If there are women or children in your family history who were marginalised or stigmatised by being homeless, ill, accused of crime, elderly or orphans, this seminar will provide information to support your search for details about them. Presentations will cover marginalised women in England, mother and baby homes in Ireland, welfare institutions in and the Ballarat goldfields as well as prisons and asylums in Queensland.

We will also learn about national and state sources of information to assist our search for Forgotten women and children.

RAFFLE: details and tickets – see bottom of page.

Topics and Program

Starting at 9am

Shauna Hicks – The why, how and the where of homeless women in Colonial Queensland.
This talk explores female vagrancy between 1850 and 1900 and how women, both young and old found themselves in prison for having no fixed abode. The poor, destitute, sick, elderly and those with no family support had few choices. The police and court officials struggled to find alternatives but often gaol was the only answer. The presentation will include examples from archival prison records and colonial newspapers.

Break

10:10am

Joanne Seccombe – Where are the Children? Children and the public record in Queensland.
Search for children in archival records can sometimes be complex and challenging, but Queensland State Archives (QSA) is here to help! This presentation will offer an overview of records held at QSA which relate to children, and include research tips and finding aids for discovering these records as well as information about how to access them. Records of interest include school admission registers, orphanage records, industrial school records, children’s home admissions and discharges files, immigration records and personal files of Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people. It will also address requesting access to records governed by overriding legislation such as adoption, foster and ward of the state records.

Break

11.10am

Daniel Loftus – Trials and tribulations: Mother and Baby Homes.
This presentation will look at the introduction of mother and baby institutions in Ireland, how they came to exist along with looking at the impact that they have had on Ireland and its diaspora.

Lunch

12.45pm

Dr Dot Wickham and Dr Frank Golding – Refuge Rescue Reform: Voices of Suffering and Survival.
This presentation is about Forgotten women and children in the lesser known “Home” and institutions in one goldfields’ location, Ballarat and its surrounds. Although much is known about the major welfare institutions like orphanages and benevolent asylums, little is know about smaller homes or the women and children who used them. In this presentation Frank and Dot talk about their journey in researching this book, their personal reasons for writing, and some of the sources they used to compile the case histories included, and the nine valuable appendices.

Break

2:00pm

Dr Cate O’Neill and Dr Kirsten Wright – The Find and Connect web resource: documenting the histories of Australian institutions for women and children.
The Find & Connect website documents the history of the hundreds of institutions that have existed in Australia since colonization to house “neglected” and “criminal” children, as well as single mothers. While the website does not contain any records about individuals or publish any private information, it contains information about institutions, digitised records and photographs, information about changing legislation and policy, and is a finding aid to the surviving archival records of the government, charitable and religious institutions that made up the child welfare system. This presentation will provide a brief overview of Find & Connect and give practical examples of hour family history researchers can get the most out of its resources.

Break and draw of raffle prizes.

3:10pm

Dr Janet Few – Marginalised Women
Using a series of case studies, this presentation looks at women who may have found themselves on the margins of society and the sources that we can use to trace their stories. The examples may include the sick, prostitutes, those accused of crime, and those in asylums, the poor, the illegitimate and others who were stigmatised by society.

Break

4:10pm

Jan Richardson – Silenced and forgotten: women and children at Dunwich and Woogaroo asylums.
Searching for information about the lives of female ancestors can be extremely challenging. One source you may not have considered is asylum records. In Queensland, women – and even some children – were sent to the Dunwich Benevolent Asylum, for the elderly and infirm, and the Woogaroo Lunatic Asylum, for the mentally unwell, even when they did not fall into either of these categories. Especially during the 1800s when hospital and charitable services were limited, women and children who had epilepsy, were blind, or became paralysed following an accident could be admitted. Others may have had tuberculosis, suffered postnatal depression, or been born – as it was termed at the time – with ‘low intellect’. Even orphaned and abandoned children can be found in asylum admission records. This session will cover records of the Dunwich and Woogaroo asylums from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s.

Finish 5:15pm

 

The Presenters:

Shauna Hicks:
Has been tracing her own family history since 1977 and worked in government for over 35 years in Australian libraries and archives in Brisbane, Canberra, and Melbourne. She has tertiary qualifications from Queensland universities including a Master of Arts in Australian Studies, a Graduate Diploma in Family Historical Studies from the Society of Australian Genealogists. She is a Fellow of the Queensland Family History Society; Patron of History Queensland, and a recipient of the Australian Society of Archivists Distinguished Achievement Award and the Australasian Federation of Family History Organisations’ Service to  Family History Award. She has written numerous family history guides and is a well-known speaker at conferences, seminars, workshops, and genealogy cruises in Australia and overseas. Shauna is the Director of her own genealogy business at www.shaunahicks.com.au and is the author of the blog, Diary of an Australian Genealogist and recently received an OAM for her work.

