I was lucky enough to meet and volunteer with Joyce Ryerson when living in the northern suburbs of Sydney. Living until the age of 95 years young, Joyce was sharp as a tack, and had a dry sense of humour. But, Joyce was a hoarder. Her daughter Sue would roll her eyes over this.
When Joyce started her ‘collection’ of death notices, she was not a genealogist, just an ‘old girl’ of SCEGGS Darlinghurst (school) looking to help with a register of former pupils. This collection would accumulate over 14 years and was stored in her laundry.
She was luckily a member of The Dead Persons Society and when she mentioned what she had, they were thrilled and member John Graham went around to see. What he found was an almost complete collection of death notices from the Sydney Morning Herald for the years 1986 to 1998 inclusive. Sue was thrilled as John took them all away.
These notices were converted into searchable indexed data and more newspapers added.
The result is a free online index to death, funeral, probate and obituary notices appearing in newspapers throughout Australia.
The index continues to grow thanks to an army of volunteers.
The date range covers from 1803 up to those published in the last week or so. The coverage depends on availability of volunteers. There are in excess of nine million records compiled from more than 470 newspapers and other sources across Australia. The index is at https://www.ryersonindex.org/
Come along to our Family History Tips & Tools discussion circle meeting on Thu 24 Sep at 10.30am on zoom. John Graham will talk to us about what you can discover and how to get the most out of this fabulous research tool.
Jackie van Bergen