Our History

Foundation
Our Society was founded in 1984 after a public meeting was held to discuss the lack of an organisation in the Shire through which people could meet and further their family history research. The inaugural committee members were Tony Martin, President, Paulette Parkes, Vice-President, Lyndal Holland, Secretary, Merle Kavanagh, Minute Secretary, John Crowe, Treasurer and Bev Clarke, Publicity Officer. For the 25th anniversary, a DVD was produced, chronicling the Society's activities and achievements since formation, with a companion CD of archival photos.

Past Presidents
Tony Martin (1984-1988)
Paulette Parkes (1988-1990) & (1997-2000)
Maree McKinley (1990-1992)
Dulcie Jackson (1992-1993)
Beryl Bauld (1993-1995)
Ralph Stilgoe (1995-1997)
Alan Johnston (2000-2002)
Heather Clarey (2002-2006)
Sue Jones (2006-2007)
Allan Murrin (2007-2010)
Barbara Wimble (2010-2013)
Jean Campbell (2013-2015)
Noele Watkins (2015-2019)

Woronora Cemetery Indexing Project
Over a period of seven years, the fledgling society's volunteers transcribed the headstones and plaques of Woronora Cemetery. These were published on microfiche in 1998. However, with the progress in technology, microfiche was no longer an appropriate format and accordingly the indexes can now be found on the Ancestry website at www.ancestry.com, bringing the information in them to the wider genealogical community for the benefit of all. The Society expresses its thanks to those volunteers for their contributions to this huge project.

Sutherland Shire Rate Book 1907 Index
Volunteers indexed these records which are held by our BBFHS Library in both print and CD format.

Our Website
At the prompting of pioneer webmaster and foundation member Doug Parkes, Botany Bay was one of the first of the local societies to have a website. Some years later, Pat Fearnley became webmaster and in 2010 the Society won a website award from the UK Federation of Family History Societies. In 2010,  2011, 2019 and 2021 the Society won the Dorothy Fellowes Best Website Award from the NSW & ACT Association of Family History Societies.

Library & Research Centre
Our society now has over 400 members and originally its library was housed in the Multi Purpose Centre at Sutherland, where meetings were then held. After many years of lobbying and hard work by successive presidents and others, a research centre and library at 184 Gannons Road (South) Caringbah was established. This houses a wonderful collection of computers, books, CDs, DVDs, microfiche, copiers, film scanner. Our volunteer librarians are on hand to assist with research.

Nick Vine Hall Award
The Nick Vine Hall Award is made annually by the the Australasian Federation of Family History Organisations to promote family history journals/newsletters and to honour the memory of Nick Vine Hall, AM, who did so much to retain the census in Australia and to bring genealogy to the forefront through his radio broadcasts. Our society won this award in 2009 in the category Small Societies with less than 500 members. The Society is proud to have won this award for The Endeavour again in 2017

Roses from the Heart Project
Over a number of years Botany Bay members participated in the Roses from the Heart bonnets project being organised by Tasmanian artist Christina Henri who aims to have 25,266 colonial bonnets made by women worldwide - one for each of the female convicts transported to Australia - to commemorate the value of each of those women and recognise the contribution each made to our society.

Ryerson Index
The Ryerson Index is a project where death notices are indexed from newspapers and are freely available on line. Twelve very active Society members indexed nearly 11,000 death and funeral notices in the Leader from its inception in June 1964 to 2004, by going to Sutherland Library where, thanks to the generosity of the Library, they photocopied free the appropriate pages from the St George and Sutherland Shire Leader to index. The indexing was done at home on their computers and sent to the Ryerson Project to be merged into the main index.

Conference 2012
In 2012 The Society was host for the very successful State Conference of the NSW & ACT Association of Family History Societies.

Heritage Fairs
The Society held an annual Family History Fair for many years and now, in Heritage Week in May each year, participates in the activities of the Sutherland Heritage Festival with an information table at the Woronora Memorial Park event. Please see Events Calendar in 2025 for details of the next festival.