spring Hill, and events that shaped a family's destiny. Pam is a direct descendant of the Warburton and Seaton families, well known faces from the past in the Blayney, Spring Hill and Orange communities. You are invited to come along and meet Pam at Blayney Library, Adelaide Street, Blayney on Thursday 9 September from 11.30am – 12.30pm - please RSVP to 6368 2581 or Orange City Library, Byng Street, Orange on Thursday 9 September at 5.30pm for 6pm – 7pm and please RSVP to 6393 8132. We're there!

Peter Schmich will be guest speaker at Orange and District Historical Society's mining meeting at the Gladstone Hotel on Wednesday, August 25. He will be talking about the long history of mining at Cargo and surrounding areas.There will also be contributions from a number of Cargo district residents who will be attending the meeting.

Alluvial gold was first discovered at Cargo in 1868 in Long Gully, which prompted a rush of 500 miners. Further gold was discovered in 1869 and the area was declared a goldfield. In 1872 more gold was discovered over the hill to the west at Gum Flat and further enhanced the settlement. Hotels and stores and a school were established as the population increased.

There was a quiet period after 1879 but the field was revived with the injection of much new capital into the Ironclad mine. Significant mining petered out in 1904 but there is still hope that the Ironclad will someday reopen.

At its peak Cargo had three hotels, various stores and a flour mill. There were numerous churches and schools at Cargo and Gum Flat, where there was also a butter factory. Cargo is located where the old Three Chain Road from Orange to Nanima near Canowindra crosses the Ironclad Range.

The meeting will take place at the Gladstone Hotel function room on Wednesday, August 25 at 7 for 7.30pm. Everyone is welcome. There is a small charge of $3 for members of Orange and District Historical Society and $5 for non-members, to cover costs. Light refreshments will be served. If you have any inquiries or would like to attend the meeting, please RSVP to Phil Stevenson on 6362-3257, mobile 0402 412 188 or email ibiswines@bigpond.com

Everyone has a story to tell about local breweries and hotels, it seems, so Orange and District Historical Society's next 'Made in Orange' meeting, on Wednesday, July 28, will be sure to evoke some lively discussion.

In the days before railway lines, when the transportation of heavy items such as beer meant long and arduous journeys over difficult terrain, it was not surprising that towns of any size had several breweries to serve the local population. A number of breweries sprung up in Orange so that locals could slake their thirst, such as Henry Boxall's Brewery at Narrambla (1852), John Chynoweth's Brewery, the Standard Brewery (also known as Elwin's Brewery), and the Red Lion Brewery, which went under a number of names over the years including Burton Brewery, Lindsay's Brewery, Lords Place Brewery and Orange Brewery. The hotels they served were many and varied, some changing their names over the years.

The Club Hotel, with its distinctive long, wide verandahs, occupied the corner of Summer Street and Lords Place for many years. The site is now taken up by the Hotel Canobolas. Diagonally opposite, the Royal Hotel was once called the Wellington Inn and was a booking office for Cobb & Co carriages. Hotels occupied the corners of many streets in Orange, such as the Exchange Hotel, which was situated where the Westpac Bank is now, on the corner of Summer and Anson streets. Some betrayed the Irish origins of their owners, such as the Daniel O'Connell Hotel, which was situated between Kite and Moulder streets and owned by Pat Fahy.

Guest speakers will be Toney Fitzgerald and Ross Maroney. Orange born Toney Fitzgerald is writing a book on local breweries, while historian Ross Maroney is well known in the city for his knowledge of local historical buildings and his fine drawings of places of interest.

The meeting will take place at the Gladstone Hotel function room at 7 for 7.30pm. There is a small charge of $3 for members of Orange and District Historical Society and $5 for non-members, to cover costs. Light refreshments will be served. If you have any inquiries or would like to attend the meeting, please RSVP to Phil Stevenson on 6362-3257, mobile 0402 412 188 or email ibiswines@bigpond.com

Tracing your family history is fast becoming a favourite pastime for many but where do you start? During National Family History Week Orange City Library is hosting a one hour seminar titled "Tracing Your Family History – A Beginners Guide" to help family historians get started on the right path.

You can discover all the best tips and resources to begin researching your family history at Orange City Library on Wednesday 4 August from 2.30pm to 3.30pm. To book your place, please call the Library on 6393 8132.

Participants in the seminar will also learn about useful family history resources from catalogues to newspapers, websites and photographs.

Great interest is expected in Orange and District Historical Society's next 'Made in Orange'meeting, on Wednesday, May 26, which will focus on the local manufacturers of soft drinks and aerated waters. Many local families were involved in the industry and relics of its hey-day can be seen in collections of fascinating cordial and ginger beer bottles.

George Weily is believed to have been the first manufacturer of cordials and ginger beer in Orange in the 1860s. He had been a policeman, then a hotelier in Orange in the 1850s before opening his factory. Others mentioned in 1865 were Richard Bates and Henry Windred.

By 1872 two other cordial manufacturers were listed: Wynne Brothers operated the Pioneer Steam Aerated Water and Cordial Manufactury in Summer Street. J Parker had the Phoenix Aerated Water and Cordial Manufactury in Anson Street. These were followed by names such as Wynne and Smith, W J Stabback,Butler and Barrett,(1881), Barrett's, W H Brown, Lindsay's, Weily and Heavner, Sharpe Brothers Davis and Potter, and Davis and Mayfield. The last two manufacturers were Weily Brothers and Mayfield's.

Guest speaker will be Ron Gander, who has been a bottle collector and historian for many years. He will talk about the evolution of soft drink and ginger beer bottles with illustrations from his interesting and colourful collection.It is hoped there will also be contributions from the Brown, Weily, Sharpe,Mayfield and Barrett families.

