GSV Office Bearers
Patron
Her Excellency Professor the Honourable Margaret Gardner, AC
Office Bearers
Born in England, I worked internationally as a chartered accountant and in senior management roles before retiring in Melbourne over a decade ago. A lifelong interest in family history led me to join the Genealogical Society of Victoria in 2019, where my research has flourished. I have embraced special interest groups—particularly Counties of Northern England (CONE) and the Midlands—completed the University of Tasmania’s Family History diploma, and had stories published in Ancestor, including a competition winner. Now active on the GSV Council and Executive Committee, I co-convene CONE and contribute widely to the Society’s activities.
Claire has been a GSV volunteer for more than 20 years, working in various ways including journal subscriptions and indexing, converting our office management data to CiviCRM, management of volunteers, and as a Councillor, including two years as Secretary. She has been a Research Assistant from the start, with a particular interest in Irish and Scottish genealogy, and currently is also part of the Research Team and compiler of the e-News. In 2019, Claire was awarded a Fellowship of the GSV.
Heather joined GSV in 2022, eager to learn about family history and connect with others with this shared interest. Heather has undertaken various volunteer committee roles, including playgroups, kinders, scouts, and dance.
Professionally, she has spent 28 years in nursing in a variety of specialties, including intensive care, emergency, and theatres. Heather is currently working in local government as an Immunisation Nurse Team Leader, having been in this role for the past 16 years.
Now, as her three young adult children are more independent, Heather and her husband are adjusting to a new lifestyle with fewer daily responsibilities. They look forward to exploring international travel and enjoying caravan trips around Australia.
Tony grew up in Sydney, studied at UTS and spent 20 years working in the oil industry around Australia and in the Pacific Islands. After this, he owned and operated an arts and crafts retail business with multiple stores around Melbourne.
In his early school years Tony developed a passion for history and dreamed of becoming an archaeologist in later life. He started dabbling in genealogy putting form and detail into lots of loose family history facts (some of which turned out to be fiction). He took the surfeit of people, places and dates in his bulging database and wrote a book about the seventeen immigration events that brought all his ancestors to Australia between 1788 and 1880. This provided Tony with the opportunity to hopefully inspire his children and grandchildren towards an interest in history by seeing some of it through ancestral eyes.
He became “Keeper of the Purse” at GSV in 2022 and now contemplates his next publishing task that will draw together the twin interests of ancestry and history.
Councillors
Staff
Linda Farrow is the full-time Office Administrator of the GSV. She has had a varied career including working at Ford Australia’s Head Office and as a Personal and Executive Assistant. Most recently she worked as a Medical Transcriptionist from home, so was keen to take up this office-based administrative role when it became available in late 2016. At a family reunion in 1989, a relative produced a book about a Van Diemen’s Land convict ancestor dating back to 1834, and this sparked her interest in family history. Linda has been a GSV member for five years and is also a member of VicGUM and the Irish Ancestry Group. She researches her Australian, English and Irish ancestors, and has found one branch of her family emigrated from Ireland to America where they became Mormons and published a family history book.
Meg Bate is the Library and Digital Resources Manager at the GSV. She previously worked as a Reference Librarian at La Trobe University. During this time, she contributed to the development of library software with the Australian Academic Research Library Network (AARLIN) and the International Group of Ex Libris Users. She has now taken a ‘fun job’ and uses these skills in her work with the GSV Library’s digitization and indexing project and the website. She also writes articles for Ancestor and wrote the first article about the internet for the VicGum newsletter in 1994. Meg also presents monthly talks on some of the major computer-based resources. She took up genealogy after her mother died in 1990. Apart from her family history research, Meg is a keen cross-country skier, and has achieved the title of Loppett Master, having competed in 20 citizen ski races of 20 - 90 kms around the world.
Trena has a Diploma of Family History from the University of Tasmania (2025) and a Diploma of Library and Information Services from Swinburne University (2022). She’s worked at the National Library of Australia in Canberra, where she coordinated Trove programs, helped readers with complex research queries, and supported digitisation projects. Tina has also managed website content, worked as a research assistant on a World War II project at the University of New South Wales, and volunteered as a cataloguer. She combines her love of history and research with a passion for making information accessible to everyone.