🚀 go-pugleaf

I saw this article several times on my recent trip to New Zealand.
Apologies if it has already been posted here.
Reprinted without permission from the Otago Daily Times, 1 Feb 1986.


		  Chance to trace ancestors
			By Mike Hedge

London. - When Queen Victoria was refused membership of the Royal Yacht
Squadron because she was a woman she formed her own sailing club around
the corner.

A clubhouse designed by her husband was built on the beachfront at Ryde
on the Isle of Wight and its origin is one of the best known stories on
the island.

Of less common knowledge is that Queen Victoria's sailing club overlooks
Australia's origins.

On May 13, 1787, 100 years before the queen's sailing club was built, the
13 ships of the First Fleet assembled off Ryde and sailed for Botany Bay.

In Australia the rest is the country's history.

The Isle of Wight is celebrating the bicentenary of the First Fleet's
departure with an exercise aimed at giving the descendants of the First
Fleeters and, eventually, of all other fleets which sailed to Australia,
the opportunity to trace their ancestry.

The local councils of the Isle of Wight are establishing the Australian
Heritage Centre, which will compile data on the members of the First
Fleet, detailing what led them to make the voyage as well as their
ancestry.

"The ultimate aim is to include the entire complement of every fleet
that sailed to Australia," said Eddie Elsom, managing director of Elsom
Lauder, the firm which will compile the computer genealogy unit of the
Australian Heritage Centre.

Mr. Elsom said the computerised records would allow the descendants as
well as the ancestors of the original Australian immigrants to be
traced.

"The idea is for every Australian visiting the United Kingdom to be
encouraged to register at the heritage centre," he said.

Unlike the existing, sometimes costly, methods of tracing family
histories, access to the genealogy unit would be free of charge.

The Australian Heritage Centre is to be set up in the disused St Thomas'
Church, Ryde, where the third mate on one of the ships of the First
Fleet was buried.

As well as the permanent genealogy unit, the Isle of Wight - Australia
bicentennial celebrations will include the World Land Speed Dunny
International and a re-enactment of the First Fleet's voyage by 13
square-rigged sailing ships. - NZPA-AAP.
-- 
David Eppstein, eppstein@cs.columbia.edu, seismo!columbia!cs!eppstein
(note that the garfield in my headers is *not* the one in the UUCP map)