Paranormal Research: National Library of Australia’s TROVE (Part 1) - Basic Search

Paranormal Research: National Library of Australia’s TROVE (Part 1) - Basic Search

www.trove.nla.gov.au
Prior Posts related to this Blog:
Paranormal Research: The Manning Index of South Australian History

Trove is one of the biggest public databases in Australia, it contains more than 370 million resources, spread across ten content zones which includes: Books,  Photos, Journals, Newspapers, Government Gazettes, Music, Maps, Diaries and Letters, Archived Websites, People, and Lists.

The focus here is on content in digitised newspapers. (Trove also supplies a specific section with  information about searching newspapers.)

1. In this exercise, we are going to enter the term "Death of the Arcade Beadle" in inverted commas into the search bar. And hit enter, we can see our entry from the Manning index in slot two (see prior blog post The Manning Index <click here> )…

now let’s find it without the inverted commas. As you can see in the example below, we now have a ton of related content spread across all States and various newspapers. What we want to do now is to refine our search

Example 1

2. The easiest way to refine our search: we know that the newspaper we are looking for is from South Australia, so in the first left-hand side drop-down menu we choose South Australia – we then skip the newspapers and go straight to category – we know it’s an article, so we click that option. (see example 1)

Example 2

3. Next, we click "Decade" and scroll down to 1880-1890, which gives us 29 options of newspaper to read through, all from 1887. Our particular newspaper is second on the list, so we can click it and read it if we like. (example 2)

  From here, we can do many things, we can look through the various newspapers, most of which are the same, we could open up our search to the whole nation, which is sometimes useful because you will find that the newspapers in the state where an accident or crime happens will sanitise their stories so as not to offend the family, so an interstate newspaper may have a more in-depth story about the death or crime you are researching.

Because of the layout of Blogger, I cannot add the content of this talk in its entirety in one blog post. This transcript was originally presented as an interactive video presentation at the City Library in Adelaide and does not transcribe well to this format.

 Next week I will look at Advanced searching options on Trove.

© 2017 - Allen Tiller - originally presented by Allen Tiller as part of the 'Haunted Buildings in Adelaide' - Paranormal historian in residence project at the Adelaide City Libraries in conjunction with the City of Adelaide.

Paranormal Research: The Manning Index of South Australian History

Paranormal Research:

The Manning Index of South Australian History

http://www.slsa.sa.gov.au/manning/

What is the Manning Index?

  The Manning Index is a database of South Australian history, owned by the State Library of South Australia. The Manning Index is an index of Adelaide newspapers from 1837 through to 1937, together with extracts from the published works of G.H. Manning, and essays written from 1982-2002.
It also contains a list of place names in South Australia.

The index is incredibly useful to paranormal researchers as it allows us to find significant information about crimes or deaths or facts about a location. It gives us the newspaper, the date, and the page of the newspaper so we can then go to the National Library of Australia’s, “Trove” newspapers section < https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/?q= > to cross reference our research or find the article in its entirety.

  The index also overlaps with the State Library Of South Australia’s catalogue to some extent, and features many of the newspapers available in the State Library, such as: Adelaide Times, The Advertiser, The Chronicle, The Critic, Express & Telegraph, Frearson's Weekly, The Herald, Illustrated Adelaide Post, The Irish Harp, The Lantern, The Mail, The News, Observer, Register, SA Gazette & Mining Journal and the Southern Australian.

  The index is divided into four folders, which can be found in the top left-hand corner of your screen, these folders are:

1. South Australia: includes coverage of a number of 'State level' topics.
2. Adelaide: includes a number of topics which predominately relate to the city and the metropolitan area as a whole.
3. Port Adelaide:  includes references to Port Adelaide.
4. Place Names of South Australia: an alphabetical list of South Australian place names (including suburbs of Adelaide).

  Each folder contains several sub-folders, which themselves may contain more subfolders.

Some subjects are indexed extensively in more than one section. Generally, biographical references can be found on pages dealing with the place or activity a person is associated with. A few place-names also contain obituaries of people associated with the place name.

ALL place names are inverted, so 'Mount Gambier' will be found as 'Gambier, Mount'.

There are two ways to use the Manning Index:

 You have the option to search via the “Searching folder”, which allows you to search the State Library Catalogue and the Manning Index.

  If you click on the yellow folder, you will see both options. If you click on the Manning Index subfolder, you will see it takes us to a Google search engine.

  If you write Adelaide Arcade in the provided search engine, and press search, you will see that it brings up everything with the words “Adelaide” and “Arcade”.

