Tips for searching
When searching for a petitioner's name, you do not have to use capital letters for the first letter of names or street addresses.
You can search by name only, address only, name and address or by page and/or line number.
Searching by name:
- Some petitioners have not recorded their full name. Therefore, it is recommended that you search by surname.
- To increase the chance of finding a particular name, use an asterisk; for example, br * will match surnames Brodie, Bromley, Brown , etc, as well as first names Bronwyn, Bridget, etc.
- Sometimes the name is unclear and could be interpereted in different ways. Where alternative transcriptions have been identified, both possibilities are searched but only one is displayed.
Searching by address:
- Some petitioners have not recorded their full address. Therefore, it is recommended that you search for a street name but without the designation such as street, road, etc. For example, search for napier, not napier street.
- If that is unsuccessful, try searching by suburb or town.
- An address search will automatically search for streets, suburbs and towns. For example, ben* will match Bennett Street, as well as Bentleigh and Bendigo.
- To increase the chance of finding a particular address, use an asterisk; for example, fir* will match Firrens, First, Firth, etc.
- Sometimes the address is unclear and could be interpereted in different ways. Where alternative transcriptions have been identified, both possibilities are searched but only one is displayed.
Searching by page and/or line number:
- There 807 pages in the petition. If you know the page you are looking for, you can enter this in the page number.
- Optionally, you can also enter the line number if you want a single entry.
- You can also combine this with any other search fields, so for example you could find all entries for Beechworth on page 346.
How your search results will be displayed:
- If you are searching for a name and/or place results are sorted by name then street, followed by suburb/town.
- If you search for a particular page, the results are displayed by line number.
- Where a name is incomplete, the missing part is shown as “- -“.
- Click the page,line link to view the page of the original petition which bears the matching signature; each page contains approximately 35 signatures.
- To view the page before or after the page shown, click the Previous / Next links.
- Names are not listed in alphabetical order, but in the order in which they were originally collected; therefore, you may need to browse the complete list to find the signature you are trying to locate. As a guide, the line number indicates the approximate position of the signature from the top of the page. If a page has more than one set of name-and-address columns, continue counting from the top.
Link to Public Record Office Victoria's Wiki
- Next to each result listed you will find a link to 'more information'.
This link leads to an entry on PROV's Wiki site that corresponds to the
name you have searched.
- The Wiki allows anybody to upload information about the people who signed
the petition. You are welcome to contribute any information you have.
- Sometimes the entry you link to will not be on a page by itself. This
will happen when there is more than one person with the same name who
signed the petition, or when the name on the petition is unclear. You may
be able to identify ambiguous names and add information to distinguish
them.
- There is a link at the bottom of each page of the PROV Wiki that provides
advice on how to edit an entry. There is also a link back to this index so
you can search further.
If you have any queries about using the PROV Wiki, you can contact PROV
using the 'Contact PROV' infomation in the left-hand menu of the Wiki
pages.
Queries
Should you have any queries about searching the petition, please email womenspetition@parliament.vic.gov.au
All queries regarding the PROV wiki pages should be directed to PROV.
Note that to assist in any enquiry please quote either the page and line number, or the Record number which can be found by hovering your mouse over page,line link. |
 |
