Father Brian Maher Collection

This collection, gathered by Father Brian Maher over more than four decades, is a unique and valuable manuscript collection of written papers and files, detailing the lives of over 400 Catholic families and their descendants. Many of these families are directly linked to the early settlers in the ACT and southern New South Wales, and include Irish immigrants, convicts, and free settlers.

The files of 27 local pioneering families and their descendants have been indexed and digitized as part of a pilot project made possible by funding made available from the ACT Government under the ACT Heritage Grants Program. For each family line the source documents are wide ranging and may include details from parish registers, birth, death and marriage certificates, books, newspaper and journal extracts, immigration and convict records, wills, maps, photographs, and private letters.