Snapshot in time: the photo that solved a family mystery
Learn how a single, cherished, undated photo sparked one family history enthusiast to search for answers using the Registry's online index.
It started with a single, precious, undated family photograph. Family history enthusiast, Violet, decided to turn detective and hunt through the records of the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages to try to find the birth record of the child in the photo, Habib/Herbert Coorey.
Violet’s family were originally from Lebanon on both her father’s and mother’s side and the records are scant.
Violet’s maternal great, great uncle and aunt, Anthony and Catherine Coorey, arrived in Australia from Lebanon around 1891 to early 1892. They married in Orange in 1892 with their names recorded as Tannoos el Koury and Caterin Mansour. There was one iconic photo taken of them with their eldest son – the oldest photograph the family owned.
Photo opportunity
This photo was highly cherished by the family. It was an important part of the story of the family’s beginnings in Australia. However, Violet had heard from other family members that the photo may have been taken around 1901 instead of 1890s as had always been believed.
Violet decided to do some detective work. Photos from that period were rare, because they were usually professionally taken and quite expensive. The people in the photo were known to the extended family but the date the photo was taken was not. Most importantly, the extended family was aware that the young boy was the first child of Catherine Coorey:
“The age of the child is the only way we can date the photo. That child is Habib Coorey, also known as Herbert or Bert Coorey. If I could find evidence of the year of his birth, I could date the photo confidently”.
Violet, family history enthusiast
Habib died in 1977 and none of his surviving descendants were able to help fill in the blanks. Thus began a quest through the records of the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages.
The challenge of names
It’s not always easy to uncover the records of the early migrants to Australia. Many would anglicise their names or else they would be spelt incorrectly on the records.
Coorey is an anglicisation of the Arabic word for priest (Khouri). Other variations of the name in Australia are: Coory, Correy, Khouri, Kouri, Khoury, Koury, Koorey. Searching under all variations of the names on the Births, Deaths and Marriages index located the births of Habib’s siblings under the surname Coorey, but no record of Habib.
The mystery deepens
This was when Violet came up with a theory: Habib Coorey may have been registered under a different name or simply not registered at all as there was no matching record found under the various spellings of Habib or Herbert. Was he named on his younger siblings birth certificates?
A clue in the certificates
The birth certificate of the second-born child, Francis Coorey was ordered. Violet was fascinated to discover that this certificate listed an older sibling named Joseph, aged 6 at the time of registration in November 1899. This implied Habib was also known as Joseph and would have a birth year of 1893, not 1894 as previously believed.
Finding Joseph (aka Habib)
Habib died in 1977. Violet was able to find a photo of his headstone online with his middle name as Joseph. The wording on the headstone suggested he was born in 1894. She searched the index of births for all children named Joseph from September 1893 to the end of 1894 and scanned many pages of results.
She found a lead - a listing for a ‘Joseph’, with the surname ‘Frances,’ the father whose name is spelled ‘Antonie’ and a mother named ‘Gertrude’, possibly a mishearing of her Arabic name Kattour. Frances was the name of Anthony Coorey’s father.
The certificate was ordered and it was a match. He was born on 3 September 1893. Finally, the mystery was solved. Violet was able to date the photo to the late 1890s – the only visual record of her ancestors from that period in Australia.
Conclusion: a family migration story solved
What began as a single photograph and a confusing set of names turned into a months-long search for answers.
Cultural naming practices and inconsistent spellings all contributed to the historical confusion. This is not an uncommon story for family historians searching through our historic records.
Violet’s research and persistence revealed some surprising facts about her ancestors:
- Habib Coorey, also known as Herbert and Joseph, was born on 3 September 1893, not 1894. Even his gravestone was incorrect as it implied his birth year was 1894.
- Her coveted family photo was dated to around 1897.
And with that, the Registry’s records helped to put another history mystery to bed.
Start your search
Research family history by searching the Registry index for NSW births, deaths, and marriages records.