Happy New Cataloguing Year

Happy new Cataloguing Year. We are currently cataloguing photographs, and this is one of the latest to take our attention.

The inscription reads:

"Taken after 1892 (I think) in Shepparton.
Grandpa Anderson (in centre)
Uncle Edmund HAWKINS (once of Maffra)
Uncle Ted MILLIGAN (of Waterloo near Ballarat)
Douglas HAWKINS (also standing)
Sitting (left to right) Stanley HAWKINS (grandpa), Aunt Bessie (Mrs Edmund HAWKINS), Garfield HAWKINS and dog (General Buller).

All three boys were born in Maffra where Uncle Edmund worked in a draper's shop prior to approx 1895, when they went to Shepparton. Stanley died of the influenza epidemic after 1st World War. Doug and Gar went to the war and were both in France - Gar as a 2nd Lieutenant, Doug (?). Gar was killed in action in France. Doug died later (at home) of war injuries. No descendants at all - family wiped out by war 1914-1918"

We are having a bit of a problem working out who is who in the adult males, but the sad part to the story is that all boys die - one in the war, one after the war from injuries, and one from the influenza outbreak immediately after. And don't we all wish this sort of detail was on the back of photographs coming into the collection.


I don't know that we have reported our cataloguing stats here before, but as of 30 June 2011, we had 3659 items in our catalogue. Of those, 1,128 had attached photographs (402 are scans of archived photos, 206 are photographs where we hold them as a digital copy only).