Ballarat and district is an exciting area to research. The pastoralists who first settled the land had their peace shattered in the early 1850s by swarms of miners intent on finding their fortune as one gold discovery after another peppered the district. Huge wealth was extracted from the earth in the Ballarat area and this led to the establishment of a beautiful city reflecting the prosperity of the era..

The first squatters arrived in the district in 1838. They included the Learmonth and the Birch brothers, Yuille, Scott, Anderson, Hepburn, Cameron and others. Scott settled at Mt Boninyong (sic) and Mrs Scott was the first white women in the district. In 1840 it was reported that she rode across the dry bed of Lake Burrumbeet.

The Aborigines in the Ballarat area were of the Borneghurk and Wathaurang tribes but by the late 1840s very few survived. According to Withers (W.B. Withers, A History of Ballarat, Melbourne, 1887), it was observed that the adults had the marks of smallpox on their bodies when the first settlers arrived.

In 1851 gold was officially discovered. Men in Melbourne and Geelong put down their tools; walked out of offices and joined the rush. Soon the news passed around the world and dozens of sailing ships were anchored in Port Phillip Bay. The new arrivals represented many nationalities, occupations and political traditions. They were young, ambitious and independent. The pastoralists were reluctant to accommodate the changes rapidly taking place around them and earned the dislike of many of the gold miners.

Governor LaTrobe and his successor in 1854, Sir Charles Hotham, struggled to cope with the chaos caused by a huge influx of people and the enormous changes that the gold rush brought. Diggers objected to paying for a miners licence when they had no rights; they felt persecuted by the arbitrary nature of police licence hunts and it was believed goldfields police and commissioners were often corrupt. Eventually their lack of political status led Ballarat miners to form a protest group which built a stockade on the Eureka Lead. On the morning of Sunday, December 3, 1854 some 120 miners in the stockade were attacked by 400 soldiers and goldfields police. A short battle resulted in the deaths of thirty miners and five soldiers but community support was so great for the miner's cause that a number of democratic reforms followed Eureka. This history of Eureka is a study in itself and is of particular importance in gaining a good understanding of Victorian history.

In 1854 the district court was still run from Buninyong. There was a lock-up and the 'logs' at Ballarat but no gaol. There was no city council, no rates being collected, churches and schools when set up were conducted in flimsy tents. Provision stores were makeshift, mostly tents, so that their entrepreneurial owners could pick them up and take them to the next new rush. There was no infrastructure and no permanency. It is creditable that any records at all have survived and it is a living reminder of the struggle our forebears had to record and preserve what today can be called our wonderful heritage.

After Eureka came the building of a city. It is often said that Ballarat is 'built on gold'. After tremendous growth, consolidation of the city took place through industry, agriculture, commerce, sports and the arts.

If you have tracked your ancestors to the Ballarat region it is worth noting that the Central Highlands Historical Association Inc. is the umbrella association for fifty heritage organisations. These groups have interests as diverse as local history, family history and genealogy, the history of railways, trams, paddle steamers, astronomy, aviation and military matters.The CHHA was formed in 1985 and is an active and innovative organisation which assists by developing and maintaining resource and information networks among the member societies. It represents member societies to municipal, state and federal governments on matters of joint concern. The CCHA publishes a journal and conducts a number of public events throughout the year including a history fair.

Each society has its own unique specialities. A Directory of Museums and Societies 1997 has been published by the Central Highlands Historical Association. This 40-page booklet contains information on hours of opening, contact phone numbers and a short description of the special features of each collection. Details for obtaining a copy of the Directory can be found at the end of this article.

Some societies have particularly interesting and significant collections. The following are a sample list and are by no means an entire list of the Association.

