Meet Peter Matthews – Record Agent
Peter was born in Merbein, Victoria, and spent the first 30 years of his life in Sunraysia, (and now lives in Kialla, near Shepparton). He is really interested in the early history of country towns. His teaching career spanned many small schools, beginning with Merbein South PS in 1977, seven schools around Red Cliffs as a Mobile Librarian the following year, and Mildura South PS for several years before moving further afield to other schools and promotions. In total he worked across 19 schools!
Peter retired seven years ago as the multi-campus school principal of Violet Town, Baddaginnie, Swanpool and Strathbogie, and now operates PM Research Services, specialising in general research, book authorship, creating and helping build family histories, as well as other consultancies.
Peter operates the Lost Mildura and Sunraysia Facebook page, which has grown to 15,000 followers. Each morning there is a new post related to towns and districts throughout Sunraysia.
He has co-authored six local short-form historical books for the Shepparton area, and this year has completed a detailed biography for a client in the Kiewa Valley, including an extensive family tree. He is currently working with the Shepparton Heritage Centre to reorganise their collection of artefacts and has overseen the development of a searchable image database of 10,000 photographs. He has also undertaken this type of project for local organisations. Peter has several books planned for the remainder of this year. He is very keen to capture local historical information, including images and oral histories, before they are swept away by time.
With respect to record retrieval, Peter is a listed Research Agent for the National Archives of Australia and Search Agent for the Public Record Office Victoria. Peter is familiar with the collections held within both institutions and makes regular trips to retrieve images of the files requested.
He oversees the Shepparton Heritage Centre physical and digital archives, with a current project under way to photograph the full collection of artefacts and ephemera held in their Museum, and to align these images with the electronic Museum Registers. Peter is also the Secretary of the Shepparton Family History Group, which is located in the Shepparton Heritage Centre.
Retirement is not on the horizon: when you love doing what you enjoy, why stop?
Email [email protected]
Website pmresearch.info
