Finding an Object

Ask your family and people you know about any objects they may have, which might be connected to the country their family came from. Perhaps you even have an object yourself that you brought to Australia. An object might also be something that a person owned or used in Australia that is connected to an immigration story.

• Has anyone in our family researched our family tree?
• When did our family come to Australia?
• Where did they come from?
• Do you have anything from that country?
• Do you still have anything they brought with them?
• Does anyone else in our family have anything I could look at?

The types of object that might be found include: luggage, clothes, photographs, mementos, keepsakes, letters, diaries, books, newspaper and magazine cuttings, tools, recipes, sketches, handcrafts, postcards, personal papers or passports.

Ask permission to borrow the object for use in the Small Object-Big Story project.

Fill out a Conservation report for your object.

Work out how you can store your object safely during the project. You might need to make a secure box for it. Alternatively, take close-up photos of the object from a number of angles and bring the photographs rather than the object.

Find out what our Museum staff say about Caring for objects.