The meeting will take place at the Gladstone Hotel function room at 7 for 7.30pm. There is a small charge of $3 for members of Orange and District Historical Society and $5 for non-members, to cover costs. Light refreshments will be served. If you have any inquiries or would like to attend the meeting, please RSVP to Phil Stevenson on 6362-3257, mobile 0402 412 188 or email ibiswines@bigpond.com

A few weeks ago we welcome the Federation of First Fleeters to the Library to give them an overview of some of the online resources available. You might find it useful too.

One of the principal sources of information when tracing convict ancestors is the State Records Authority of New South Wales. This is the access point to their Guides and Finding Aids and their online indexes. Many of the most popular records are held in microform by libraries such as ours so once you find the reference you can visit the library and examine a copy of the original record. Increasingly State Records is digitising some of these; the most exciting to date is the digitisation of some of the shipping records.

The National Archives of Australia is also an excellent source of information for later arrivals.

The State Library of NSW has developed a series of research guides to help clients work through their vast collections. Of particular interest to family historians are those for convicts and shipping.

The Australian Newspapers service allows access to historic Australian newspapers digitised as part of the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program. This database is being added to on a daily basis and includes the Sydney Gazette and the Sydney Morning Herald. Put aside a good few hours to play with this on-line!

The Ryerson Index to contemporary Birth Death and Marriage Records is a great way to track ancestors and their look up service is an example of how family historians help each other. Do not be fooled by the word contemporary as there are a range of dates in here.

Another favourite is the Australian Cemeteries Index, a searchable data base. It initially concentrated on cemeteries in regional NSW but is now expanding Australia wide. One of the really great things about this database is that there are images of many of the headstones so you can see it for yourself and read any additional information.

It is always a plus if you can discover pictorial material relating to your family and where they lived or worked. Many of the sites already listed will have image collections %u213 ie National Library, State Library, State Records, National Archives and local libraries. There are some overlaying search engines such as Picture Australia but many collections are stand alone databases and many more are not digitised at all.

The same goes for maps though NSW Parish maps can be found at the NSW Land and Property Management Authority's website at

The saga of mining at Brown's Creek will be the subject of Orange and District Historical Society's next mining meeting at the Gladstone Hotel on Wednesday, February 24.

Brown's Creek (sometimes called Cowriga Creek) is a significant creek in the Millthorpe-Blayney area. The mine is where the Blayney-Cadia Road crosses the Spring Terrace-Carcoar road. Gold was reputedly discovered in the area by Norwegian Norvis Gotterty in 1867. Other miners soon followed and by 1873 there were three stores, two pubs and a butcher's shop. By 1878 there were 200 miners plus a local farming population. The Brown's Creek Gold Mining Company continued mining until 1888 when problems with water forced the mine's closure.

In 1895 a French company, Compagnie des Mines d'Or, spent £50,000 importing a marine engine from Glasgow and installing a large stamping battery. The company sank a shaft into the old workings which subsequently collapsed and forced the mine to close in 1901. In 1904 open-cut mining began, using cyanide to treat the old tailings. Mining continued until the late 1930s but low grades made it unprofitable. Michael Hickey obtained the leases in 1979 and opened a new shaft and drives. In 1986 he sold the mine to BHP Minerals, which in 1993 sold it to Hargraves resources. A South African company took it over in 1999 but six weeks later, an aquifer was hit, the mine was flooded and abandoned.

It was purchased in 2001 by Australian Native Landscapes, which ingeniously makes use of the site, the water and the limestone and mullock heaps to produce compost, decorative gravels and road base on a large scale.

Guest speaker Trevor Pascoe is a descendant of a family which has had close associations with mining and farming in the district and is currently president of Millthorpe and District Historical Society. He will be joined by John Campbell, who was mining engineer at the site from 1982-87, before moving on to the nearby Junction Reefs mine at Mandurama.

The meeting will take place at the Gladstone Hotel function room at 7 for 7.30pm. There is a small charge of $3 for members of Orange and District Historical Society and $5 for non-members, to cover costs. Light refreshments will be served. If you have any inquiries or would like to attend the meeting, please RSVP to Phil Stevenson on 6362-3257, mobile 0402 412 188 or email ibiswines@bigpond.com

The Fellowship of the First Fleeters will hold a meeting in the Local Studies Room at the Orange City Library on Saturday 20th February 2010 when they will focus on the records held by the Library which can assist in this area of research. Everyone is welcome to attend.

The meeting will commence at 1.45pm and go through until 3.45pm ... and yes, a cup of tea will be provided.

For further information contact Amada or Phil Foster on 63602117 or 0400383173.

If you wish to learn more about the history of the Cherry Blossom Festival and the Apple Country Fair that followed, then come along to the Orange and District Historical Society's next meeting to be held at the Gladstone Hotel, Orange, Wednesday 27 January at 7pm for 7.30pm. For some time the Society has been researching this fascinating festival history and is busy compiling a list of Cherry Blossom Queens. The evening includes supper and cost is $5 for non-members and $3 for members. Please RSVP to Phil Stevenson on 0402 412 188 to attend. Pictured is 1959 Cherry Blossom Queen Miss Marlene Sands.

Post Christmas is an ideal time to do some internet surfing, mince pie and cuppa on hand.

A website is being developed to display passenger lists for those emigrating to other countries such as Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa and USA. At last count, some 24 million passengers who sailed from Britain in the decades 1890 to 1960 were online. The site is a work in progress with further information being added.

Visit

This site is sponsored by findmypast.com. The index comes up free of charge but there is a charge if you want to see a transcript or an image of the list containing specific people.