Western Australia Buys Genealogist’s Lifetime Work

Avon Valley Advocate (Northam/Western Australia):

State buys Jan’s lifetime genealogy work

NORTHAM’S Jan Goodacre has seen the vindication of 35 years’ work with the sale of her database on Western Australia’s Aboriginal genealogy to the State Government.

Price has not been disclosed but Jan admits it is a “considerable sum”.

A presentation will be made to Jan this Friday by the Minister for Community development Sheila McHale, but the cheque has already been banked with some of the proceeds buying a home in suburban Perth.

Jan and her husband Butch left Northam yesterday for Perth as Jan also has a two-year consultancy with the State Government to bed down its use of her database.

Her cataloguing task has been a labour of love for Jan who has travelled to cemeteries all over the State chronicling Aboriginal births and deaths and tracing them back.

The genealogy includes biological relationships to non-Aboriginal forebears.

There are more than 7500 photographs in her collection.

“My greatest challenge was learning the Nyungah language,” Jan said…..

Rest of article at link above. That’s a heckuva lot of work – 35 years, 1000s of miles of travel, learning a different language.

Update: Another story (abc.net.au) – This genealogy database contained 74,000 individuals.

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