The Creswick Museum was bequeathed a collection of Lindsay paintings. It also has many other items of interest to anyone researching the Creswick area. The Clunes Museum has many archives, mining and agricultural tools, as well as memorabilia relating to Clunes, Victoria's first gold town. The Ballarat Historical Society has a notable photographic collection, some of which is housed in the Gold Museum and some at the Ballarat Municipal Library. The Ballarat & District Genealogical Society's collection is also housed in the Australiana Room at the Ballarat Municipal Library. This extensive collection includes Ballarat and district cemetery records, parish baptisms and marriages, biographical indexes, school and hospital records, and many other sources useful to genealogists. Cape Clear has a wonderful photographic collection, Woady Yaloak Historical Society is located in the Smythesdale courthouse and has a mammoth amount of material pertaining particularly to the Smythesdale area. The Ballarat Astronomical Society caters for group bookings. Tours of the observatory include relevant history with showings of century-old telescopes which are still in operation. The buildings have superb stained glass windows and the site has been listed by the Historic Buildings Council of Victoria. The Ballarat Engine and Machinery Preservation Society Inc. brings together people with a common interest in the preservation of old engines and machinery. The collections are privately owned by society members. If your ancestor was part of a machinery firm such as Preston and Kelly, this society may be able to help you with a wealth of information. The Phoenix Foundry was another large firm in the Ballarat area. and a book on this foundry is currently being researched. The Ballarat Tramway Museum Inc. maintains and operates vintage trams on a section of the original Ballarat tramway system. It also operates a museum with accompanying archives and resource centre. The Blacksmith Cottage and Forge in Main Street, Bacchus Marsh is open every fourth Sunday of the month from 12 noon to 4.00 p.m. The Bungaree Historical Society is located at the Old Bluestone School, Bungaree and one members has indexed the Bungaree court records. These courts recorded truancy as well as the misdemeanours such as the filing for maintenance. Bungaree also has a collection of agricultural implements. The Carisbrook Historical Society's collection includes a large number of photographs and a range of school, cemetery and family history records. The Daylesford Historical Society, as well as a comprehensive photographic collection has a bound set of early newspapers, family histories, cemetery and baptismal records, rate books, memorabilia, artefacts and old machinery. It also has an important collection of Aboriginal artefacts. The Gold Museum is located opposite Sovereign Hill, Ballarat. It has a large and varied collection, including the Simon Collection of gold nuggets, samples and coins. It houses the collection of the Ballarat Historical Society. It has an extensive postcard and photograph collection and a wide variety of materials relating to the history of Ballarat. The Museum also offers a diverse program of temporary and travelling exhibitions. It has a sportsman's Hall of Fame. The Lake Bolac and District Historical Society is involved in the preservation of social history in that district. Two rallies are conducted annually by the Lake Goldsmith Steam and Preservation Society Ltd. The settlement of Italian-speaking people in the Hepburn Springs area is celebrated by The Swiss Italian Festa.

Was your ancestor a goldminer?

Problems associated with tracing gold miners:

• Gold miners of the 1850s are difficult to trace through records in the Central Highlands region of Victoria. Early mining was alluvial and as soon as one field was exhausted, the rush was on to another. The miners were itinerant often alternating gold seeking with labouring or farming work. They can often be found to have been at six or more localities within a very short time. When diggers were lucky, they often took off on a spree to the city where they spent the spoils of their labour. Such a mobile population can be difficult to locate especially if they had a name such as Jones or Smith! But by consulting locally held records you may pin down that elusive ancestor.

• The gold miners were hard working. There was constant noise and work, day and night, on the goldfields. There was often no time for recording baptisms or other events. It was also not compulsory to record marriages, births or deaths in Victoria until 1853. Some marriages are not recorded due to the fact that itinerant preachers did not called very often in the out-lying districts. The only mode of transport was horse or a horse-drawn vehicle and it took time to get around! There were charlatans on the gold fields who duped people into thinking that they were preachers, 'married' them, took their money and departed. The marriages were never registered and were not legal but the parties concerned did not know and thought they were legally married.

• Some miners could not read or write. This poses many difficulties. Some were semi-literate. Names are often misspelt. Even in the recording of events for the government registers there are spelling errors. Imagine the predicament of an Irish or Scottish person registering a baby's birth and the person writing down the information was a none too literate Englishman with his own broad regional accent. An illiterate person could not check to see if their name was written down correctly! We are indeed fortunate that any information is available.
  
• The greater majority of working people were illiterate and so there are very few diaries or written records in existence describing their lives in the 1840s to 1860s. Most of the diaries that have survived were written by people who could afford an education and naturally, their diaries tend to reflect their own more privileged lifestyle and view of society.

• Until 1855 only men who owned property could vote. The miners had to buy a miner's right and later a miner's lease to prospect for gold. This lack of political representation was one of the major grievances leading up to the Eureka rebellion. The miners were governed and laws were enforced, often brutally and unfairly, by a system in which they had no say.
  
• the colony of Victoria was created when the Port Phillip District separated from New South Wales in July 1851. Just a few months later gold was discovered and the rush began. There had been no time to properly settle matters between the colonies, there was no infrastructure in place to handle the population explosion and the chaos that the gold rush caused. It was a unique situation, the task was mammoth and the government was unable to provide the services required to regulate the population.

If you think your ancestor was a gold miner in the Central Highlands area and you cannot trace him, consider the following suggestions:

• Check all surrounding areas. Remember that many gold miners followed the new rushes. They simply picked up their tents and belongings and walked or rode to the new field.

• Check parish maps of the areas around Ballarat. These often have first landowners noted on them.

• Find out the dates and places that rushes occurred. This will give some indication of the movement of miners.

• For the earlier period (1838 to 1851) check New South Wales records. Remember that the Port Phillip District was under the jurisdiction of New South Wales until 1851.

• Check BDMs to locate a family. This is sometimes very helpful and so simple that it is often overlooked. If you can trace a family to a particular area, you can then access the information from that particular place.

• Check all burials. A premature death of a child is often recorded on a tombstone at a cemetery but not registered in the BDMs.

• Check all possible spellings of a surname. Surnames can be misspelt by a person indexing or by an error of transcription.

Check all church and school records even if the records do not belong to the supposed religion of the family. I have found that parents did not automatically send their children to a school of the family's religious denomination rather children often attended the nearest school or the school considered best for their children's education.