AHRR
Australian Historic Records Register
What's in the Records?
 

Title

The record title is usually in two parts. The first part describes the person/s or organisations responsible for the collection. The second part describes the overall document type.

Examples:

Polonia Soccer Club, Adelaide: community organisation records

Broken Hill Historical Society: photographic collection

Bartulovich and Katic families: family records

Register number

Record identification number used for citation of records.

Dates

The date field details the time span covered by the record. Usually it contains a range of dates, but it can be a single year.

Examples:

1926-1987

c.1880-1987

1880s-1940s

Description

This paragraph provides information on the content of the collection.

A large array of paper records is covered including certificates, cigarette cards, drawings, photographs, log books, maps, charts, account books, minute books, newspaper cuttings, leaflets, albums, diaries, plans, manuals, watercolour paintings, autograph albums, menus, souvenir programs and registers.

Examples:

Ships drawings, 1916-1943 (10 files)

Scrapbooks of newspaper cuttings on naval affairs, 1974-1979 (75 vols)

In the case of family records, the names of the individual creators within the family are given. In the case of records spanning several generations, the names of family groups who created the records are included.

Examples:

James Watt, Snr: letter from the Colonial Secretary’s Office in Brisbane, regarding the disappearance of his son, David Watt, on the Ravenswood Gold Fields, 1874.

Watt family: notebooks containing a miscellany, including handwritten recipes, shopping lists and a play, 1896-1935 (6 notebks)

In some cases the material has been described by the contributor. Information on quantity and dates may not be available for these records.

Historical Note

This field describes the background setting for the entry. In the case of families, a brief description of the important family members is included. With companies and societies, founding members or other people who played a central role may be described and a brief history of the organisation included.

Examples:

Aleksander Cmielewski, OAM, arrived in Australia in the late 1940s and helped set up the Polonia Soccer Club in 1950. Cmielewski served on the Executive of the Club in various capacities for many years, as well as being very active in organising other Polish community groups in South Australia. The Polonia Club is one of the oldest soccer clubs in South Australia, being well known in Adelaide and having its own premises and playing fields. It has teams at all levels.

Places

This field lists places relevant to an entry. Most, but not all, place names are qualified by the state, while suburbs or distinctive areas within a city may be qualified by the city name.

The following abbreviations are used for states: ACT, NSW , NT, Qld, SA, Tas, Vic, WA.

Examples:

Sydney

Targini sawmill, Qld

Garden Is., Sydney

Redfern, NSW

Bininyong Shire, Vic.

Names

The names of individuals central to the records in an entry are included here. If several members of a family are represented in the collection, then the entry is for the family as a whole. Geographic areas such as state, shire, town or city may be added if appropriate.

Examples:

Trautman, Gustav A.

Finch, R.W.

Fletcher family, Berridale

Schroder family, N.S.W.

Thesaurus terms

The subjects are controlled by the Australian Historic Records Register Thesaurus.

Other subjects

A combination of subject terms controlled through the AHRR Thesaurus (including types of organisations, occupations and general subjects) and uncontrolled specific headings such as titles of works and names of organisations and ships.

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AHRR
Australian Historic
Records Register
Comments on any aspect of the Register are welcome and may be sent by e-mail to
manuscripts@nla.gov.au
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Last updated Tuesday 27-Feb-2001
http://www.nla.gov.au/ahrr/records.html