Amid leather-bound tomes intrepid researchers are digging up Bendigo’s history. As TOM O’CALLAGHAN discovers, finding out what really happened takes more than a five minute Google search.
Wilfred Warwick’s name is listed on a war memorial in Rossendale, in the United Kingdom. He died in a prisoner of war camp in 1918. So why on earth did he list his next-of-kin as one Mrs A L Pankurst of Wattle Street, Bendigo?
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A man from Lancashire has contacted the Bendigo Regional Genealogical Society. He has been researching his local World War One memorial and has stumbled across something that does not make sense. He can not work out why Mr Warwick and Mrs Pankhurst were connected.
This case is one of many the genealogical society has been asked to delve into, using records it and other local history groups have accumulated over the years.
Many are housed at the Bendigo Regional Archives Centre, though 35 local history groups have historical records of their own.
Every Monday from 11am to 3pm genealogical society members were on hand in the centre’s Bendigo Library space to help visitors navigate a trove of books, newspapers, microfilm and other records.
One of their more common tasks is helping people discover more about their homes, member David Cotton said. Young people who have just bought their first house were often the most interested.
“You can’t find that (information) in five minutes. Bendigo’s a bit peculiar. Street names have changed. There were no street numbers up until about 1909,” he said.
Others contacting the genealogical society wanted to know about the history of hotels and information on christenings, cemeteries or family histories.
Local history groups had even been approached to help trace the family histories of stars like signer Delta Goodrem and actor John Howard for documentary series Who Do You Think You Are?
BRAC’s Vivien Newton said that not many places had resources as good as Bendigo’s. Many local groups had been compiling books for years, indexed original records and made documents accessible, often in one place.
“So we have a lot of written history for this area and bits are being written all the time,” she said.
As researchers carefully thread a path through the past, the local history movement is growing.
Last week the Bendigo Historical Society held its first gala dinner and raised $3000 for equipment to help catalogue their collection at BRAC’s Nolan Street premises.
There were hopes that Bendigo might one day have its own museum focused on history, the group’s president Jim Evans said.
“Council is interested in this, we are told. We are also very keen to create more storage space at the archives and we know that is being discussed at council as well,” he said.
BRAC’s Dr Michele Matthews said when she first started studying history in the 1980s next to no attention was given to the discipline’s local variants. Today many historians consider the field vitally important.
Mr Evans said a lot of people expressed an interest in the city’s history – and not just locals.
“People come up from Melbourne and one reason is that they are interested in history and know something of Bendigo’s rich past,” he said.
He said local schools had embraced local history and this would help a new generation get hooked on uncovering their families’ stories.
Ancestry websites had made family history accessible but BRAC’s Vivien Newton said local groups’s efforts to catalogue and search through history were just as important than ever.
“Going forward, a lot of our history is still in print form. People now want things digitised so they can type in a name anywhere in the world and it all miraculously pops up,” she said.
“The generations coming through expect it to be at their fingertips and history isn’t, yet.”
There were other reasons expertise was needed too, including that people could make mistakes as they explored their family’s history, sometimes compounded by errors made by others compiling online family trees.
“One of the challenges for all of us is when people are absolutely convinced they’re connected to one group and we are trying to tell them ‘I’m sorry but you’ve got the wrong great-grandad’,” Mr Cotton said.
As the genealogical society slowly and carefully takes in all the facts they have uncovered some information on Mrs Pankhurst.
Mr Cotton said they had discovered Mrs Pankhurst was born in Dead Horse Gully, Eaglehawk.
They knew the names of her parents, the church she was married in in 1989 and that she had two children. They know that eight years later her husband died in London.
They also know she ran a private school and then a private hospital in Wattle Street, Bendigo before moving to Melbourne in 1919.
Yet answers about her connection with the man in the POW camp remain elusive.