Different Sights - Immigrants in New England

Different Sights introduces immigrants from non-English-speaking backgrounds who have settled, for longer or shorter periods of time, on the New England Tableland in northern New South Wales, Australia.

Supported by the NSW Migration Heritage Centre and the NSW Heritage Office, the project drew on research conducted in 2007 to 2008 and incorporated research conducted for earlier projects.

The aim was to highlight the significant, complex and varied histories of individuals and groups who had previously tended to sit at the edges of the region’s histories. The aim was also to acknowledge and use the variety of research and resources undertaken and collected by local historical societies, museums and residents.

Outcomes include this online database which connects individual immigrants and their families to sites, objects, images, oral histories and other sources that help to tell their stories. There is also a thematic study which is available here to download or view as a pdf file: Different Sights Online.pdf  (for download, right click and choose 'Save Link as...' ).

The original research material, documents and photographs – along with the research material from earlier research projects – is now housed in the UNE Archives and Heritage Centre.

A renewed effort beginning in 2022 is seeing some entries in the database updated and new resources added.

Individual database entries have varying levels of detail. Some simply name a person, place or resource; others offer more depth. There are clearly many gaps and missing entries. There are also likely to be errors.

You are invited to get in contact if you have new material that can be added and/or mistakes that should be corrected. Your contributions will be acknowledged and referenced.

Janis Wilton
School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
University of New England,
Armidale NSW 2351.
Email: jwilton@une.edu.au.au