The most amazing thing about organisations who create records and take photographic reminders is that we don't know what truly exists until they reveal what they have hidden away from the world. Personal archives such as the Fairfax archive provide us with so many things. Not least of which, the opportunity to "see" what the conditions were like for our ancestors. We may have written records, personal diaries and scrapbooks, but it is true - a picture is worth a thousand words. And thanks to organisations such as Fairfax we now have the chance to add life to our genealogical research.

Prime Minister opens our archive de triumph - National - smh.com.au

THERE are 16 million photographic negatives in the Fairfax archives, dating back to 1908, when the cameras were made of wood and the negatives made on glass plates.