Journal of Chinese Australia, Issue 1, May 2005

Overview of the Chinese Heritage of Australian Federation website for researchers

Sophie Couchman

The Chinese Heritage of Australian Federation (CHAF)[1] website (http://www.chaf.lib.latrobe.edu.au) is a large website with many exciting resources to be discovered. The site was primarily designed for researchers but also contains a substantial section for secondary educators. There is much to appeal to genealogists. Many researchers in the area are probably already familiar with the website. The aim of this brief guide is to provide an overview for newer researchers in the field and to remind those familiar with the site of the wide range of resources available. The examples where possible will focus on Darwin and the Northern Territory.

The site holds materials developed by the project itself and also material contributed by independent researchers. While the CHAF project, as an overall project, has finished, we will still consider further contributions. It is imagined that the site will continue to develop and evolve with time. It is currently maintained on a voluntary basis.

I would now like to draw your attention to some of the site's basic elements.

RESOURCES

The 'Resources' section (http://www.chaf.lib.latrobe.edu.au/resources.htm) contains links to a broad range of databases or digital resources of both primary and secondary sources. There are two ways of searching the databases. A simple 'browse' shows all entries in the database in no particularly order. The 'search' function allows you to search for particular records in the database. If you elect to search the databases you can chose either a 'simple search' which searches all fields in the database at the same time or a complex one. Complex searches allow you to search for information in particular fields. For example using a 'complex search' you can find all the entries in the Tung Wah newspaper in April 1899 or all the businesses that operated from a particular address in Little Bourke Street between 1905 and 1910.

Also on the 'Resources' page is a link to a page which holds a number of research guides which are available for download. These guides provide information specific to Chinese Australian research and research materials by a number of researchers in New South Wales and New Zealand.

Databases found in the ‘Resources’ section are briefly outlined below. The primary author is noted in brackets.

Tung Wah newspaper index (Liu Luxin for CHAF)

This is an English language index to the Chinese language newspaper, the Tung Wah News (1898-1902) which subsequently became the Tung Wah Times (1902-1936). The index provides a brief title and description of each article, the date the article was published, the original source of the article and its page number and column. Users should note that Chinese names are transliterated into pinyin and so may not correspond with those commonly known. For example Quong Tart is found as Mei Guangda in the index. Searching for ‘Darwin’ provides in 47 references in the newspaper and a ‘Northern Territory’ search provides 28. These items are wide ranging in nature. For example there is a copy of a letter written by the Hua An Society (hua an hui guan) in Port Darwin to the Chinese associations in Sydney in August 1920 and a report on the visit to Darwin of a Chinese boxing coach on 18 August 1934.

There are also links to a background article about Chinese Australian newspapers by Liu Weiping (translated by Sang Yichuan and John Fitzgerald) and an article by Michael Williams that describes the wealth of information that can be drawn from the index.

Chinese Australian History Resources Database (CHAF)

This is a bibliography of primary and secondary source material in archives across Australia related to Chinese Australian history. It includes: publications; government records; guides to Chinese Australian records; databases; image and oral history collections; Chinese Australian newspapers; personal, organisation and business records; theses; and video material. It is worth doing a range of very broad searches of this database and browsing the results to discover some of the surprising range of information contained in it. The 40 search results that are found for ‘Darwin’ include a mix of books, articles, theses, newspaper articles, indexes, oral history references and primary source material such as Mervyn John Holmes 1912 sanitation report for Darwin.

Chinese Australians: A guide to holdings in the Mitchell Library (Paul Jones and Terri McCormack for CHAF)
The Mitchell Library has an extensive collection of materials related to Chinese Australian history in New South Wales and wider Australia. This guide describes the items relating to Chinese in Australia listed in the various catalogues at the Mitchell Library. To locate the original you need to be able to access the catalogues at the Mitchell Library in Sydney. The guide was published as a small booklet but is also available in pdf format. Items in the guide can also be found in the Resources database described above. Despites the Mitchell’s focus on New South Wales its holdings are Australia-wide including a number of items relating to Darwin and the Northern Territory, such as a 1889 article on Port Darwin published in the Weekly Advocate.

Chinese Australians: A guide to holdings in the NSW Office of the National Archives of Australia (Terri McCormack for CHAF)

Building on a guide compiled by Julie Stacker and Peri Stewart, Chinese Immigrants and Chinese-Australians in NSW (1996) https://shop.naa.gov.au/browse_cat.php?cat=42, this database provides, where possible, a more detailed description of large record series and examples of records within these series. This is particularly useful for those living outside Sydney without easy access to the archives. The examples provided with record series can be useful for picking up useful references as well as helping to describe the record series. For example SP42/1, C14/2206 is a circular sent to Customs officers in Cooktown, Townsville, Thursday Island and Darwin regarding three Chinese who had gone missing.

Digitised Historic Documents Database (CHAF)

This database provides either searchable text or scanned copies (sometimes both) of around fifty historic documents relating to Chinese Australian history. Summaries of these documents are available as well as contextual information about them. The easiest way to get an overview of the types of documents held in the database is to simply browse the database. There are a number of copies of articles from the Northern Territory Times reproduced in the database on a range of topics including: the welcome of the new Government Resident for the Northern Territory in 1905; Chinese storekeepers protesting about opium trafficking and Chinese participation in sports and procession in the 1917 Peace Day festivities.

Chinese NSW Naturalisation Database 1857-1887 (Terri McCormack)

Drawing on Naturalisation records and the Colonial Secretary's Correspondence held by the State Records Office of New South Wales this is a database of people with Chinese names who were naturalised between 1857 and 1887. Information about occupation, age, residency of applicants and the reasons provided for their naturalisation can also be found in this database.

Melbourne Chinatown Streets Database 1900-1920 (Sophie Couchman)

This is a database of Sands and MacDougall Directory entries for Little Bourke Street (and the small lanes coming off it) between Swanston and Spring Streets, 1900-1920. This database is useful for tracking particular businesses over different address and for exploring the nature of businesses and residents at particular addresses in the area.

Indentured Chinese Labourers and Employers identified, NSW, 1828-1856 (Maxine Darnell)

The Chinese presence in Australia before the gold rushes is often neglected. This list of indentured Chinese labourers and employers has been laboriously compiled from newspaper, official and archival sources by Maxine Darnell as part of her doctoral studies.

Fading Links to China (Linda Brumley, Lu Bingqu, Zhao Xueru)

This is an expanded web version of a book published by the History Department, Melbourne University of the same name. It contains the following online databases.

• Inquests for Victoria 1850-1880 database



• Listing of Chinese Burial Records - Ballarat New Cemetery
  
  
• Listing of Chinese Burial Records - Ballarat Old Cemetery
  
  
• Chinese Admissions Ballarat Hospital 1858-1880

Christianity and the Chinese in the 19th and early 20th centuries (Ian Welch)

This mini-website within the CHAF site contains digital resources developed by Ian Welch during his many years of private research into the Chinese and Christianity in Australia.

• Missions to the Chinese, 1855 - c1900 (on-line list)
  
  
• Chinese Christian Baptisms in Victoria, 1855-1915 (series of databases)
  
  
• Reference Materials (on-line list)