Redland Genealogical Society

15/03/2026

Yeah right! Much easier these days then before resources were made available online but joining a genealogy or family history society can significantly help keep the costs down and find the real stories within your family.

13/03/2026

Meet Mrs Jane Smith, she is married to Thomas Smith. She wasn't always called Jane Smith! Searching using the married name will only give you some things but remember she had a life before her marriage.

A good tip is if you know her maiden name, enter that as her surname in your tree. But what if you don't know her maiden name? Leave it blank or use 5 underscores ( _____ ) instead, that way all the search engines (Ancestry, MyHeritage, FindMyPast etc) have a better chance of finding your Jane amongst the millions of others with the same surname (both married and single).

And don't forget not everyone could read or write so heaps of spelling variations and marrying more than once, so other surname changes, need to be considered also.

Still need help or guidance? Pop into our Genie Room (Saturday between 12:30pm and 3:30pm or 9:30am-12:30pm on a Tuesday or Thursday) and ask one of our extremely helpful GRAs for advice.

10/03/2026

Oh to be Irish but then again maybe we have a little Irish in the family. Our Guest Speaker today will help us find ways of tracking them down.

Come join us today at the Donald Simpson Centre, Cnr Bloomfield and Russell Streets in Cleveland at 12:15pm.

08/03/2026

Monday Murmerings

Our next General Meeting will be next Wednesday 11 March 2026 commencing at the Donald Simpson Centre at 12.15pm. Our Guest Speaker will be Sean Dugger and the topic is Researching Irish Family History. Very timely with St Patrick's Day just around the corner.

Also this month we are organising our next excursion in May to Gatton. A registration sheet for this will be on hand at the meeting on Wednesday. We do love an excursion to places with a lot of history.

Visitors are welcome to attend the meeting, it is a great opportunity to learn a little about researching your family's history as well as finding those Irish folk in your family.

Naturally our GRAs will be on hand to help visitors and members in the Genie Room at the Cleveland Library at their normal times (9:30am-12:30pm Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30pm-3:30pm on Saturday).

08/03/2026

For International Women's Day it is worth noting a few local women whose contribution to our local area and community was significant.

08/03/2026

So many stories still being uncovered and told. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/14WxVA3aNXa/

🚑 She rode on the floor of an ambulance, cradling a wounded soldier with both arms broken - racing to a ship that would not wait...

In June 1940, as the German Blitzkrieg tore through eastern France, Australian Olive Sherington - “Sherry” to the troops - was driving for the Mechanised Transport Corps (MTC), a voluntary civilian organisation providing drivers for ambulances, supply vehicles and staff cars.

With trains stopped, phones disconnected and refugees choking the roads, Sherry commandeered vehicles and wangled supplies to get fellow MTC drivers and British nuns out to Limoges - then stayed behind to destroy anything the Germans might find useful.

Next came the dash south: take English civilian refugees to Bordeaux, collect four wounded English servicemen, and reach a waiting Royal Navy destroyer. At the hospital there were six wounded - then the gates were locked, trapping them inside until a locksmith arrived. Sherry recorded it bluntly in her diary: “Do the French never hurry?”

The Royal Navy destroyer had already departed, but 90 kilometres north, a passenger ferry - SS Madura - was loading refugees. With time running out, Sherry rode on the floor as they sped for Port le Verdon, holding an injured man steady through every agonising pothole.

They arrived just in time, evacuating alongside some 1,700 other passengers. Sherry spent the voyage caring for the wounded.

For her efforts, she received a King’s Commendation for Brave Conduct. Four years later, as a senior commandant of the MTC, she was among the first women ashore at Normandy.

🔗 This International Women’s Day, read Olive Sherington’s remarkable story: https://brnw.ch/21x0xYj

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📸 Image: Olive Sherington with her Peugeot 202 van in France (IWM HU 090267).

04/03/2026

Researching your family tree and family history may seem daunting but here are a few tips to help get you started.

Note the point about joining a genealogical group? Yes, you can do it on your own but groups like ours, have so much expertise and knowledge and better than that ..... they love to help! Our members volunteer in our Genie Room at the Cleveland Library to do just that .... helping visitors.

More than that, our members help each other, giving advice and guidance. Our Genie Room is open to our members anytime the library is open, so they can access the resources stored there (both physical and digital) all for a modest annual fee, which by the way is far less than one single online subscription. It is a community of like-minded individual who are so supportive.

So while you might start your family history journey alone, you don't have to do it all alone.

03/03/2026

Interesting local history. Was this woman in your family?

Did you know Queensland’s first internationally acclaimed novelist was a woman?

