The Family History Studio · Measure Up
The Hartley Family
A first look at your research — prepared 21 June 2026
This is a sample. A real Measure Up, with the names changed. It shows exactly what you receive — built the same way from your folder.
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Story-Ready Score
An honest read on where your research sits
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Research plan
Exactly what to chase next, and how
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State of play
Every item trawled, read and analysed
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Newspaper search
The Australian archives, already searched
Yours to keep — whatever you decide.
Subject
Thomas Hartley & Annie Crawford (1841–1902)
This is for
Family / private keepsake
✓ Consent received — copyright, living-person privacy and AI-use approved on your intake form. To protect privacy, no living people are named in this report.
3
Story-Ready Score · out of 5
Sapling
Your research has a solid documented spine — real records, real people, and
enough structure to build on. You're squarely in the middle of our scale: past the early
gathering stage, and within reach of a rich finished story with a little more colour and sourcing.
Your score reflects only what was in the folder you sent — not everything that exists.
Sending more (or letting us research it) lifts the score.
How your research scores
Breadth3 / 5
Range of record types — certificates, census, photos. Room for electoral rolls, immigration, probate.
Depth3 / 5
Both principals partly covered with parents & children sketched; some life-stage gaps. A fuller group sheet would lift this.
Provability3 / 5
Certificates are citable; the family story and photos aren't yet tied to sources.
Organisation2 / 5
Photos are mostly unlabelled and filenames are mixed — easily fixed.
Story Material3 / 5
Good photos, one written anecdote, and places we can locate.
Where you sit
5
Flourishing
publication-ready
What you sent us
What we did
1 · We trawled the lot. Every one of your 68 files was
opened, read and analysed — documents, photos, trees and records — and the research scored across the
five dimensions above. That's the state of play: an honest picture of what you actually hold.
2 · A newspaper search of the Australian archives. We ran
Thomas and Annie through Trove (the National Library's newspaper archive), trying the spelling and
OCR variants the old papers throw up. The full search log is below — what we searched, how, and what
came back — so you (or we) can pick up exactly where it leaves off.
Your research plan
The heart of your Measure Up — exactly what to chase next, where to look, and how.
Ordered so the quick, high-impact wins come first. You can work this yourself, or we can do it for you.
| Gap | Likely source | Where to look | How to search | Priority |
|---|
| Annie's birth / baptism | Scottish OPR / statutory birth | ScotlandsPeople | Surname + parish; try OCR variants (Crawford / Crauford); ±3 yrs around 1845 | Quick win |
| Marriage certificate (the couple) | NSW BDM marriage | NSW BDM index → certificate order | Both surnames, Bathurst district, 1869; note the registration number | Quick win |
| Thomas's death record | NSW BDM death + funeral notice | NSW BDM index; Trove | Surname, Bathurst, 1902; cross-check the obituary in the search log | Quick win |
| Addresses over time | Electoral rolls | Ancestry / NLA electoral rolls | Surname by year; map the moves around William St, Bathurst | Medium |
| Children's births | NSW BDM births | NSW BDM index | Mother's-maiden-name search (Crawford), Bathurst, 1870–1888 | Medium |
| A face for Annie | Member trees & galleries | Ancestry, FamilySearch Memories, relatives | Search other researchers' trees on the same couple; ask the family | Medium |
| Estate / land | Probate & land titles | NSW State Archives; HLRViewer | Probate index by name + year; title search by parish / portion | Deeper dig |
The newspaper search — what we already covered
So you don't repeat it, and can extend it. Trove's newspapers run mostly to ~1954, so
20th-century relatives appear less — we chase other records for those.
