An Excellent Day

 On Friday 7 August I attended an all day seminar at the Western Sydney Records Centre, Kingswood. They are part of Museums of History NSW. (We still call the NSW State Archives.) The seminar was on Vital Records: Tracing Births, Deaths and Marriages in NSW.

After a welcome by Martyn Killion A/Chief Executive Officer, Museums of History NSW, it was time for the talks to begin.

Louise Briffa, Director, Operations and Service Delivery, NSW Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages was our first speaker and she gave a talk on the history of registration in NSW. She explained various things about the records and answered questions. 

Morning tea was provided and it was a chance to catch-up with friends and enjoy standing in the sunshine.

Heather Garnsey OAM was next with her excellent talk on using church records to solve problems and add more details. She explained that there are more to church records than the registers and they have different information  to the registers. Things like visiting books or conformation records.

Lunch was again spent outside in the sunshine, enjoying the company of friends.

Angela Phippen was our after lunch speaker and she talked about divorce records in NSW, the grounds for divorce in NSW and the various matrimonial acts covering divorce. Angela also suggested looking in the newspapers for divorce notices, or gossip about some divorces.

Our last speaker was Laura Daaboul, Archivist, Museums of History NSW. Her talk was Dead and buried - sources for tracing deaths in NSW. She also talked about not just using the official certificate but judges notebooks, court transcripts and news papers.

Four excellent talks by four very knowledgeable presenters made for a great day. (Now if the traffic had been good, homeward bound...)