Maps of early settlement on Norfolk Island

A number of early maps of Norfolk Island can be found online.

One of the earliest is on The National Library of Australia website. It consists of two maps - one of Norfolk Island and the other of the south of the island. The map was created by W Bradley in 1788.

There are a number of maps online of the early settlement in the south of Norfolk Island. The following three maps were found on the State Library of New South Wales website. The maps on the website can be viewed in three versions including one using Zoomify allowing a closer examination of the map.

Plan of the town of Sydney on the south side of Norfolk Island, December 1793. The map was drawn by Charles Grimes, Deputy Surveyor.

Plan of the town of Sydney on the south side of Norfolk Island with the adjacent grounds 1794. The map was drawn by William Neate Chapman.

Plan of the settlers lots and ground cultivated for the publick on Norfolk Island 1796 can also be found on the State Library of New South Wales website. This map also has three versions.

A segment of the map shows lot 17 belonging to George Guest

The State Records of New South Wales, on their information sheet about Convict Settlement - Norfolk Island includes a number of small maps of early settlement on the island. Unfortunately there is no date but they do provide an idea of the layout of the early settlement on the island.

I am still searching for a map showing where George Guest owned land on Norfolk Island during the first European settlement. One day ...

Unlocking family stories - Google Maps

Although I have mentioned using Google Maps as a research tool in other posts, it may be useful to look at how it can be used in a little more detail.

Recently I was writing a post about my great (x4) grandmother, Kezia Brown, and decided to check in Google Maps the village where she lived. The village is Severn Stoke in Worcestershire.

After searching for Severn Stoke I clicked Maps. Part of the map appears above with the red marker showing the location of the village and its surrounding countryside. The slide on the left of the map allows you to zoom in for a closer look at the image.

Dragging the 'yellow man' at the top of the slider and positioning him on a street allows to to have a street view of the village.

A white arrow appears and dragging the arrow allows you to 'walk' along the streets.
When exploring the village I saw a church in the distance and turned down the next road to locate the church where Kezia was baptised and where her parents were married.

Members of Kezia's family would be buried in the cemetery in the church grounds.
If I had typed in St Denys Church Severn Stoke into the search box the red marker would have located the church. If the red marker is not obvious on the screen you can use the cursor, or depending on the computer or device use the touch screen,  to drag the map to have a look at parts of the image not readily visible.

Kezia left home when she was about 18 and travelled to the town of Gloucester. Google Maps can help you locate the distance between locations.

Click the Get Directions box at the top left of the screen and then fill in the two locations. Click the blue Get Directions box.

Google Maps shows the possible route between the towns. The roads would have been different two hundred plus years ago but an indication of possible routes is provided.

In the panel on the left of the map one set of directions is provided. However what I found useful was the number at the top of the directions which indicated that the distance between the two locations would have been 24 miles. This provides an indication of the journey undertaken by Kezia to travel to Gloucester in 1789.

Unlocking family stories - maps

Maps can also be useful when researching a family story.The State Library of Victoria has digitised many of its maps which can be viewed online. -
http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/our-collections/what-we-collect/maps

One of the collections that has been digitised is the collection of MMBW plans.

The collection includes maps from the Whitehorse and Manningham area.

According to the State Library website 25,000 maps and plans have been digitised and made available online. There is also information available in the map section of the website on the value of using maps for family history in the Maps for local history guide -
 http://guides.slv.vic.gov.au/mapsforlocalhistory.

In the catalogue select the Maps tab and then type in a location and perhaps a date and see what items appear.

Maps can also be accessed via Trove - http://trove.nla.gov.au. In the maps section I typed the name Mackillop and located a copy of the sketch of the route taken by George Mackillop and his party when they explored part of north east Victoria in 1835.

A copy of the map is available online

Street directories over the years provide a picture of the development of an area over a period of time. For example the first Melway was published in 1966. An interesting exercise is to compare maps in the first edition with the same maps in later editions, especially in the outer suburbs, to see how an area has changed. A digital copy of the first edition of Melway can be found at - http://melwayed1.melway.com.au/mwyedn1.htm. The second to fifth editions can also be viewed online by clicking a link on the bottom of the first edition initial map.

Google Maps is an extremely useful tool for exploring where family members used, especially when street view is available for an area. When I have a full address for a home owned by an ancestor, particularly in England, I have successfully used this resource to locate where they lived and sometimes have been able to view the actual house.