For Women's History Month, our Local History team is highlighting a few notable Redlands Coast women in history, starting with Rosa Praed (1851 – 1935).

💡 Rosa wrote around 45 books and earned recognition in London’s literary circles (even the Prince of Wales was an admirer!).

💡 Her autobiography, 'My Australian Girlhood,' drew on her time growing up in the Queensland colony -- including the Redlands!

📚 Visit our Local History Collection to learn more: bit.ly/RedlandsCoastHistory

📸 Praed, Rosa-FL20807 (Source: State Library Queensland; Image description: Aboriginal camp Redland Bay, 1871)

01/03/2026

Monday Murmerings,

Too funny not to share, but seriously, did any of your ancestors marry multiple times? We all think that life was easy (romantising the past) and that our ancestors married for love and for life. Well, things may not be what they seemed or what we believed. The only way to know for sure is to delve head first into your family tree and find out the real story. Believe me, some of them are doozies!

Not sure how to do that? Come along to one of our monthly meetings (2nd Wednesday every month) or pop into the Genie Room at the Cleveland Library and have a chin wag with one of our GRAs.

The GRAs are in the Genie Room, every Tuesday and Thursday morning from 9:30am until 12:30pm as well as Saturday afternoons from 12:30pm until 3:30pm.

You never never know if you never never give it a go!

01/03/2026

A timely reminder with ANZAC day drawing closer.

On the night of 28 February 1942, HMAS Perth and USS Houston were engaged in the Battle of Sunda Strait - the action that would lead to the loss of both ships in the early hours of 1 March 1942.

After the Allied defeat in the Battle of the Java Sea, HMAS Perth and USS Houston attempted to break through the Sunda Strait - and met a Japanese invasion force in a fierce night action.

In the early hours of 1 March, Perth was struck by multiple torpedoes and sank at about 12.25 am. Captain H.M.L. Waller was lost with his ship.

Of the ship’s company of 686, only 218 were eventually repatriated - the rest were killed during or soon after the action, or died as prisoners of war.

We remember all who served aboard HMAS Perth, and honour their courage and sacrifice.

Today, the Last Post Ceremony will mark the anniversary and commemorate the life of Engine Room Artificer 4th Class Vincent Bernard McGovern.

▶️ Watch live at 4.30 pm AEDT: https://brnw.ch/21x0kxX

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📸 Image: Crew members on HMAS Perth in the Mediterranean Sea, c. March 1941. Photographer: George Silk. AWM 006846

22/02/2026

Monday Murmerings

We are all putting into practice the techniques that we learnt at the last monthly meeting. Our members learn so much from our guest speakers and each other. That is the ethos that our non-for-profit socieity embodies. In that vein, our GRAs volunteer their time and expertise in helping visitors in our Genie Room at the Cleveland Library.

As usual our Genie Room is open to visitors every Tuesday and Thursday morning from 9:30am until 12:30pm as well as Saturday afternoon from 12:30pm until 3:30pm. Not only this week but nearly every week, they are there hoping that they can be of help and guidance to others researching their family history. Maybe you could pop in and see if they can set you on the path of discovery?

Just think, myths and legends are nice and they make for a good story but they are still fiction but when you uncover a story about your family, it is much more entertaining and exciting.

20/02/2026

Stories are still emerging from our past. It is important to remember these events, they shape the future of our families and our communities. What stories are lurking in the shadows of your family's past?

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17t7Vdy8L1/

The most dangerous thing she owned wasn’t a weapon. It was paper.

In a Japanese prisoner of war camp on Sumatra during the Second World War, Australian Army nurse Sister Agnes “Betty” Jeffrey kept a diary - even though diaries were actively searched for, and being caught with one could mean severe punishment - even death.

So she hid it. Writing things down let her hold onto truth in a place designed to control it.

At one point, she rolled up her two exercise books and hid them under the bench where she slept. They were concealed inside a beer bottle. When the women were moved, she wore the diary around her waist in a pouch fashioned out of a fish bag, under her clothes.

And then she came terrifyingly close to being caught.

When she was moved to Bangka Island in 1944, she got off a boat and realised the diary had fallen away. She thought she’d lost it forever. But a Japanese guard found the bag and called out, “Whose is this?” Jeffrey put her hand up - and he handed it back without looking inside.

Those pages - written in secret - survive in the Memorial’s Collection alongside other fragile traces of life in captivity, including drawings, sheet music, poems.

🔗 Learn more: https://brnw.ch/21x06ji

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📸 Image: Betty and Vivian Bullwinkel during their London visit (supplied).