Historical Facts

Information Services will continue to use this space to inform you of new local history acquisitions, such as photographs and artifacts, as they are donated to the library and become publicly accessible. We hope to combine these pictures with their interesting back stories. Alternatively, we may provide you with a quirky anecdote relating to any one of the Lake's various suburbs in information sourced from one of our various clippings files, oral history recordings or books authored by local historians.

Most recently a former Swansea resident kindly allowed us to copy pictures originally taken in the 1940s of her family's bakery, which used to be located on the Pacific Highway at Swansea -

Hardy's Bakery, Swansea c.1940

Historic Photos -Online and Hardcopy Available Now

Lake Macquarie City Library is continually collecting photographs and stories from staff and residents with the aim of providing a tangible point of reference to anyone with an interest in the history of the local area. Currently we have more than 6000 historical photographs, the digital versions can be accessed at anytime by following this link:

http://www.lakemac.com.au/pagephoto.aspx?tmpt=search&pid=481&vid=1


If you believe the descriptions accompanying the photographs are either incorrect or incomplete, please do not hesitate to contact us. You can even take this one step further and perhaps consider directly adding a 'tag' or subject heading to the description. The library can also supply reproductions of photographs at a resolution of 300 ppi per image, the cost being $10 per image for individuals, higher for commerical interests.



Removing tank traps at Belmont South, at the end of WW2 (1945) .
Photograph donated by Clive Read.

Family History

Greetings Genealogists!

Many of you may already be aware that Information Services has a dedicated room at Speers Point Library stocked with resources to assist your family history habit. You are also probably familiar with the wonderful members from the Lake Macquarie Family History Group who graciously volunteer their time and expertise each Friday in said room between 10 am - 1 pm. And I'm sure that I'm preaching to the converted when I mention that you can access, free of charge, the Internet based program Ancestry.Com (Library Edition) from any of one of our branches.

What you won't know however, is that in the coming weeks and months we intend to change the focus of this blog somewhat, with the aim of keeping you increasingly informed and regularly updated in local family history happenings. For example, the library is currently in the process of acquiring the following batch of 'gene' resources:

• New South Wales Police Gazette Complete Set 1862-1938
• New South Wales Telephone Directories: Compendium 1 - set of 4 Northern and Western Districts Directories 1946-48
• New South Wales Telephone Directories: Compendium 2 - selection of 21 Directories
  

Stay tuned for further updates!