When George Mackillop and his family returned to the UK in the 1840s they moved to Bath where they lived in a town house at 26 Grosvenor Place.

Using the navigation bar on the left and dragging the person image to the place indicated on the map an image of the house, now a medical surgery appears.

The online street view allows you to view other houses in the street - almost as if you were in the actual street itself.

Actual photos of the Grosvenor Place property taken on a recent visit to Bath can be viewed in another post in this blog - http://connectingthefamily.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/notes-from-mc2-photos.html

If it is not possible to visit a location, online mapping services such as Google Maps are the next best thing.

Unlocking family stories - Rosemount

When looking at a map of the Sunshine Coast recently I noticed in the left lower corner the words Kilcoy, Woodford and Villeneuve, places near where my grandparents had a farm in the 1950s and early 1960s. The initial postal address was Rosemount, Villeneuve via Kilcoy until some of the land around Villeneuve was reclaimed for the expansion of the Somerset Dam.

Queensland Places has a detailed article about Kilcoy which mentions flooding part of the Villeneuve area in 1958 and Woodford which were the closest large towns to the farm. There is also an entry for D'aguilar and Neurum. Access to Rosemount was via Neurum Road.

Checking the electoral rolls using Ancestry.com.au helps to narrow when my grandparents were at Rosemount. There are two entries in the 1954 electoral rolls - one for Beriley at Toogoolawah and the second at Rosemount, Villeneuve so the move must have been made that year. A search in Trove using the terms Beriley and Toogoolawah for 1953 to 1954 produced two articles showing that after the sale of the property, the new owners were changing to farming sheep.

Dairymen. from all over the Brisbane Valley and Ipswich attended a dispersal sale of Messrs. R. and F. Moyse's A.I.S. dairy herd conducted by New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Co. Ltd. on the property, Berily," recently purchased from  Mr. A. B. Lord. The whole herd of'60 head was sold at satisfactory prices which were. in advance of those at recent local sales. A stud bull brought £33/12/, cows in profit £24, cows and calves £25, springers to £27/10/ Jersey heifers to £22, and vealers £7 to £10. There was also keen competition for the stud pigs. Brood sows brought £25. All surplus farm machinery went at satisfactory prices. In future the holding will be used for fat lamb raising and agriculture. (Queensland Times 4 May 1954, page 4.)

As well as confirming the sale of Beriley the above article is useful for describing the type of farming previously carried out on the farm.

A search in Google for Rosemount Neurum provided a link to photograph of Rosemount, possibly taken in the 1990s, in Trove, plus the information that the property named Rosemount at Neurum near Woodford, was taken up by John Doyle in December 1875, and was still operating as a dairy farm in 1998. The house was lined and had ceilings of silky-oak.

Trove also helps provide information about Rosemount.

In 1949 two of the three properties, including Rosemount, owned by Mr Eager were put on the market. He had purchased Rosemount from Miss B V Doyle in March 1942.

Queensland Country Life 24 November 1949

An earlier sale notice for the property in 1952 provided additional information.

Queensland Country Life 11 September 1952

The property was advertised again in 1954.

Queensland Country Life 28 January 1954.

These three notices provide information about Rosemount when it was finally purchased by Arthur Lord in 1954. Rosemount backed on to Mount Archer. Mount Archer is a mountain within the Mount Mee Forest Reserve in southeast Queensland and is at an altitude of about 545m above sea level. 

The 1963 electoral roll shows that my grandparents were at Rosemount that year but five years later were living in Buderim. As Queensland newspapers for this time frame have not yet been digitised it may be necessary to wait a while to narrow the date range.

A Google search for Rosemount Neurum produced references to Rosemount Dairy, Neurum at 51 Doyles Road, which initially I ignored but when I checked this using Google Maps I found the original homestead among other buildings.
Doyles Road (named after John Doyle) probably follows the original private road that ran from Neurum Road to the main gate of the property.

A Google search for Doyles Road Mount Archer provided the sales history for a selection of properties on the road starting from 1993. According to this search number 51 was last sold in 2006.

So utilising general Google searches, examining maps, reading about the development of local towns in Queensland Places and exploring newspaper articles and an image in Trove has helped to discover some of the history of Rosemount including the time when my family farmed the property.