All I did was give them some papers....

...said Joyce Ryerson, a gracious lady and member of The Ku-ring-gai Historical Society, whom I met at the meeting of their Family History Group yesterday. I was privileged to spend some time in conversation with this  lady who proudly told me "I'm 94 you know". I was able to talk to Joyce about her Alma Mater, SCEGGS, Darlinghurst where my daughters were also educated. Thanks Joyce for your time and graciously permitting me to snap your photo.

The Ryerson Index is one of the best free online Australian genealogy resources around. The About us page of the Ryerson Index site states "Due to the remarkable foresight of Joyce Ryerson, we were given an almost-complete collection of death notices from the Sydney Morning Herald for the years 1986-1998. Indexing of these notices is now complete, and we have extended the period covered back to the beginning of 1969."

A group of volunteers continues to work on indexing the "death notices appearing in current Australian newspapers. It also includes some funeral notices, probate notices and obituaries." As of today there are 3,016,580 entries from 188 Australian newspapers.