| Person | Name & OCR variants searched | Filters | Hits | Leads kept |
|---|
| Thomas Hartley |
"Thomas Hartley", "Mr T. Hartley", "T Hartley", "Hartley wheelwright", "Hartly", "Hartley" (OCR) |
NSW · 1857–1955 · "Bathurst" |
31 |
3 (marriage 1869, business advert 1884, obituary 1902) |
| Annie Crawford / Hartley |
"Annie Hartley", "Mrs Hartley", "Annie Crawford", "A Crawford", "Crauford" (OCR) |
NSW · 1857–1955 · "Bathurst" |
12 |
2 (marriage notice 1869, mention in husband's obituary 1902) |
Leads kept (sample links)
- 1869 — Marriage notice naming both families, Bathurst Free Press. trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/0000001
- 1884 — Advertisement for the wheelwright's premises, William St. trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/0000002
- 1902 — Obituary with a short life summary and surviving children. trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/0000003
In your real report these are live links straight to the articles on Trove.
Things you can do right now
- Talk to anyone who knew them — or knew of them. Find the older relatives and
family friends, and interview them. Record it (a phone voice memo is fine) and
write down what they say. Living memory disappears; once it's gone it can't be researched. This is
often the single richest thing you can add.
- Name your photographs. Rename each one with the year first,
then a name and place if you know them — e.g. 1898 Thomas Hartley, William St Bathurst.
Year-first means they automatically sort into date order, and it turns an unlabelled pile into
story. (We'll also send a pre-filled tagging tool to make this easy.)
- Work through every hint on Ancestry — accept the ones that are genuinely them
and download each record into your folder.
- Do the same on FamilySearch and MyHeritage — check record hints and Memories.
- Download your family group sheet (or a GEDCOM export) and drop it in — it gives
us the backbone in one go.
- Hunt for faces in other researchers' trees and galleries, and ask relatives.
Drop these in and we'll re-run your Measure Up for free to see where you land.
What you can expect
You're ready: the Full Family Story — Life Sketch edition
At Sapling you get our complete suite of products —
the same story, biographies, timeline, map, podcast, Ask-the-Expert, website page
and print-ready keepsake as every family. The one difference is the length and depth of the
central story.
Life Sketch — at your level (Sapling)
a focused narrative · roughly 15–30 pages
A tight, vivid story built on your documented spine and set against the world they lived in —
every line earned by a source.
Full biography — at Branching / Flourishing
a chaptered book · roughly 60–120+ pages
A longer, chaptered biography with scene-by-scene vignettes, deeper researched context and more
illustration — because there's more sourced material to carry it.
It's about quality, not filling space. We don't pad a
story to make it longer. The length honestly reflects what your records can support — a Life Sketch is
a complete, finished story, not a cut-down one. Add more sourced material (work the plan
above) and the story naturally grows toward the full biography.
See a finished family — a full example of everything you get →
A taste of what's possible
Mini timeline · from your dated records
1841 — Thomas Hartley baptised, Lanarkshire, Scotland.
1857 — Family emigrates; arrives Port Jackson aboard the Telegraph.
1869 — Marriage to Annie Crawford, recorded at Bathurst NSW.
1881 — Listed as a wheelwright, William St, Bathurst.
1902 — Death notice, Bathurst district.
One context card · the world around them
Bathurst in the 1870s. When the Hartleys settled, Bathurst was booming on the
back of the gold rushes and the coming railway, which reached the town in 1876. A wheelwright's
trade would have been in steady demand — drays, sulkies and farm wagons for the surrounding
district. (Researched from period sources; this is the kind of grounded
context we weave through the finished story.)
Sample story paragraph · from your strongest source
Thomas had crossed the world by the time he was sixteen — from a cold Lanarkshire
parish to the dust and promise of a gold-rush town. The trade he carried in his hands, mending
and making the wheels that kept a colony moving, would anchor the family in Bathurst for the
next forty years.
Ready to see your family's story?
You're a Sapling — ready for the full treatment. Whenever you're ready to go, just say the word and I'll
take your research through the full process and hand back your complete family history.
How we work together: as I go I may have a few questions, and I'll check in with you
at a couple of points so it comes out right — you approve the direction, you don't lift a finger.
Next step: reply to confirm what you'd like to go ahead with. Not sure?
See a finished example →
Start my project →