 

 

Joanne Seccombe:
Is a Senor Reference Archivist who has worked at Queensland State Archives for 14 years. Prior to joining QSA, her extensive experience in collections, archives and records management has seen her in various roles ranging from Federal departments of Defence and Immigration, as well as vocational and educational sectors in Queensland and the ACT including Australian National University and the Australian Federal Police.

 

 

 

Daniel Loftus:
Is a 20 year old genealogist & college student who hails from Cork, Ireland. He is the creator of Project Infant – a passion project dedicated to uncovering the names of those who died in mother and baby homes across Ireland. He’s been doing genealogy since the age of 13 with almost 8 years of experience in the area of Irish genealogy.

 

 

 

Dr Dorothy Wickham:
Is a Director of Ballarat Heritage Services, educator, author and historian. In 2003 Dorothy completed a Master of Philosophy about the Ballarat Female refuge (1867-1921) and in 2008 a PhD, “Women of the Ballarat Goldfield 1851-1871: A Case Study in Agency”. She is a member of the Professional Historians’ Associate (Vic & Tas) (Qld) and a visiting fellow at the Harry Gentle Resource Centre, Griffith University (Qld).
Dorothy has overseen many diverse projects and collaborative efforts, including consultancies with local councils, historical groups, educational research projects and universities. She has written, designed, publish and co-authored many books and book chapters, including The Eureka Encyclopaedia, the overall winner of the 2005 Victorian Community History Awards and Women of the Diggings: Ballarat 1854, commended in 2010. She has also assisted in the creation and maintenance of the Eurekapedia Wiki.

 

 

Dr Frank Golding:
OAM holds degrees from Melbourne and London universities. As an Honorary Research Fellow at Federation University Australia, Frank completed a PhD entitled “Care Leavers Recovering Voice and Agency through Counter-Narratives”. Frank spent his childhood in the Ballarat Orphange. He is a Life Member of CLAN, the nation Care leaver advocacy body. Frank has contributed to formal inquiries dealing with the institutionalisation of children and to a number of national and local projects and has presented papers on child welfare all over Australia and in a number of countries. Frank’s research is published in many books and journal articles.

 

 

Dr Cate O’Neill:
Is a historian who has worked for many years on projects to improve access to child welfare records and raise awareness of Australia’s past practices in the institutionalisation of children. She has worked on the Find & Connect web resource project since it began in 2011 and her research has been published in academic journals.

 

 

 

Dr Kirsten Wright:
Is an archivist and the Program Manager of the Find & Connect web resource, a role she has been in since 2017. In recent years, she has done groundbreaking work on the issue of trauma and archives. Her research on this topic with Nicola Laurent has been published in academic journals, presented in international conferences and they have developed the online course: A Trauma-Informed Approach to Managing Archives for the Australian Society of Archivists.

 

 

Dr Janet Few:
Is a well-known English family and social historian, who has lectured on these topics across the English-speaking world and at sea. She has written several books and two historical novels as well as many magazine articles. Currently, Janet is serving as the president of the Family History Federation. Her talk today reflects her particular interest in marginalised ancestors.

 

 

 

Jan Richardson:
Is a PhD candidate at Griffith University investigating the presence of non-European convicts and indentured labourer (‘coolies’) in Queensland prior to 1860, including ethnic minority individuals of African, Asian and Pacific Island ethnicity. She is also a Research Assistant at Griffith University’s Harry Gentle Resource Centre contributing to a biographical dictionary of Queensland’s early colonial residents. Jan’s publications include “Out of sight, out of mind: Ex-convict female paupers incarcerated in Queensland’s benevolent asylums” in the Journal of Australian Colonial History (Vol. 24, 2022), available to download (open access) via this link: https://blog.une.edu.au/convicthistory/2022/11/18/publications/

 

 

Early Bird if booked by 1st October 2024:
GSQ/QFHS Members $60
Non-members $75

Price from 2nd October 2024:
GSQ/QFHS Members $70
Non-members $85

Tickets will close at 5pm Friday 11th October 2024
The link is included in your registration payment – Please make sure you retain this.
Registrants will be able to view the recording for the following 4 weeks.

QFHS and any GSQ Affiliate/Corporate members you will require to put in your Member No or Branch.

 

Seminar Raffle:

Click on the links below or use the QR Code to purchase the tickets.

FindmyPast: 12 month Pro Subscription

 

 

MyHeritage: 12 month Complete Subscription

 

TheGenealogist: 12 month Diamond Subscription

 

Legacy Family Tree Webinars: 2 x 1 year Subscriptions.

 

 

PLUS Two Door Prizes:
1st Prize – Book: Refuge, Rescue & Reform: Voices of Suffering & Survival by Dorothy Wickham & Frank Golding. Value $44
2nd Prize – $30 voucher to GSQ Bookshop.