We are delighted to announce that CAFHOV member, Dr Sophie Couchman, is going to be the keynote speaker at the launch of this year’s National Family History Month. Her paper, ‘Doing it for ourselves – transcription projects’, will discuss CAFHOV’s recent project ‘Transcribing Chinese travels into Victoria’s history’ where we crowd sourced the creation of an online digital index of three registers of people who applied for Certificates of Exemption from Dictation Test (CEDT).
Transcribing Chinese travels into Victoria’s history
Between 1904 and 1959, customs officials recorded the details of Chinese and Indian Victorians who travelled overseas under a certificate exempting them from having to sit the notorious dictation test on their return to Australia. They recorded the names, ages, nationalities, occupations, residencies, and shipping details of these people.
Currently, all of these details are locked away, unsearchable, unless you know the date of issue of a particular certificate. We plan to change that by creating a searchable index of these records and we’d like you to help!
Details from 1933 for Tommy Hoy, Chin Sing Toy, Ah Yen, Ah Way, and Doolah Mahomed. Source: NAA: B6003, 3
Launch
On Sunday, 5 May 2019 we hosted a launch event for this project at the Chinese Museum in Melbourne to bring together people to help us to transcribe the key details from these three registers using our specially designed online system. We also had a presentation by Dr Sophie Couchman – “What are these registers and why do they matter?” – and by John and Ming Griffith – “Finding Chin Loong”.
For further information and to get a login to begin transcribing, contact the project organisers on: chindexhelp@gmail.com.
Also, keep an eye on our website and Facebook page for information about any future transcribing events!
Rows 44 – 86, page 2 of register 3, showing details for 1933. Help us unlock these registers. Source: NAA: B6003, 3
