{"id":101271,"date":"2025-10-21T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/mcivortimes\/?p=101271"},"modified":"2025-10-15T23:32:45","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T12:32:45","slug":"historic-records-come-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/mcivortimes\/news\/historic-records-come-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic records come home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PORTARLINGTON genealogist and historian Natalie Smith was rummaging through a pile of documents in a back shed when she uncovered a long-lost Heathcote cemetery register.<\/p>\n<p>She had accompanied her husband on a hunt for tools after seeing a post on the Bellarine Freecycle Facebook group.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The lady said we&#8217;ve got some wood-working machinery out in the shed,&#8221; Ms Smith said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;While he was looking at it, I saw this pile of stuff\u2026there was a whole lot of old bibles and all these other things, and I was told I could take anything I wanted.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The cemetery register caught her eye because of its age.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was old and that attracted me,&#8221; she said, &#8220;I knew how valuable it would be to the people of Heathcote because it has so much information in it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I had to get it back to Heathcote.&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_30038\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30038\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-30038\" src=\"https:\/\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\/prod\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2025\/10\/hmtheathcotecemet_29930.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"462\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-30038\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A page from the Heathcote Cemetery register 1913-18.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Ms Smith posted a call-out on the Heathcote Town Crier Facebook group and within an hour had found someone about to travel from the Bellarine Peninsula to Heathcote.<\/p>\n<p>The register is now part of the Heathcote McIvor Historical Society&#8217;s archives and spokesperson Elizabeth Murfitt said it was welcome addition to their collection.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re thrilled that she&#8217;s donated it to us,&#8221; Ms Murfitt said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s the Heathcote Cemetery burial papers from 1913 to 1918 and they have a lot of details.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It will come in very handy with our research.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PORTARLINGTON genealogist and historian Natalie Smith was rummaging through a pile of documents in a back shed when she uncovered a long-lost Heathcote cemetery register. She had accompanied her husband on a hunt for tools after seeing a post on the Bellarine Freecycle Facebook group. &#8220;The lady said we&#8217;ve got some wood-working machinery out in [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/mcivortimes\/news\/historic-records-come-home\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":209,"featured_media":101275,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-101271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Historic records come home - McIvor Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Historic Heathcote cemetery register from 1913-18 found and returned, now enriching local archives and supporting genealogical research.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/mcivortimes\/news\/historic-records-come-home\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Historic records come home - 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