Ballarat & District Genealogical Society win coveted State award

A coveted State award has been won by the Ballarat & District Genealogical Society. The Victorian Community History Awards 2016 are hosted by Public Record Office of Victoria and the Royal Historical Society of Victoria. The Society have been announced ‘Winner of Centenary of WW1 Award 2016’. This award "recognises the best work or project on the impact of WW1 on Victoria or Victorians".

The project HOME FRONT BALLARAT WW1 is presented in a website designed by Alphaville.

The Awards ceremony was held Monday 17^th Oct 2016 at the Arts Centre in Melbourne. The results are now online.

The judges commented that "This impressive online database comprises biographies of over 2500 individuals, information about local war work in Ballarat and district, both voluntary and paid, and an image gallery of items used in an accompanying video. The database is easy to search through alphabetical listings of names and organizations, each with further information. It is dynamic in that it can be supplemented as new material becomes available. The video successfully blends local material with the progress of the war. The whole entry represents a considerable research effort by a community organization. It joins a number of excellent local studies of the home front received in this category in the past two years. It provides a very valuable community resource."

2016 has been an exceptional year for the Society as the recipient of top local and state awards. Firstly – the Greg Binns Award for "Outstanding Community Contribution to Heritage." This was a surprise announcement at the Ballarat Heritage Awards in May, hosted by the National Trust of Australia (Vic) Ballarat Branch and the City of Ballarat.

And now this new award from Victoria's peak community history bodies. The Society are hoping to use their prize money for more digitisation of the Ballarat Courier.

Congratulations Genies!