Finding Family Blong Yumi

Central to this is the development of one of the largest genealogy and finding family projects ever conducted in the Pacific. Finding Families has a number of strategies that are to be implemented. These include:

1. An extensive website and online genealogical and historical resource

2. Village-level engagement, oral recording, historical and records research and finding families

3. The Blackbird Keeping Place – acquisition of records, photos, ship logs, artefacts, books and archives.

Developing an online familiy histories resource will enable the collection of genealogical information that will form the basis of the entire project. Our website, www.blackbird.vu will be expanded in late 2011 and customised to meet the needs of individuals and families in gathering and matching family history. A significant component of this project will be the ability to engage all relevant communities on the ground in their community.

Want to find your family? Contact us via email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or download an application form here

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STORIAN April Edition OUT NOW

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Blackbird's LATEST EDITION of Storian Blong Yumi is out now. Learn of the UNKNOWN ISLANDER, the ABORIGINAL CONNECTION, seaching for lost shipwrecks with FINDING HELENA, join BLACKBIRD ADVENTURERS, help us get our very own TALL SHIP, enjoy our new range of BLACK FEATHER wines, enter great competitions,...

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The History of the "Trade"

During Australia's main Blackbirding days between 1863 to 1904 Queensland sugar and cotton plantations, sheep and cattle farms, pearling and fishing vessels and domestic households were worked by South Sea Islanders who were recruited – or more accurately during the Blackbird “era” kidnapped – by men who were, and are still known today as Blackbirders. Blackbirding in the Pacific region was not only left to Australians. Plantation owners in Fiji, New Caledonia, German plantation owners in Samoa and Papua New Guinea recruited for their respective locations. In 1862 and 1863 Peruvian mine owners organised devastating slave raids on the Pacific. Over a period of about 40 years, 62,000 Islanders were brought to Queensland from the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and other parts of the South Pacific to provide cheap labour for the burgeoning sugar industry. A small number of labourers came from the Polynesian and Micronesian islands such as Samoa, Kiribati and...