Blue Mountains Family History Society Inc

16/06/2026

NEXT MEETING – 10 July 2026
Our sixth meeting for 2026 will be held on Friday 10 July 2026 commencing at 10:00am.

The meeting will be held in the small community hall at the rear of the Springwood Presbyterian Church on Macquarie Road, Springwood.

Meeting Agenda:

10:00am Welcome to renewing members and (hopefully) some new members to their first meeting.

10:05am Minutes of the June 2026 meeting, approval and business arising.

Secretary’s Report and approval
Treasurer’s Report, approval and approval for new payments
General Business

10:30am Morning Tea/Coffee and Biscuit ($2.00)

10:50am Guest Speaker: The meeting on 10 July 2026 will be discussion/brick wall mini-groups on the following topics:

– Scotland and using their national library

– Researching the Irish pre 1800

– Researching the 1850s Irish

– Researching shipping around 1850s

Anyone with specialty knowledge in the topics outlined, please contact Tanya.

28/05/2026

NEXT MEETING – 12 June 2026
Our fifth meeting for 2026 will be held on Friday 12 June 2026 commencing at 10:00am.

The meeting will be held in the small community hall at the rear of the Springwood Presbyterian Church on Macquarie Road, Springwood.

Meeting Agenda:

10:00am Welcome to renewing members and (hopefully) some new members to their first meeting.

10:05am Minutes of the May 2026 meeting, approval and business arising.
Secretary’s Report and approval
Treasurer’s Report, approval and approval for new payments
General Business

10:30am Morning Tea/Coffee and Biscuit ($2.00)

10:50am Guest Speaker: Ian Kendall (Society Treasurer and Web Manager) – An Introduction to TROVE

Ian Kendall has been a member of the Blue Mountains Family History Society since 2005. He has held the position of President for a number of years before becoming the Society Treasurer in 2012. Ian is also the Society’s Public Officer. As well as Treasurer, Ian manages the Society’s web pages and provides research services for individual inquiries, volunteers twice a month at Katoomba Library assisting members of the community with assistance in family history, genealogy and DNA and once a month in the Springwood Library. He maintains a library of digital newsletters and journals online for access by members.

Ian has been interested and researching his family in one way or another since 1960, but having retired from Educational Administration now spends way too much time on his hobby of family history. He has researched and submitted articles to the Society’s journal, The Explorers’ Tree.

TROVE – Trove is a collaboration between the National Library of Australia (NLA) and hundreds of Partner organisations around Australia. Search Trove to explore amazing collections from Australian libraries, universities, museums, galleries and archives. It’s free and available online all day, every day.
What’s inside the treasure Trove
Everything you would find on a visit to a library or museum can be found in Trove. It brings together billions of pieces of information.

Digital copies
Search for digital copies of newspapers, Government Gazettes, maps, magazines and newsletters. Or books, pictures, photographs, archived websites, music and interviews. Even information about famous Australians, including copies of letters, diaries and personal archives.

12:00noon Meeting close – Next meeting Friday 10 July 2026

28/05/2026

The Blue Mountains Historical Society (BMHS) will conduct its monthly meeting and public talk on Saturday 6 June 2026 at the BMHS Research Centre, 99 Blaxland Road, Wentworth Falls.

Mr Paul Innes, a long term member of BMHS, well known in the Blue Mountains as the Carrington Historian and proprietor of Blue Mountains Tours, will give a talk on the Social History of Pharmacies in Katoomba, including the lives of several of the pharmacists.

The meeting will commence at 10.30am. Morning tea will be available from 10am for a small charge. Entry fee for the talk is $5.00 for visitors, free to members.

Kind regards

Jan Koperberg
Secretary
Blue Mountains Association of Cultural Heritage Organisations Inc (BMACHO)

08/05/2026

20/04/2026

Exciting news: our new book, Wollemi National Park: European History of Mount Pomany, has just been released and is available to purchase via the Bushexplorers website; click here for more information. Like all our other books, it is delivered free anywhere in Australia.

We could find no reference to the origin of ‘Pomany’ in either historical Australian chronicles or Aboriginal culture. We do know that it first appeared in written records in 1829. Its meaning and provenance remain an enigma.
Who built the hut, livestock holding yards and corralling fences on top of the mountain that is now within the Wollemi Wilderness area? Did these works support illicit cattle transactions?
This 112-page book contains several unique, not previously published maps and is illustrated with many colour photographs.

The first 20 people who will purchase the new book will have it autographed by the authors.

Happy reading and happy exploring!

