News

Winners of Journal Article of the Year 2025  

While all articles were of particular interest to at least one participating member of the Society, the three most chosen stories were:

• This Band of Brothers: the Men of No. 15 Section by Allan Tonks (p.4, QFH No. 46, Feb 2025),
• A Deeper Dive into the Family Archive by Lesley Huxley (p.86, QFH No. 46, Aug 2025) and
• The Search for Portion 1879 by Ken Swadling (p.142, No. 46, Nov 2025).

Our congratulations go to Allan Tonks, Lesley Huxley and Ken Swadling whose articles were equally chosen most often by our members.  They have received a commemorative certificate and a gift voucher of $75 in recognition of the interest and appreciation of our participating members.

Read more... 

We Remember Them: wartime stories in our family tree

A group portrait of nine Australian soldiers, most in uniform, posing somewhere in South Africa during the Boer War. (Image: State Library of Queensland)

The We Remember Them project will gather stories from our members focusing on the wartime stories in their family trees.  A virtual Honour Board will be created on this website to display an image of the individual and a few vital statistics. Each image will be linked to the story of that person’s wartime experiences. Read More

QFHS Inc Family History Book Award plus authors Discussion

This event will be held at Hornets Football Club, 50 Graham Road, Carseldine.  

Starts at 11am Wednesday 6^th August, finishes at 1pm

Lunch is available at the venue afterwards at your own expense. 

Register Here

The QFHS Annual Book award celebrates the effort that authors have put into writing up their family history. The award requires that the work have Queensland relevance and that it is properly researched.  The judges assess the entries on the Society’s published criteria.   

The authors of the books that entered this year will participate in a group discussion about their entries and the experience of advancing their research to the point of publication. 

Five authors for our Family History Book Award 2025 will talk about their books and writing processes. The books and authors are: 

* The Sugar King, by Catherine Smith 

* Substance and Shadows, by Jennifer Vivian Smith 

* May the Cane Prosper - A Queensland Story, by Pene Greet and Avis-Ann Ballard 

* A Poor Hand Well Played - A Family Story Across Several Generations, by Anne Heatherington. 

This year's QFHS Inc Family History Book Award recipient will be announced. 

There will be opportunities for sales and signing as well.

Congratulations Shauna Hicks OAM

We warmly congratulate member Shauna Hicks on her recent accolade: Shauna was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for her service to community history as part of the Kings Birthday Honours. As one of our founding members and one of our Inaugural Fellows, Shauna holds an honoured place in the establishment and development of the Society. 

 Shauna worked in government for over 35 years primarily in libraries and archives including the State Library of Queensland, the John Oxley Library in Brisbane, the Queensland State Archives, the National Archives of Australia in Canberra, and Public Record Office Victoria in Melbourne. 

Her qualifications include Bachelor of Arts in History and Anthropology from University of Queensland, Master of Arts in Australian Studies from Griffith University (QLD), Diploma in Family Historical Studies from the Society of Australian Genealogists.

In 2007, the Australian Society of Archivists award Shauna a Distinguished Achievement Award for career achievements and services to the archival profession and, in 2009, she received the (AFFHO) Services to Family History Award for her achievements in Queensland, Canberra and Victoria.

Shauna has been tracing her own family history since 1977 and is one of the 22 founding members of the Queensland Family History Society (of course, we hold them all in high regard for their foresight!). No doubt the allocation of member numbers may have been by a process of random draws out of a hat, but Shauna’s #7 member number (and its association with a well-known 007) was indeed prescient – it reflects well her energy and drive, and her innovation and commitment to the fields of family history and genealogy.

As recorded through the decades in the Society’s journal, Shauna has taken on many roles at QFHS:

• Management Committee Member (1980 to December 1986)
• Cemetery Coordinator and Liaison Officer (1980-1983)
• Education Officer (1983-1986)
• Vice President (1986)

The 1986-1987 Annual Report (published August 1987) states: We were most unfortunate to lose the services of Shauna Hicks from the Committee. Shauna has been with the Society Committee since its formation and she has served in the various roles of Cemetery Co-ordinator, Education Officer, Guest Speaker … and unofficial adviser to many members who appreciate her expertise in family history research.

Shauna received the QFHS Award for Services to Family History in 1999. Five years later, she was made an Inaugural Fellow of the Queensland Family History Society for her long and sustained positive promotion of the Society in all facets of family history and genealogy, and for her continuous contribution to the running of the Society.

