Dr.Sam Merrifield

Sam Merrifield died on 24th August, 1982, and shortly afterwards the Essendon Library was renamed, in his honour, the Sam Merrifield Library. Dr. Merrifield had spent many years serving the Essendon community. He was an A.L.P. member of the Legislative Assembly for Essendon from 1943-55 and from 1958-1970 he was a member of the Legislative Council for the seat of Doutta Galla. Dr. Merrifield played an active part in the City of Essendon including working with the Essendon Historical Society. In 1973 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by Monash University in recognition of his long career in public service.

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This week the National Library of Australia hosted an excellent online seminar on researching Chinese-Australian family history Their presentation was a gold-mine of information, with many tips that are applicable more widely to researching ancestors from other non-English speaking backgrounds. Here are a few of my top take-aways from the session: - Keep a file of name variations for each of your ancestors in cases where name variations are likely - When struggling with researching ancestors from a particular time and place with which you are unfamiliar, check the Family Search website for tips. They have dedicated pages providing specific research tips for various times and places around the world. - For Asian-Australian Ancestors who travelled back and forth from Australia the Records of Exemption from the Dictation Test Certificates database created by CAFHOV is very useful: https://www.cafhov.com/vic-cedt-index/ Above: screenshot of part of the
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