The Les Hill Historical Centre and its collections are available within
The Mount Gambier Library during normal library hours. Whether you are
a veteran family historian our just starting your research a staff member
is always more than happy to assist you.
Les Hill Photographic Collection
The Les Hill Photographic Collection holds over 16,500 photographs of Mount
Gambier and surrounding districts dating back to the 1800s. The collection
contains photographs from everything from local landmarks to local families.
Newspaper Collections
- The Border Watch - Every issue dating back from April 1861.
- The Register - 1836-1872
- The South Eastern Star - 1877-1912
- Mount Gambier Standard - 1868 1872
- The Portland Guardian - 1842-1861
- The Sydney Morning Herald
(Birth, Death, Marriage, Funeral notices only) - [1831-1853]
Ancestry - Library Edition
Ancestry Library Edition provides the most genealogical information available on-line, with more than 1.5 billion names in over 4,000 collections. It offers a wide and diverse variety of unique content to help patrons trace their family lineage. It is continually expanding with new content added every business day. Ancestry Library edition is available to all Mount Gambier Library members on any of the public access computers within the library. One of the great features of ancestry is that with many of the records it is possible to view and print of copies of the original documents.
Databases available within the Les Hill Historical Centre
- South Australian Births (1842-1928)
- South Australian Deaths (1842-1972)
- South Australian Marriages (1842-1937)
- South Australian Unregistered Deaths - from July 1842 onwards
- Victorian Pioneer Index (1836-1888)
- Victorian Federation Index (1889-1901)
- Victorian Edwardian Index (1902-1913)
- Victorian Great War Index (1914-1920)
- Victorian Death Index(1921-1985)
- Victorian Marine Births, Deaths, Marriages (1853-1920)
- Queensland Pioneer Index (1829-1889)
- Queensland federation Index (1890-1914)
- Northern Territory Deaths (1824-2004)
- Western Australian Marriages (1915-1933)
- Tasmanian Pioneer Index (1900-1930)
- Tasmanian Federation Index (1803-1899)
- Commercial Street Traders
- Media Index
- Mount Gambier Heritage House Index
- Mount Gambier Gaol Database
- Ancestry Library
- Closer to the Cannons Mouth
- Electoral Roll
- Early Australian Electoral Rolls
- South Australian Shipping Lists (1836-1851)
Useful Websites
The Australian War Memorial website has a lot of great information regarding Australians in time of war. The site also contains links to nominal rolls for the main conflicts in which Australians have been involved in.
Were your ancestors pioneers of South Australia? Perhaps they were amongst SA's early settlers. Find out by searching shipping passenger list, marriage and cemetery records. Use Family History South Australia's free databases, informative articles and genealogy resources to build your family tree and answer your family history questions.
Family Search is a great resource which is completely free of charge. The site is managed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The site allows you to search by a name as well as a life event such as a birth, death or marriage records from all over the world.
The Cemetery search will allow you to search for graves and cremations for the Mount Gambier cemeteries. You can also search for graves throughout the whole of South Australia.
Use wonderful recources through the Australian National Archives to locate war records, immigartion records and much more.
The South Australian Genealogy & Heraldry Society website gives you access to the Societies records such as death and burials, S.A. ship arrivals, S.A. Places etc.
The aim of The War Graves Photographic Project is to photograph every war grave, individual memorial, MoD grave, and family memorial of serving military personnel from WWI to the present day and make these available within a searchable database.
Now working as a joint venture with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, this will enable families, scholars and researchers to obtain, via the CWGC or TWGPP websites, a copy of the photograph of a grave or memorial which for many is impossible to visit due to the location.
This site allows you to search for birth, death and marriage records for the United Kingdom.