To make your search more specific we can add inverted commas to the search; “Adelaide Arcade”. We now get three results. If you look to the right-hand side of the screen you will see a drop-down menu that says “sort by” which allows us to look at our findings via relevance or date.

  The second way to use the Manning index, assumes you know a little something about your topic already. We know that the Adelaide Arcade is in Adelaide, and is a building.

  Go to the yellow ‘Adelaide’ Folder and click it. Scroll down the list and find the subfolder, “Buildings” and click on it. Next, we see a list of buildings, written in blue.
 The Adelaide Arcade stands by itself, whereas other buildings are grouped into types. If we click the Adelaide Arcade hyperlink, we are giving a small list of pages where the Arcade is mentioned in local newspapers.

We can make note of these newspapers as a starting point for our next searchable index, the National Library of Australia’s Trove. So you can either write them down, highlight them with your mouse and copy and paste them into a Word File, or screen capture them for later reference:

Adelaide Arcade

Sketches of the Adelaide Arcade are in the Pictorial Australian in
August 1885 (supplement),
January 1886, page 12.

Also see Register,
30 April 1885, page 6g,
1, 14 and 15 December 1885, pages 7a, 4h-5b-6e and 6g, 

Express,
7 May 1885, page 4a,
12 and 14 December 1885, pages 3f and 3g,
17 December 1895, page 4c. 

"Death of the Arcade Beadle" is in the Observer,
25 June 1887, page 27a.

For more info on Geoffery Manning < Click Here>
for a photo of Geoffery Manning: <Click Here> 

Researched and written by Allen Tiller ©2017, for the 'Haunted Buildings in Adelaide' research project at the City of Adelaide Libraries.

J.P. McGowan: “The Railroad Man”

J.P. McGowan: “The Railroad Man”

John Paterson McGowan was a South Australian born pioneer in Hollywood. Born in Terowie, South Australia, John was known professionally as J.P McGowan and acted in over 235 movies. He also directed 257 movies, wrote 31 movies and produced with his company, ‘Signal Film’ 22 movies.
 McGowan is the only Australian life member of the Screen Directors Guild.

 McGowan was born on  February 24, 1880, in the mid-north town of Terowie. His father worked on the trains there, but the family soon moved south to Islington to the railyards where his father worked as a locomotive fire-stoker and labourer.

 McGowan fought in South Africa during the Boer War, and from here was plucked to work in films in America. His first film appearance was in a 1910 silent movie called ‘A Lad From Old Ireland’. McGowan worked for Kalem Studios at this time and went on to star in and direct 33 episodes of the serial adventure movies series ‘The Hazards of Helen’.

 McGowan married Helen Holmes, and together they started their own production company ‘Signal

Films’. They had one child together before their relationship fizzled out. They divorced in 1925.

 In his later career, McGowan directed John Wayne in The Hurricane Express, a 12-movie series produced by Mascot Pictures.

McGowan served as the executive secretary to the Screen Directors Guild from 1938 until 1951 (known later as the Directors Guild of America).

McGowan suffered from heart disease in his later years. He died on 26 March 1952, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States. His ashes were interred in a niche at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, California.

J.P. McGowan impressive resume on IMDB; https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0569645/

Researched and written by Allen Tiller © 2019

Bibliography

Donaldson, D., ‘The First Australian in Hollywood’, NFSA (2019), https://www.nfsa.gov.au/latest/first-australian-hollywood

Jaunay, G., JP (John Paterson) McGowan, (2019), http://www.jaunay.com/mcgowan.html

Worden, L., ‘J.P. McGowan, SCV Film Pioneer’(2013), https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/lw2355.htm

The Haunts of Adelaide is 7 Years Old Today!

The Haunts of Adelaide is 7 Years Old Today!

Today, the 22nd of October 2019, marks 7 years since I began writing this blog. So to mark the occasion today, I am going to link back to the seven most popular blog posts

1. Muzyk Murder - Unfortunately the most read blog post on The Haunts of Adelaide is the story of the horrific murder of Tracy Muzyk in 1996. 

http://hauntedadelaide.blogspot.com/2016/07/muzyk-murder.html

2. Para Para House - the second most popular blog post is a story of a mansion in Gawler West:

http://hauntedadelaide.blogspot.com/2013/02/para-para-ghosts-of-gawler-part-6.html

