The Mid North Coast community is set to benefit from a new project being undertaken by the Port Macquarie and Districts Family History Society.
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The project will take two or three years and involve the indexing of early Port Macquarie-Hastings Council rates and valuation books which date from 1890 to 1932.
All the information currently contained in the volumes is handwritten.
While the pages of the books have been scanned the information is unsearchable.
The project to create a database of the information is being jointly undertaken by members of the Port Macquarie and Districts Family History Society and the Port Macquarie Historical Society.
The project is being carried out at the Port Macquarie Library.
Port Macquarie and Districts Family History Society vice president Rex Toomey said there are many benefits that will come from making the data accessible.
Mr Toomey describes the books as having a ‘vast reservoir of information’.
The society want to ensure the database is succinct to ensure people can discover the information for themselves in an efficient manner.
The information contained in books is not in alphabetical order. There are also hundreds of pages within the books.
Members who carry out the task will have to interpret the handwriting on the pages to accurately put together the database.
Mr Toomey said the technology will allow people to view the value of land and how it was linked to prominent members of society such as Major Innes.
“Birth, death and marriage records talk about the people,” he said.
“Land records talk about what the people had, what they owned and how long they lived there.”
Port Macquarie and Districts Family History Society president Diane Gillespie said the detail will put ‘extra flesh on the bone’ to put people ‘in the shoes’ of the person who lived at the time.
Mr Toomey said a couple of the books have been damaged and he said unfortunately the society may not be able to access the information from it.
He believes members are able to efficiently read the handwriting within the books because they have grown up in a time which relied on using pen and paper.