Welcome to the GSV

Welcome to the GSV Blog

At this Blog - Family History Matters - you can find reports about the various activities and groups at the GSV, news about our library and resource collection, book reviews and articles of interest about family history and genealogy.  It is a way to keep in touch as a member or to discover what GSV can offer you as a soon-to-be-member.

To submit a Blog Post, please contact the Blog Editor: blog@gsv.org.au

For general questions about the Blog, please contact the Blog administrator: blogadmin@gsv.org.au

Read More

Unsettling family history - new research

8 February 2020
Genealogical study is a hot topic. Witness the lengths to which some 'historians' and genealogists are presently going to deny Bruce Pascoe's aboriginal... Read More
GIW heading Ancestor Dec 2019

Do you have to write your family history?

1 February 2020
    Once you have all the certificates - the names, dates and places - and have these imbedded in proprietary databases, and maybe you have graphically... Read More
Two Suburban Street - Chapel Street Prahran, 1889, A.C.Cooke, SLV PCINF AS 03/10/89 157a.

How did Melbourne grow? - seminar 1 Feb

18 January 2020
For many of us, our ancestors arrived ,one way or another, in Melbourne. This was a big city by 1890.  How had it grown by then to be the second largest city... Read More

The bushfires

7 January 2020
Like us at the GSV you've undoubtedly been dismayed and saddened by Australia's ongoing bushfire crisis.    We are particularly concerned about the welfare... Read More
Gippsland, Sunday night, Feb 20th 1898, John Longstaff, NGV.

Support our communities in the bushfires

7 January 2020
Bushfires have shaped this country for millennia. And our human activities have shaped bushfires. I am reminded of reading the history of the white... Read More
'Ancestors' in your digital bookshelf.

Would you like to flip through our Journal (in future)?

20 December 2019
    We have received many awards for our quarterly print journal Ancestor; it is highly valued by our members and others.    Of course, being print... Read More

GSV launches a new Members Forum

30 November 2019
    Do you have a thorny problem with your family history research?   Do you often feel someone else will have solved this or know a way to find that vital... Read More

The perfect Christmas gift!

23 November 2019
How often do we hear that someone wishes they had asked their older relatives more questions about the family?   Many of your relatives have memories and... Read More

How to find your ancestors' early Victorian land records

18 November 2019
  If you are quick you can book in to hear from Ken Smith and learn how to go about finding early Victorian land records.   This coming Thursday 21 November... Read More

Correction to 'E partimmo!' talk and Vic/Tas Discussion Circle notice

13 November 2019
CORRECTION to earlier post on 'E partimmo' The coming talk on Saturday 15 November - 'E partimmo. We left' - at GSV International Settlers Group is, of course... Read More

Two young boys sent back to England from India : an 1857 mystery solved

13 November 2019
Mary Anne Gourley tells this research story from the GSV's British India Discussion Circle, of the return of two young boys from India to England in 1857.  ... Read More

'E Partimmo. We Left'

11 November 2019
    The International Settlers Group invites all GSV members to a talk given by Angela Scarino and Antonio Mercurio. Their book - E Partimmo. We left- tells... Read More

Writing about our entwined lives? Hear acclaimed author Richard Broome Nov 15

2 November 2019
  An exciting event has been added to the GSV’s calendar. On 15 November Dr Richard Broome, the President of the Royal Historical Society, will talk about his... Read More

180 years on descendants of immigrants on the ship 'David Clark' are gathering next Sunday

20 October 2019
    Many families arrange get-togethers of their descendants, but next Sunday there is a gathering with a difference.    180 years later descendants of ... Read More

Were Australians assisting the Serbians in WW1 before Gallipoli?

17 October 2019
    When you start researching the lives of ancestors during the Great War you may become embroiled in the complex history of the 'Eastern Question' and the... Read More

Winner of the 2019 GSV Writing Prize announced

6 October 2019
The GSV congratulates the winner and runner-up of its annual Writing Prize 2019 for a family-history article. The successful entrants were announced at the... Read More

Were convicts sent to Victoria? Find out this THURSDAY.

16 September 2019
This question of whether convicts were sent to the Port Phillip District (later known as Victoria) often invokes a statement that no convicts were transported... Read More

What is over the white cliffs of Dover?

14 September 2019
Behind what may be the most famous piece of coast in the English world, lies Kent - an ancient English county jutting out in to the sea and around which many... Read More

DNA uncovers sperm-donor fraud

7 September 2019
A recent report ('The fertility fraud' by Jacqueline Mroz published in The Age 24 August 2019) reminded me of the tricky questions facing the family historian... Read More