The Torres News is a fantastic resource for Torres Strait Islanders researching their family history. This newspaper has been digitised and is available online on Trove Newspapers.
Here I am going to demonstrate a basic family history search. First I will search the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies [AIATSIS] Mura Collections Catalogue- Australian Biographical Index [ABI] .
For example let’s search for Tom Sebasio in AIATSIS Mura catalogue.
The result tells me that Tom Sebasio was mentioned in the Torres Strait News: The voice of the Islands edition Number 439 [30 March – 5 April 2001] page 12.
To access to the article online I can search for the Torres Strait News on Trove Newspapers.
Once in Trove Newspapers I can search for the article using the information from Mura, or use the date of publication to view the full edition.
The article tells me that Lieutenant Tom Sebaisio was 1 of 1000 soldiers who took part in the Army’s 100th Birthday Celebrations in Canberra. Tom was part of a contingent from 51 FNQR who took part in a parade of colours at the event in 2001.
Tania Schafer – Librarian, State Library of Queensland