Spotlight on Steiglitz

The town of Steiglitz in the Brisbane Ranges north west of Geelong is a fascinating place to visit with a rich history from its peak time as a goldfield site in Victoria.  It is just 40 Km from Geelong and 50 Km from Ballarat.  A detour off the main highway between these two regional cities is where you’ll find the Steiglitz Historical Society and learn more about this virtual ghost town.  [WARNING: The society are currently upgrading their web site – try their link a bit later if it doesn’t work!]

The latest update to the Geelong & District database just happened to include two groups of records for Steiglitz.  In the process of looking for a suitable image for this blog, I came across a lovely digitised geological map of the Steiglitz goldfields on the State Library of Victoria web site.  Browsing the two images for this map, I was amazed at the number of features that were named – reefs, gullies, mines etc.  I’m afraid when you’re addicted to indexing, you just can’t pass up something like this, so instead of two Steiglitz indexes, this update includes three!

This is the list of additions since 3 August making a total of 1,408,630 entries in the database:

• Steiglitz: Borough Rate Books [GRS 820] – 1865-1878 – 2,952 entries
• Steiglitz: Court Records [VPRS 351 / P2 / Unit 1] – 1862 – 246 entries
• Steiglitz: Geological Map of the Gold Field – 1909 – 196 entries

And don’t think these are the only Steiglitz entries in the database!  Over the years there have been a bundle of entries including:

BOOKS indexed

• History of Steiglitz: 1835 – 1951
• The Pubs and Licensees of Steiglitz and History of the Alfred (ANA) Hall
• Steiglitz Memories of Gold

DIRECTORIES transcribed – extracting Steiglitz entries

• 1857 Bradshaw’s Guide to Victoria
• 1858 Bradshaw’s Guide to Victoria
• 1859 Bradshaw’s Guide to Victoria
• 1860 Bradshaw’s Guide to Victoria
• 1861 Geelong and Western District general directory
• 1866-67 Stevens’ Geelong & Western District Directory
• 1866-67 Butler & Brooke’s National Directory of Victoria
• 1868 Bailliere’s Victorian Directory
• 1870 Bailliere’s Victorian Directory
• 1871-72 Bailliere’s Victorian Directory
• 1875 Bailliere’s Victorian Directory
• 1880-81 Bailliere’s Victorian Directory
• 1882-83 Maning & Bishop’s Geelong and Western District Directory [Shire of Meredith]
• 1888-89 Wise’s Victorian Post Office Directory
• 1891-92 Wise’s Victorian Post Office Directory
• 1893-94 Wise’s Victorian Post Office Directory
• 1895-96 Wise’s Victorian Post Office Directory
• 1897-98 Wise’s Victorian Post Office Directory
• 1899-1900 Wise’s Victorian Post Office Directory
• 1904 Wise’s Victorian Post Office Directory
• 1911 Sands & McDougall Directory
• 1913 Sands & McDougall Directory
• 1915 Sands & McDougall Directory
• 1919 Sands & McDougall Directory
• 1924 Sands & McDougall Directory
• 1928 Sands & McDougall Directory

BURIALS / HEADSTONES data including:

• Early Steiglitz Burials
• Steiglitz Cemetery Burials
• Steiglitz Cemetery Headstone Transcriptions

Details on all these indexes can be found in the Geelong & District Potpourri pages and other database pages.

And don’t forget to search again for your ancestors in the Geelong & District Database – they could have been in the last load of additions!