Researching Kimberley History

National Library of Australia (NLA)'s "Trove"

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NAA - National Archives Australia

The National Archives of Australia is another prime source where you will find the WWI & WWII (some digitised) service records of your ancestors or other amazing digitised records of your research subjects. Go to the main NAA Search Page then use the "Search as a Guest" option (no signup neccesary). Once you have entered your subject and receive the results you can click the "Digitised" column to sort all digitised records first. If you see a record that interests you that is not digitised, the NAA will have that record digitised in a short time for a small and reasonable fee, considering the fee is the same if the record is just a few pages or hundreds of pages. Try searching "Kununurra," "Wyndham" or "Ord River" for some interesting records or type in your surname!

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WA State Records Office (SRO)

The WA SRO has some very interesting and useful records for researchers available through their "Archives Explored ONline" (Aeon) Search. A very useful guides to the WA SRO Digitised Material is available. The very useful Digitised Map (map and cancelled public plan) Collections showing what has been digitised are a wonderful resource for Kimberley (and WA) research. KHS has downloaded each series of Kimberley pastoral maps which are fairly high resolution 3+MB files for research purposes. Also see the "Universal Declaration on Archives" from UNESCO (November 7th 2011).

The WA State Records Office is the State's repository for WA Government and Local Government records. The Shire of Wyndham East Kimberley for example must adhere to WA SRO policies for record retention. Read more about the latest policy document on this subject from here - New Disposal Authority for Local Government Records - which outlines how important records must be kept for the benefit of the community.

Or download the PDF Guide, General Disposal Authority for Local Government Records (GDALG) (2011 - Supercedes a 1999 document) from here - http://www.sro.wa.gov.au/sites/default/files/revisedgdalg-rd2010046-final_000.pdf 

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Battye Library of WA History

The JS Battye Library of WA History collection has a collection policy that excludes State Records (collected by the WA SRO - See Above) and is located in the Alexander Library building. A huge wealth of knowledge is available to search online as part of the State Library of WA (SLWA). Various collection guides are available.

State Library of WA (SLWA)

The SLWA has a Guide to WA History Collections, which also has links to other useful sites. A guide to Hilights of the Pictorial Collection has interesting information on some of their major photographic collections. 

WA Post Office Directories

One very useful collection for researchers are the OnLine WA Post Office Directories, with lists of people and businesses dating from the 1890s for WA towns and places presented in an index of downloadable PDF scanned pages.

Search the State Library of WA catalogue and collections from http://henrietta.slwa.wa.gov.au/search~S2 

Here is an example searching the Entire State Library Collection for "Kununurra"

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State Library of NSW (SLNSW)

The State Library of NSW has some great digitised treasures.

Example - Philip Parker King Album (Digitised) with 1819 Views of Wyndham

 A recent find was an album that had belonged to Philip Parker King - In it were drawings, paintings, and other cuttings, with most art executed by PP King himself, and another naval officer, Owen Stanley.

1819 Philip Parker King Discovered, charted and named the Cambridge Gulf in HMC Mermaid

In 1819, he also sketched and painted scenes of the Kimberley

 There are paintings of Mount Cockburn and the Cambridge Gulf, one, although not identified as such, is clearly drawn from the south-west bank at the bottom of "the Gut" in Cambridge Gulf and the tide can be seen racing through (as King has noted in the water). These and other art of Raffles Bay and Port Essington NT and other parts of the Kimberley coast (including Careening Bay and cascades at the Prince Regent River), do not all appear in his journals (which are also available online as free Gutenburg text eBooks), of his 1819-1820 voyages along the North-West coast

[1802-1902 Philip Parker King Album - Covers a large period with some ca 1819 - 1820 voyage of HMC Mermaid - Over 150 images in album - Read listing from link before viewing the album. - ]

[IMPORTANT! From this link click "View Album" then click image - Do not stop at the first large image but click again until an extra large version appears- then save]

[Found that Owen Stanley (Ranges named after him), mentioned above, was a great artist and the SLNSW also has an album of his work before a premature death in 1850 (This has scenes of Port Essington and others of interest)

Use the SLNSW search - (At http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/search/SimpleSearch.aspx) to find this and others like the example below.

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Example - New 1921 photographs found of the Okes-Durack Oil bore site on Ord River Station

See 1921 - Okes-Durack Kimberley Oil Company - Toothill Photograph Collection SLNSW - [Leads to digital image archive (see below) - saved to Okes-Durack Oil Research/ folder - AB 11 IV 2013 - 6 x Photos were donated by Presented to SLNSW by W.H. Tootill, August 1970] .

OR View the first of six images as extra large immediatel from - http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/album/ItemViewer.aspx?itemid=971195&suppress=N&imgindex=1

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