Kimberly's Top Ten Trove Tips

1. Follow Trove’s prompts, e.g. Trove’s ‘Spotlight’ on the home page will lead you to see records you might not otherwise find and some fascinating browsing. Welcome to the Trove rabbit hole!
   
   
2. Have a look at the help function, watch the videos and tutorials. The help function is there to help you.

 

3. Don’t get stuck in one Trove category, particularly the digitised newspapers, look more broadly across other categories. Most people hang out in the area they are used to. Explore Trove outside your usual category.

    

4. Learn how valuable the NSW Government Gazette is. See Information sheet no. 3.

    

5. Always use the ‘Advanced’ search option for best results.

    

6. If you are getting a large number of search results, use double quotes or ‘the phrase’ option to reduce and refine search results.

    

7. When you find a source download it, or print it, or both. Don’t get caught finding information online, only to never be able to find it again. So frustrating! 

    

8. If you are not getting any results, or you suspect not enough results, use a wildcard symbol (*) in the simple search box to broaden your enquiry. You must provide at least three characters before adding the wildcard symbol.

    

9. Use flexible language to search. Don’t be literal in your search terms! Think broadly and laterally.

    

   For example: There was a car accident at Bellbird in 1938 which resulted in a death, but didn’t show up in any newspaper search results. The newspaper report used the words: ‘a serious vehicle fatality on the Main Road’ (Wollombi Road’s old name). Neither the words ‘car’, ‘accident’ nor ‘Bellbird’ were used in the reporting of the accident, so it didn’t show up in a search for a car accident at Bellbird.                                         

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