Sources relating to Women at PROV
Where can I find records relating to Aboriginal women and children?
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General comments
- A good starting point for research is the PROV and National Archives of Australia publication My Heart is Breaking, a guide to Aboriginal records in the custody of PROV and the Melbourne office of National Archives of Australia.
- Significant quantities of records created by Victorian government agencies responsible for Aborigines were transferred to the Commonwealth along with this government function in 1975. A number of these records, largely from the period after c. 1860, are now held by the National Archives of Australia. Keep this in mind, should a request for a particular file at PROV produce a nil result. National Archives of Australia holds some Commonwealth records relating to Aboriginal affairs in Melbourne. Refer to their guide Collections in Melbourne, in particular Aboriginal Affairs.
- Despite the 1975 function transfer, some files relating to Aborigines will be found at PROV. Please refer to PROVguide 67 Aboriginal Records at PROV which lists some of the main series held and PROVguide 65 Researching Koorie Family History at PROV.
- Records relating to Aborigines may be found within the correspondence filing systems of a number of Victorian government agencies including the Department of the Premier. Correspondence relating to Aborigines was also registered within the filing system of the Chief Secretary's Department. During the period 1865 to at least 1900, for example, items relating to Aborigines can be identified in the Department's Index to Inward Correspondence (VPRS 1411) under the subject headings 'Boards' and 'Chief and Under Secretary'. Many items under 'Boards' are letters received from the Board for the Protection of Aborigines and the later Board of Aborigines. Items can also be found in the index under the subject and 'Private Persons' headings at the end of each alphabetical section in the same index.
- Letters from Aboriginal Women in Victoria, 1867-1926, edited by Elizabeth Nelson, Sandra Smith and Patricia Grimshaw, was published by the University of Melbourne Department of History in 2002. It draws extensively from records held by PROV and National Archives of Australia. Many of the PROV references are derived from VPRS 1694, Correspondence files of the Board for the Protection of Aborigines (date range 1889-1946).
- PROV is actively involved with the work of the Victorian Koori Records Unit. The Unit has produced a resource manual to government and private records that can be used by members of the stolen generation attempting to reconstruct their histories: Finding Your Story, A Resource Manual to the Records of the Stolen Generations in Victoria.
- Also refer to the comments on finding records relating to women and children in PROV.
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