Michael, Brian, and Yuri
www.bushexplorers.com.au

04/04/2026

BLUE MOUNTAINS HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Monthly Meeting, AGM and Public Talk
The Blue Mountains Historical Society (BMHS) will conduct its regular monthly meeting and AGM on Saturday 11 April 2026 in its meeting rooms at 99 Blaxland Road, Wentworth Falls commencing at 10.30am.
Following the completion of the short AGM, BMHS Vice President, Mrs Robyne Ridge, will deliver a talk telling the story of our historic cottage museum, ‘Tarella’ and its founding family, the McLaughlins.
Both BMHS members and members of the wider community are invited to the meeting and talk. Entry fee for visitors is $5.
Morning tea, for a small extra charge, will be available from 10am.

03/04/2026

Our next meeting of the Family History Society is on Friday, 10 April, 2026 at 10am in the small hall behind the Presbyterian Church, Macquarie Road, Springwood.

New members and visitors will be warmly welcomed.

This month’s talk will be given by Vivianne Byrnes on “How to Breathe Life into Your Family History”.

Vivianne wrote a monograph entitled The Family History of Florence and Herbert Fitzpatrick and Elvina Noonan. This traces their efforts to develop the Pittwater area of NSW Australia and how this family were connected to this beautiful area of Sydney.

Vivianne’s talk will be based on the subheadings:
Organising facts and photos
Values and Themes
Point of View
Poetry
Art and Family History
DNA & A.I.

Pictures and photos of Vivianne’s family history research will be available for viewing. She’d appreciate no food or drinks in that area.

Prior to the talk, morning tea will be available for $2 for tea/coffee and a biscuit.

Trade table
Our trade table will be operating again this month, so please donate any unwanted good quality items to the table display. If something from the table catches your fancy, please drop some cash in the Society’s moneybox for the item, then take it. Remember that if your donated items don’t sell, you’ll need to take them home.

Street stallThe next street stall to be held in front of the Presbyterian Church is confirmed for Saturday 2 May just in time for Mothers’ Day on 10 May. Please start to set aside contributions.

19/03/2026

Join us at Lithgow Library for the Authors Talk and the Launch of our new book, European History of Mount Pomany.

A good mystery inspires a team of sleuths to find answers. Mount Pomany in the Wollemi National Park, with its folklore reputation as a cattle duffers’ hideout, had us intrigued.
We could find no reference to the origin of ‘Pomany’ in either historical Australian chronicles or Aboriginal culture. We do know that it first appeared in written records in 1829. Its meaning and provenance remain an enigma.
Who built the hut, livestock holding yards and corralling fences on the mountain that is now within the Wollemi Wilderness area? These structures were on a network of bridle paths that connected the western area of Rylstone - Mudgee and the eastern area of Denman - Singleton. Did these works support illicit cattle transactions?
Saddle up your horse and ride through history with us!

The details are below. Space is limited, so you must RSVP by emailing [email protected] .

We would love to see you there.

Michael, Brian and Yuri

Bush Explorers is a guide to ultimate bushwalking in the Greater Blue Mountains National Park and the Gardens of Stone National Park. It is a chronicle of challenges, discoveries, adventures, sweat, and research lead by Brian Fox, Michael Keats and Yuri Bolotin. It is also your key to enjoy seldom v...

19/03/2026

BLUE MOUNTAINS HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Tarella Historic Cottage Museum Monthly Open Day

Sunday 29 March 2026

The Blue Mountains Historical Society (BMHS) will conduct a community Open Day at Tarella, its Historic Cottage Museum, on Sunday 29 March 2026 from 10am to 3pm at 99 Blaxland Road, Wentworth Falls.

Visitors and Historical Society members are both invited to view this fine example of a late 19th century Blue Mountains holiday cottage, furnished with period furniture, some of which is linked to the original owners, the McLaughlin family. The cottage provides an insight into domestic life at that time, including in the original kitchen, where tasty titbits are often cooked on the open fire for visitors on Open Days..

Younger children might also enjoy following our Gnome Trail throughout our gardens.

An entrance fee of $10.00 for adults, $2.00 for school age children, covers both entry to the cottage and inspection of the BMHS Research facilities.

Morning and afternoon tea, and, occasionally, soup and buns, will be available in the separate kitchen in the Society’s research building for a small extra cost for both members, other than volunteers on the day, and visitors

18/02/2026

Everglades has a Collections on Tour event on 30 April here at Everglades and I thought you might like to circulate details amongst your members. It’s a collaboration with the Museums of History NSW and the National Trust of Australia (NSW)



Everglades’ event is called ‘A Brighter Past: A Short History of Colour in NSW Homes’ – tickets include an illustrated presentation by MHNSW curators, and opportunity to view original pieces from the collection including wallpaper, trade catalogues, ties, architectural pattern books and more. Free for National Trust members.



Everglades Gallery

Thursday, 30 April 2026

10.30am – 12pm



Details are here and bookings are essential:

Museums of History NSW's Collections on Tour series heads to Leura with an expert-led presentation, Q&A session and a collection display