Tag Archives: Australia

New: GLOBALISE – digitised Dutch East India Company archives for 17th & 18th centuries

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Researchers interested in colonial history and Dutch history will be delighted to know that over 5 million scans of the Dutch East India Company are now freely and fully searchable at GLOBALISE.

GLOBALISE Unlocking the history of early globalisation and colonialism for researchers and the general public. Image of Hougly complex in Bengalen Consisting of approximately twenty-five million pages, the UNESCO Memory of the World-listed archives of the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC) offer a unique view on interactions between European and non-European actors in Asia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 5 million scans of the ‘Overgekomen Brieven en Papieren’ (1610-1796) of the VOC are now fully searchable. From early October 2023, a prototype of the GLOBALISE transcriptions viewer is online at: https://transcriptions.globalise.huygens.knaw.nl/.

These archives not only provide insights into the VOC’s operations but also offer rare glimpses into early modern societies in Asia, Africa, and Australia. For these regions, where few archival sources exist, the VOC archives hold unique and invaluable information, illuminating their multifaceted interactions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This resource is useful for those interested in early modern global and colonial history.

While you are here, check out…

New: Migration to New Worlds

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I am pleased to report that Oxford historians now have access to Adam Matthew’s Migration to New Worlds. Following a collaboration between Jisc and Adam Matthew this resource is made freely available to all UK academics and students in higher (HE) and further (FE) education institutions from January 2016.

Migration to New Worlds documents the emigration of peoples to the United States, Canada and Australasia during the period 1800 to 1924, although there are documents from the eighteenth century and also later materials.

Mainly focusing on European emigration, the resource includes material on English, Scandinavian, Irish, Italian, Jewish, Polish and Scottish experiences along with a wealth of material covering Chinese and Japanese movement to the United States.

The majority of the collection comprises unique manuscript correspondence, diaries and travel journals, providing eye-witness accounts and experiences of emigrants across the World. It is also rich in visual content.

Topics covered include: motives for emigration; assisted migration schemes; social conditions and organisation in ports of emigration; ships and shipping lines involved in emigration; government legislation for emigration and immigration; settlement, naturalisation and choice of location; maintaining identities.

This collection of primary sources provides an important and multi-faceted resource for students, teachers and researchers from a diverse range of academic disciplines, including migration studies, history, sociology, law, economics and postcolonial studies.

Migration to New Worlds is now available via SOLO and Databases A-Z.

Watch a webinar on this resource:

Related resources on the web:

More titles on Cambridge Histories Online available: Cambridge World History and many more

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CHO - WWII coverI’m pleased to report that Oxford readers can now access more titles in the online Cambridge Histories Online portal. The newly added ebooks of interest to historians are:

  • The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy (2 vols.)
  • The Cambridge History of Witchcraft and Magic in the West
  • The Cambridge History of the Second World War (3 vols.)
  • The Cambridge Economic History of Australia
  • The Cambridge History of Capitalism (2 vols.)
  • The Cambridge History of China, Volume 5 (part 2) & Volume 9 (part 2)
  • The Cambridge History of Scandinavia (to be complete in 2 vols.)
  • The Cambridge World History (to be complete in 9 vols.)

The catalogue records for these ebooks will appear in SOLO in due course. In the meantime you can find these by searching Cambridge Histories Online in SOLO.

Ancestry.com freely available in Oxford Central Library & British Library

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Logo of Ancestry.com, showing a leaf in green on the left hand and "Ancestry.com" on the right.If any Oxford historians would like free access to Ancestry.com, then you might like to know that the Oxford Central Library, nr Westgate Centre, provides access to Ancestry Library Edition – as does the British Library.

The Family and Local History section on the top level of the Central Library has 4-5 PCs where you can access Ancestry Library Edition. Please note that you can’t open an Ancestry personal account for the purposes of creating family trees. You can print from a PC or save to memory stick.

Ancestry.com is particularly useful for family and genealogical research, esp. British, North American and Australian. You can trace a family tree using the largest site online including the UK Census from 1841; birth, marriage and death records; parish and probate records. Here is a listing topics and sources:

Birth, Marriage & Death
Birth, Baptism & Christening
Marriage & Divorce
Death, Burial, Cemetery & Obituaries

Census & Voter Lists
UK Census Collection
U.S. Federal Census Collection
Canadian Census Collection

Immigration & Travel
Passenger Lists
Citizenship & Naturalization Records
Border Crossings & Passports

Military
Draft, Enlistment and Service
Casualties
Soldier, Veteran & Prisoner Rolls & Lists

Schools, Directories & Church Histories
City & Area Directories
Professional & Organizational Directories
Church Histories & Records

Tax, Criminal, Land & Wills
Land Records
Tax Lists
Court, Governmental & Criminal Records

Other useful resources

FamilySearch

Top 100 Most Popular Genealogy Websites

Medieval English Genealogy

Familiennamenbuch der Schweiz

Genealogische Datenbank Familie Beuss

and more from HFL Delicious: census websites, genealogy websites. If you want to make suggestions of other genealogy or census websites for bookmarking, please email Isabel Holowaty.