40 years of family history

THE Bendigo Family History Group is focusing its research efforts inwards for the celebration of its fortieth anniversary.

Unsurprisingly, group members have kept a detailed record of the early days from a public meeting exploring the potential for a local research group to official beginnings at an inaugural meeting on 16 May 1982.

These details and more have been revisited for a booklet exploring BFHG’s four decades, to be launched at an anniversary celebration at the Bendigo Library at 2pm this Saturday.

Eileen Gorman has been involved with the group for 22 years and said helping people learn more about where they come from is a challenging but rewarding task.

“It feels good uncovering history and their stories and learning as you go about ourselves and our local area,” she said.

“They’re mostly very happy but there are some who can’t believe what you tell them or what you find.

“A lot of them are very confused about it all, they’ve got to get it straight in their mind how the families work, who is in what family and which generation, that’s the hardest part.”

BFHG research officer David Cotton said Bendigo’s gold rush past made it a particularly interesting area for family history.

“Bendigo’s a very good example of that mix of people because gold was found here in 1851 and in about two years there were people from absolutely everywhere,” he said.

“Lots of people, their ancestors came here maybe for one or two years, maybe stayed forever. Some of the businesses today started in the 1850s.”

This Saturday’s anniversary celebration will also include information on how the BFHG can help attendees and families uncover their history.

“We’re one of many local community groups who are interested in historical and heritage things,” Mr Cotton said.

“Some people say you don’t know much about your future unless you look at the past.”