3. Woodhouse Activity Centre is the third most read blog post on The Haunts of Adelaide. While the story is brief in this post, a future post or possible book story will go into greater detail about the alleged ghosts

http://hauntedadelaide.blogspot.com/2014/03/woodhouse-activity-centre.html

4. A former convalescent home for children at Grange is the 4th most popular Blog. Estcourt House was built in 1883 and used as a hospital, today it is a private home.

http://hauntedadelaide.blogspot.com/2013/06/estcourt-house.html

5. The Adelaide Central Markets make it into 5th spot with a ghost story about a security guard who claimed to witness strange goings-on in the Adelaide icon.

http://hauntedadelaide.blogspot.com/2018/03/a-ghost-in-adelaide-central-markets.html

6. In the 6th spot, we have a hometown haunt: Dead Man's Pass at Gawler. I grew up playing in this reserve as a child and know its stories, its nooks and crannies, and still to this day enjoy exploring this location.

http://hauntedadelaide.blogspot.com/2013/01/dead-mans-pass-ghosts-of-gawler-part-two.html

7. The seventh most read blog post is "Sinister by Design: Part 2: Carclew House". Since writing this post way back in 2012, I have visited Carclew many times and learned a great deal more about its history and alleged hauntings! look for new stories in future publications

http://hauntedadelaide.blogspot.com/2012/10/carclew-house-montefiore-hill-sinister.html

A big thank you to each and every one of you that has taken the time to read, share or interact with this blog. I enjoy researching history, I enjoy telling stories, and I started writing this blog purely for my own interest, so its a blessing for me that so many people have come to read this blog.

Allen Tiller

A Ghost at Nairne

A Ghost at Nairne

 

Nairne 1910 - SLSA: [B 394]

In March 1878, the Adelaide Hills town of Nairne was beset with an unruly and persistent ghost who over several nights was terrifying local ladies. The ghost would appear in the evenings at various locations around the town surprising locals, before vanishing into the night.

One evening a group of young men set about capturing the ghost. They waited patiently for it to appear. When it did appear, the ghost seemed to be very much aware of the plans for its capture, evading the various traps put in place. The ghost was also very fast, outpacing the living. It vanished once more into the night.

 A warning was put around the town that if the ghost was captured, a harsh and severe punishment would be dealt to it. The ghost was not seen around Nairne again after the warning.

Researched and written by Allen Tiller © 2019

Bibliography

'COUNTRY LETTERS.', Adelaide Observer, (16 March 1878), p. 6.

'COUNTRY CORRESPONDENCE.', South Australian Register, (14 March 1878), p. 6.

'NAIRNE, MARCH 13.', South Australian Chronicle and Weekly Mail, (16 March 1878), p. 4

7 Minutes to 3: The Tragic Deaths of Roy Ayling and Eugenie Armstrong

7 Minutes to 3: 

The Tragic Deaths of Roy Ayling and Eugenie Armstrong.

 June 19th, 1919 was just another ordinary day for engine driver and fireman, John James O’Shea and Harold Sutherland. They went to work at the Islington Train Yards. They fired up Engine 88 to pull Goods Train 72 and set off on route from Mile End out to Hamley Bridge, north of Gawler.
 The train passed through Gawler and out onto the Roseworthy line to Hamley Bridge, then back through Roseworthy heading toward Gawler.
 As the train approached the crossing on what is now Redbanks Road between Roseworthy and Gawler, the engine driver sounded his whistle. As the whistle was sounded, he noticed a motorcycle with sidecar speeding along the road.  The train whistle was sounded again as a warning. The motorcycle appeared to slow down, then suddenly as if racing the train to the crossing, sped up.
 O’Shea sounded the train's whistle again and Sutherland applied the tender brake.

  Due to the incline of the rail line, the airbrakes and tender brakes had already been partially applied, so when the train approached the crossing it was already decelerating.
 The train entered the crossing at 20 miles per hour pulling a 300-ton load. It struck the centre of the motorcycle, dragging it under the cowcatcher and under the train.

 Fireman, Harold Sutherland stated of the incident; “I saw the motorcycle, about a chain away, on the driver's side of the engine. Saw nothing further until the bodies flew out from the under wheels of the engine onto the right side of the line.”

 There were many witnesses to the accident. Farmers on properties around the train line had been out in the fields working had seen the whole event as it occurred. Farmer Hugo Twartz, Martin Twartz, Theodore Bartsch, all gave testimony that confirmed the train driver and train fireman’s testimony.