Shauna was an early indexer of records – in 1984 she commenced indexing the records of Charters Towers Miners Homestead Leases for 1874 to 1912 and, as early as 1982, Shauna was speaking to regional societies on research – in June 1982 she spoke to the South Burnett Genealogical Society at Kingaroy.

Whilst working at Public Record Office Victoria, Shauna played a key role in the digitisation of key records making them far more readily available to researchers whilst at the same time preserving the paper originals.  Following retirement from her professional career as an archivist, Shauna was an integral part of the Unlock the Past team assisting researchers learn through her guidebooks (author of some 15 titles in the UTP series), presentations on cruises, and seminars in various parts of Australia.

To round off a comprehensive biography, Shauna is a member of

• Professional Historians Association (QLD)
• Association of Professional Genealogists
• Genealogical Association of Victoria
• Genealogical Society of Queensland
• Genealogy SA and, of course,
• Queensland Family History Society.

Shauna is also Patron of History Queensland, the peak body uniting and supporting family and local history organisations and collections throughout Queensland.

Congratulations, Shauna Hicks - a bright and shining star in the Australian family history firmament!

The Les Moreland Scrapbook Index 

To celebrate the Central European Interest Group’s 40^th anniversary in 2024, a dedicated group of volunteers has created a valuable new index for the benefit of members interested in researching their ancestors of Central European origin. We are grateful to Eric Kopittke, Rosemary Kopittke, Stuart Johnston and most notably Lyn Hooper for their expertise and countless hours applied to creating the Les Moreland Scrapbook Index and its underpinning documentation. Eric launched the index at the 40^th Anniversary celebrated on 1 June.

Background to the Les Moreland Collection

Following the death of Leslie Gordon (Les) Moreland in 2007 his widow Shirley bequeathed his extensive collection to the Queensland Family History Society.

As well as having researched his own ancestral German families, Les had a strong interest in, and a remarkable knowledge of, other German families in Queensland.

In the years surrounding the bicentenary of European settlement in Australia (1988), an increasing number of people became interested in their family history. However, in the days before widespread availability of the internet and the development of the large commercial online genealogical databases, many people found it difficult to start their German family history or to proceed beyond the most basic level.

Les was always willing to help but would request that people include details of what they already knew. Family history research in Germany can only be done if the place of origin of the family is known. This usually requires assembling all known information about the family, therefore people included copies of documents such as birth, marriage, and death certificates, confirmation certificates, naturalisations, and passenger lists with their letters. These were pasted into scrapbooks and cross-referenced by Les. This all helped to answer further enquiries.

Once the place of origin in Germany had been located, it became possible to obtain genealogical information by reading microfilmed copies of church or civil registers or by commissioning a researcher to extract the information at an archives or a church parish. Les was able to read German and the old German script, and was happy to receive copies of entries and provide a translation.

First dwelling of a German settler, Rosewood?, Queensland, ca. 1880
Image: State Library of Queensland

What is in the Les Moreland Scrapbook index

• Births, baptisms, marriages, banns, deaths, and burials
• Confirmations
• Naturalisations
• Impfung – vaccination (from Impfschein, vaccination certificate)
• Bürgerrechts-Verzichts – waiver of civil rights (in preparation for emigration)
• Reise Pass – permission to travel
• Auswandern Erlaubnis – permission to emigrate
• Entlassung – dismissal, usually from military service
• Gemeinderaths Protokoll (mention of emigrating families in municipal council minutes)
• Statutory Declaration
• Oaths of allegiance
• Passport applications
• Work contracts
• References – as provided for or by an employer
• Wills
• Verzichts – waiver (usually of the rights of a citizen)
• Volkszählung (census)
• Annahmeschein (acceptance certificate)
• Powers of attorney

In some cases, it has not been possible to identify the nature or source of a document, especially if only a small portion of the original has been copied. Where these contain useful information they have been indexed.

There are 6,984 entries in the Les Moreland Scrapbook index. These point into a collection of 2,284 PDF files (not images). Some of the PDFs are excellent but other photocopies, done in the 1980s and 1990s, are not particularly clear. Nonetheless they can provide relevant information and may allow a better copy of the document to be located from current online sources.

Check out the Les Moreland Scrapbook Index here

This new and unique index has been added to Queensland Family History Society’s valuable collection of searchable datasets. Our 62 searchable datasets provide access to information in electoral rolls, school admissions records, shipping and migration, occupations, cemeteries to name a few categories. While over half a million entries are available for online search by the general public, some 15 million more are reserved for QFHS members only.

Check out all QFHS datasets here