Norseman – books and photographs

Norseman is a town on the edge of the places covered by the Outback Family History web site and blog. If you are interested in the history of the town and the surrounding area I would like to recommend the following three books. There may be others, but there are ones I have myself or […]

A Haunting Tale – The Finnerty’s

Jack and Francis Tree had lived in Coolgardie since 1970 and fifteen of those years had been in Warden Finnerty’s House in McKenzie Street, Coolgardie.  The six-bedroom mansion was built by the Bunning Brothers soon after they arrived in 1895 and before they established their hardware business which we all know of today. The Wardens […]

Stephen Starr – Grave Tales

Kalgoorlie Western Argus – 28 September 1899, page 11 SUDDEN DEATH OF A KALGOORLIE HOTELKEEPER. At about half past 6 p.m. on Sunday Mr Stephen William Alfred Starr, the lessee of the new Federal Hotel, at the top end of Hannan street, died from a complication of the bowels. His decease was quite unexpected, for […]

Mazzucchelli’s- The Beginning and End of an Era

MAZZUCCHELLI’S the Jewellers first opened its ‘golden’ doors in 1903 in Boulder, Western Australia under the partnership of watchmaker Matthew Mazzucchelli and jeweller Sam Downes. Matthew’s father, Joseph, an Italian from the village of Poschiavo in Switzerland, emigrated to Australia as a miner in 1859 during the Victorian gold rush. Matthew was born in 1876 […]

The Last Australian at Gallipoli:

The following story was recently sent to me by Ian Shaw. He told me that he had lost track of a relative by the name of Eli Shaw.  This is what he said- It wasn’t until I started looking outside Victoria that Eli Shaw again appeared, this time hunting for gold on the Eastern Goldfields […]