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I know the two don't seem to go together at first glance.Genealogists spend a large amount of their research looking up birth and death certificates, census records, building records, reading local histories, interviewing members of the family both immediate family and distant relatives. All to build up a picture of their family tree.

With a lot of luck and perseverence, they can even build up a picture of individuals. Idon't mean just what they look like, but also more personal details. What hobbies theyhad, what they spent money on, what they spent time on, how they thought about different subjects. Building such pictures is quite a challenge, but the need to know more drives them on.

Old Time Radio is not just the radios themselves, but also the programs. Since Australian radio began in the 1920's, it proved very popular. In the beginning, Music was the main programming, but then came other entertainment like radio drama, quiz shows, variety shows, news programs, comedy, local news and many other types that you will read about on this site.

But how do the two go together? I can see you are getting an inkling. But perhaps you are thinking of the obvious? Sure, Radio programs that have survived mainly on Transcription Discs dating from the late 1930's, give us a great insight into how life was in the 1930's, 1940's, 1950's and 1960's and that is important for helping us to answer some Genealogy questions, but is that enough? Well, frankly no! Important as that flavour of the times is, there is more important treasure awaiting Genealogists in Old Time Radio.

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In Australia, we have our Sound and Film Archives, currently named Screensound. Screensound (going through more ownership changes) is/was/may still be, semi Government owned. Screensound relies on donations of recordings and those then get stored for future generations. Unfortunately, being semi Government owned means funding and staffing shortages. So access to the recordings gets harder and harder and further and further away and current generations, whilst footing the bill for the storage, are unfortunately largely deprived of the opportunity of actually listening to the recordings.

Harder still is documenting and databasing the radio programs. Whilst the Australian Old Time Radio Group is documenting all Australian radio prograthe 1920's to 1960's,it is a huge job and we do it in what spare time we can afford. We can understand why understaffed underfunded semi public service folks don't get to do this important job,they are unable to fully database their own holdings, but why should they, you ask? Well one reason is Genealogy.

Imagine if, when discussing your family tree with Great Aunt Lulu, she made the statement "your Great Grandmother was a real card, she even made Jack Davey laugh so loud and long that he forgot what to say next". Your ears would prick up, you have possibly heard of Australias Number 1 Radio entertainer. "What do you mean Aunty Lulu?" you ask "When your Great Grandmother was on a Jack Davey show" she replies. Eureka!!! not only did you find out your Great Grandmother was a card, but she was actually on a radio show. Wouldn't it be great if you could find that radio show. Well, wouldn't it be great! To actually hear the voice of a Great Grandparent who passed away before you were born. To actually be able to hear their voice. Well it should be easy, Screensound collects all those old things don't they?

Yes they do and they do it well. However, the time taken to listen to every episode of every show of every series and note down the names of each contestant would be a huge undertaking. Yes, it has to be done, it must be done!

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In the meantime, you have to remember that Jack Davey, off the top of my head, must have done dozens of different contestant type shows in his career. He normally had 5 or 6 different series on the go each week. He did tens of thousands of episodes, how are you going to find the one your Great Grandmother was on? Unless you can say what series and what year and better yet what date, you are asking too much of the staff of Screensound.

Much as they would love to help you, it is a very difficult task. Even for a Jack Davey fan like myself to sit down and listen to Tens of Thousands of episodes, it would be asking a lot. But I would do it. We just need a few hundred more like me :)

But to go back to the original Old Time Radio and Genealogy. You can now see how important to Genealogy these old shows are. They are time capsules. A rough guess would be, that if you count all the audience participation shows ever recorded, and I have to add, still survive, that included a member of the general public, then look at their relatives at the time and their descendants now, surely a very large slice of Australia is related to individuals on the recordings held by Screensound.

I know the same goes for people on recordings held by me and by all the Australian and International Collectors. We understand. That is why we are doing something about it.

Thats why we are documenting Australian Old Time Radio, the programs and then the individual episodes. We are all volunteers, but we know it has to be done. I would imagine that a large amount of enquiries that Screensound would recieve from the general public would be similar to that which I just outlined above. I know that frome nquiries made to me.

I myself do maintain my family history. Unfortunately I do not know of any family members that were ever on a Jack Davey or Bob Dyer show. I would be very excited to know otherwise, but thats the way it is. So for me and others like me there are other Old Time Radio Shows that help in Genealogy and I will tell you more in Part 3 .