How to Submit Data

Submission of data on families who made the move to the Big Scrub is most welcome. If you have the data, and the family is relevant to our project, then we will create a web page for your family. We will also attempt to create cross-links to other families wherever possible.

Does Your Family Fit the Criteria for Inclusion?

Firstly, you need to determine that your family meets the following criteria for inclusion:

  1. The family must have lived in the area of southern Illawarra, northern Shoalhaven or Southern Highlands prior to moving to the Big Scrub area. The geographical boundaries (at this stage) are east of the escarpment, between the Minnamurra and Shoalhaven Rivers (for Illawarra and Shoalhaven families), or east of the present-day Hume Highway, between Mittagong in the north and Marulan in the south (for Southern Highland families). We may later consider expanding the boundaries (particularly south of the Shoalhaven), depending on our workload.

  2. The "head" of a family MUST be someone who made the move. In the case of siblings who moved, but their parents did not, then the siblings each form the head of a separate family. (We may need to refine this, depending on individual circumstances, but that's the current status. If this is a stumbling block for you, please ask - we're flexible!)

  3. The move north must have taken place between 1861 (Robertson Land Act) and 1914 (WWI).

  4. The family must have settled in the Big Scrub area. We have some latitude here, because the Big Scrub was a bit of a vague area. Our definition of the Big Scrub is found here. If a family moved to the Richmond River area in general, and you are unsure of the precise location, then please ask us about inclusion. We are happy to include families on the fringe of the marked area. At this stage, the wider Richmond River Valley is not part of the project, but if there is a demand, then we can easily set up a second subset of families to cover the wider area. Again, this will depend on workload.

Sending a GEDCOM

If your family satisfies the criteria, then please send us a GEDCOM. The web pages on the individual families are built automatically from the GEDCOM, so what you send is what you will see!

A GEDCOM file should contain three generations of data only, covering:

  1. the head of the family, plus spouse(s)
  2. all known children of the head
  3. the parents of the head

Generally, the head of a family will be male, but this is not a requirement.

Details Required for the Head of the Family

A look at the existing pages will show you what sort of information we need. In general, for the head of the family and spouses, we prefer:

  1. date and place of birth, death and marriage.
  2. place of burial.
  3. date, ship and port of arrival (if born overseas).
  4. date (or approximate date) of arrival in the Big Scrub.
  5. location in the Big Scrub where the family first settled.

Details Required for Children of the Head

For children of the head, we prefer:

  1. date and place of birth and death.
  2. name of each spouse, and date and place of marriage (date is important in sequencing multiple spouses).

Details Required for Parents of the Head

For parents of the head, we prefer:

  1. name (UNKNOWN is required if no surname is known)
  2. date of birth and death.

Formatting the Data

When formatting dates, please ensure they are in an unambiguous format, ie "dd Mmm YYYY".

When formatting places, please ensure the state is included, but do not include "Australia" for local place names (this is an Australia-centric site, after all!). Country should be included for all overseas locations.

Special Formating Rules for BDM Index Data

If you are including details extracted from the NSW BDM indexes, where only a year and a place of registration is shown, then this should be formatted very precisely, in order for us to generate the web page correctly:

  1. the date should be shown as "Cir YYYY"
  2. the place should be shown as "(reg at xxxxx)"

(we want to distinguish these details because the year of registration is not necessarily the year in which the event took place. For instance, a birth in December in a country area was probably not recorded at the Registrar-General's Office in Sydney until the following January.)

Biographies and Portraits

A biography of the subject family can be submitted with the GEDCOM. An MS Word document or a text file is the preferred method. The biography can be as long or as short as you wish to make it.

If you have a photo of the head of the family, please forward it as a .jpg file. While an individual portrait is preferred, a wedding photo is fine if that's what you have.

...and the Last Word

Finally, don't be put off by thinking you don't have enough data. If you know of a family which meets the criteria, then please let us know about it. By posting skeleton information, you will be encouraging others to contribute, until eventually the detail emerges.

John and Kerrie