Cataloguing in Gippsland

Musings of a Cataloguer at Large in Gippsland. Just personal thoughts - absolutely no bearing on the thoughts of any organisation with which I am working.

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Location: Victoria, Australia

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Trove Tuesday - Joseph Shires

There is a bit of a thing around amongst genebloggers for Trove Tuesday - when we celebrate all that is good about Trove. In my case - all the newspaper articles I have found. So this is just a quick post to say that, despite a difficult surname, I have had a wonderful time with Joseph Shires, and I am about to do a full expose on him, but on paper - in the Stratford Historical Society Bulletin.
Shires was in Gippsland by the late 1850s, but all through the 1860s, he was running around Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia, selling his snake bite remedy. Amongst his tricks were having cats and dogs bitten, and allowing them to die, and then having himself bitten and saving himself with his remedy.
He was doing fine, until he gave in to a police magistrate in Melbourne in 1868, who insisted Shires allow a snake to bite him to prove they weren't venomous - and he died.Shires was charged with murder, but acquitted (by that time it was manslaughter), and he disappeared for a time.
In 1876 Joseph Shires married Helena Connell just down the road from Stratford, at the Ramahyuck Mission - if anyone can find out what happened to her, you are a friend for life. He was active in the fishing industry on the Gippsland Lakes, and finally died in Bairnsdale in 1892. He is buried there in an unmarked grave.
All found on Trove, in newspapers all over the place - except for the marriage.
Anyone else got a Trove Tuesday story?

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1 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Love this one! Just amazing what you can glean from Trove! Thanks for joining in on the first Trove Tuesday, and good luck searching for his wife.

August 28, 2012 at 5:48 AM  

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