Traces

Traces magazine delves deep into Australia’s history, from ancient Indigenous heritage to colonial times,convicts, local history, antiques and artefacts, family genealogy and more!

Welcome to the 33rd edition of Traces!

Traces

Heritage news

MELBOURNE CITY BATHS, Melbourne

The dual lives of Sir John Franklin • From the ice fields of the Arctic to the convict‑filled Van Diemen’s Land, Sir John Franklin’s story is one of discovery, duty and disaster.

A golden legacy: the Victorian Goldfields’ World Heritage bid • CONTENT PROVIDED BY THE VICTORIAN GOLDFIELDS WORLD HERITAGE BID TEAM

Just 18 years old and facing a DEADLY SPEAR • Aboard a Royal Navy sloop, somewhere in the South Pacific, an 18‑year‑old Robert Horace Walpole wrote home – not about glory or conquest, but about his allowance. He was a midshipman on HMS Blanche, part of Britain’s Australia Station, the naval command responsible for policing the Pacific in the 1870s. Behind Walpole’s polite handwriting, he carried the moral weight of an empire.

A SIP TO SILENCE: arsenic in colonial Sydney • In 1829, a deadly dose of arsenic in a bowl of soup destroyed two colonial families in what became a tale of endurance, scandal and suspicion.

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Family history’s DIGITAL REVOLUTION • From deciphering old handwriting to finding faces in forgotten photographs, artificial intelligence is changing the way we discover, understand, and connect with family history.

What’s that thingamajig?

Stigmas and SECRETS • My late mother never told me much about my grandfather, Frank Herbert Stacey, who died years before I was born. All I knew was that he had served in the Canadian Army during World War I and was a casualty of mustard gas. I wanted to find out more about this mysterious man, and so my quest began.

First to the TOP • Mount Townsend, in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales, is Australia’s second‑highest mountain. It was named in honour of surveyor Thomas Scott Townsend, an obscure colonial surveyor who was forgotten by history, but whose claim to fame goes far beyond just one mountain’s slopes.

HOW TO COMPILE A LIFE STORY WHEN RESOURCES ARE FEW

Strathalbyn Cookery Book: recipes with heart

Glencoe biscuits

ABERCROMBIE HOUSE: where history lives • Not many of us get to experience life in a grand Victorian mansion, but Christopher Morgan is one of the lucky few! He has lived at Abercrombie House, just outside of Bathurst, New South Wales, for the past 56 years. In this edition, he invites us inside for a closer look.