After 34 years, the Mount Isa Family and Historical Society has officially closed its doors, making the significant donation to the library and the city.

Mayor Tony McGrady said the benefit of the library taking the records was peace of mind that they are here in Mount Isa, they are safe and they can be added to by volunteers, 

“It is sad to see the society go, however many of its members will continue to volunteer, working with the records,” Cr McGrady said.

The club’s knowledge has been passed onto library staff, who are highly capable and the records are available for people to come and research. 

“If you are interested, for example, in the history of the airport you can look through the records and even take copies for your own reference to take home,” Cr McGrady said.

Ailsa Bray said the society was established in 1981 with an advertisement in the North West Star to form a branch of Genealogy Society of Brisbane.

“In the beginning we were solely a genealogy society; tracing your family tree. We did that right up until 2008,” Mrs Bray said.

“At that point we were about to close up because our members were no longer able to do the work due to illness.”

Mrs Bray said the society held a meeting to discuss the future of the club but, rather than close down, inducted three new members who were incredibly passionate about collecting the history of Mount Isa.

“The only records at that stage were those which had been donated by Mount Isa Mines in their historical collection,’’ Mrs Bray said.

“The new members were active in going out bush, looking for old mines, ruins, lone graves and they researched through old records and government gazettes and gradually built up a history of all the little towns and mines and camps along the Cloncurry mineral fields.”

Mrs Bray said despite the reinvigoration the club received seven years ago it has come time to close down. The big decision was what to do with the records.

“We considered sending them to the state library or state archives and while they would be safe, they would not be accessible to the local community. You would never get access to them,” Mrs Bray said.

With this in mind the Historical Society approached the Mount Isa City Library to see if they would accept the donation of all the records to compliment the Mount Isa Mines historical collection.

Mrs Bray said the internet takes out all the fun of being a detective and looking into your family. 

“The feeling of finding your ancestors on an old shipping record from the 1800s when they came into Australia and finding out their stories – it’s the biggest thrill,” she said.

“Everybody wants to know where they came from.”