 Roy Ayling was a quiet young man described as quiet and thoughtful, with a gift for motor mechanics. The 20-year-old was well known and liked around Willaston. He was a successful poultry breeder who made his own incubators and breeders. He had been riding a motorcycle for over a year, and many local people knew the sound of his bike as it came and went from Willaston.

 Eugenie Armstrong was a student at the Gawler Technical School. At only 18 and half she had made her mark assisting at various businesses in Gawler’s main street. She was a valued member of the Gawler’s Congregational Church. Her father, Mr A.P, Armstrong was a well-known Labor Party Member in South Australia. Miss Armstrong was described by friends as; “A sterling and reliable companion, who was very popular among her peers.”

 On June 19^th, Roy picked up Eugenie in his sidecar. He had only had the bike for two months and enjoyed showing it off. They headed out toward Roseworthy to catch a late afternoon football match between the Willaston Football Club and the Roseworthy College students’ team.
 It’s not known exactly what happened on that fateful day. The par sped along Redbank’s road toward the crossing, the train blew its whistle, and Roy slowed down but didn’t stop. He sped up, the train blew a second, longer warning whistle, but Roy didn’t stop, he pushed ahead to the crossing, where the bike was hit, and two young adults were flung from the bike under the train.

 Was Roy overconfident his new bike could beat the train? Was he showing off to Eugenie, or perhaps trying to scare her? Or was he distracted by the young woman in the sidecar, not noticing the noise of the trains whistle over the blare of his bike?

 We will never truly know the exact circumstances of the accident that claimed their lives…

 The police attended the scene after the accident. The young adults’ bodies were badly mutilated, so much so that they were buried before their funerals were held.

At the scene, Miss Armstrong’s watch was picked up by Sergeant Adamson. It read 7 minutes to 3, about the time of the accident.

Roy and Eugenie are buried at the historic Willaston Cemetery near Gawler.

Researched and written by Allen Tiller © 2019.

Bibliography

'AWFUL RAILWAY ACCIDENT.', Bunyip, (27 June 1919), p. 3.
'THE INQUEST.', Bunyip, (27 June 1919), p. 3.
'DETAILS OF THE TRAGEDY.', Chronicle, (28 June 1919), p. 13.
'RUN DOWN BY A TRAIN.', Chronicle, (28 June 1919), p. 13.

Buried Alive at Mount Gambier

Buried Alive at Mount Gambier

 Richard Unwin was a sexton and gravedigger at Mount Gambier cemetery. On 26 October 1893, Unwin set about digging a grave, there was no machinery to dig the graves, so it was all done by pick and shovel.

 Unwin on this day was digging a particularly deep grave between two burial enclosures had nearly completed his work, having reached a depth of 8 feet, when the sides of the grave collapsed, burying him up to his neck.
 Unwin was trapped, and unable to move. He tried in vain to move his body, but the weight of the dirt was too much. His head was exposed, but he was below the ground line by a good two feet, so could not be seen by people passing by, unless they actually looked inside the grave.
 Unwin called out, but the weight of the dirt on his chest made it hard to do so, but he persevered in the hope someone might hear him.

 In another part of the cemetery, Mr Kelly and Mr Topham were also at work. Mr Kelly thought he heard some odd noises travelling on the wind and went to investigate them. He followed the moans and groans and soon discovered Unwin buried to the neck in someone else’s grave.

 Kelly called Topham over and the two men worked with great urgency to free Unwin. An adjoining monument was threatening to collapse into the hole onto Unwin after the dirt had shifted trapping Unwin.
Two men passing by, Mr Lewis and Mr Driscoll noticed the commotion and ran into the cemetery to offer his assistance. Mr Topham was sent into town to retrieve some brandy for Unwin to relieve his exhaustion.
 Another passer-by Mr Eustace also offered to help.

While the men were digging to free Unwin, the ground caved in a few times, further destabilising the already precarious position of the nearby monument.
 Unwin indicated to the men that one of his legs was seriously injured as it had begun to burn. A local doctor was sent for.

 After an hour and a half of digging, Unwin was finally freed from the grave, he was exhausted and had suffered a broken right leg.

It was many weeks before Unwin returned to work.

Researched and written by Allen Tiller © 2019

Bibliography

'A MAN BURIED ALIVE.', South Australian Chronicle, (28 October 1893), p. 21.

'A GRAVEDIGGER BURIED.', South Australian Register, (27 October 1893), p. 5.

'A GRAVEDIGGER BURIED.', Evening Journal, (27 October 1893), p. 3

'The Border Watch,', Border Watch, (28 October 1893), p. 2.