Monday, March 6, 2017

DO YOU HAVE JERSEY CONNECTIONS?

Another item of interest  from the   Genealogical Society of the Northern Territory's   latest   newsletter compiled by  June Tomlinson . 
 
Jersey Archive is working to promote family history links between the Island and Australia. During the 19th century they know thousands of Jersey residents left the Island to start a new life in Australia. A small number were convicts transported from Jersey, however the vast majority were looking for opportunities to settle and own their land as a result of an economic  downturn  on  the  Island.  

Their research has shown that a number of Jersey surnames such as Le Cornu, Romeril, de Gruchy****, Le Quesne, de la Haye, Marett, Renouf, Mauger, Le Gros, Nicolle and Noel are still prevalent in Australia today. Australians are also the third highest users of their online catalogue and a number make the journey to Jersey to research their family history.  

In March 2015  Jersey Archive launched their Online Catalogue to enable people to view or download  a vast array of documents, previously only available when visiting Jersey, for a small annual subscription fee or on a pay-per-view basis. It  includes over 200,000 images from collections such as the Occupation Registration Cards, Alien’s Immigration Cards, Hospital Registers, the Superintendent Registrar’s indexes for Births, Marriages and Deaths, Wills and Testaments and Undertakers’ records.  

It  would like to  build on the links they have with Australia by offering to interact with the members of the NT  society who may have Jersey connections and to provide help and support in  researching  their Jersey ancestors.
 http://catalogue.jerseyheritage.org/
 
There is another  link   to help  reseach http://www.jerseyheritage.org/family-history/get-started
 
*****DE GRUCHY SUPRISE :  This  blogger was taken aback on  seeing  the  name de  Gruchy  in the list of  Jersey  surnames  as  only last week , in a sweep   of Townsville op shops,  a  beaut  book , Historic Interiors , edited by Maisy Stapleton , published by  Sydney College of  Arts Press  ,1983, was  bought , and  contained the name of a previous  owner...G. de Gruchy and the  year '86. Apart  from   covering  early Australian buildings, some parliamentary , with pasted  in samples of  wallpapers, there is a section dealing  with American buildings , including  restoration of Ellis Island where immigrants  entering the United States  between  1892  and  1954  passed. Recently we  ran an item about  another of our finds ,  The  Drawings of  W. Curtis Green ,R.A, bearing the inscription : In  memory  of  our son . Mr and Mrs T.N. Mitchel , Guernsey, Channel Islands .