John   There is this place called 'the big black hole' which is the resting place for many government and other records - I am sure you have heard of it. If someone could find where it is then maybe we would all get our family history brick walls broken down.   --- On Mon, 21/3/11, john.mail@ozemail.com.au <john.mail@ozemail.com.au> wrote: From: john.mail@ozemail.com.au <john.mail@ozemail.com.au> Subject: Re: [HV] Thunderbolts middle name To: aus-nsw-hunter-valley@rootsweb.com Received: Monday, 21 March, 2011, 9:44 PM    Hi Richard,    If  you  check  BDM online he doesn't appear to have been a registered    birth(?).    Even the cold hard facts of the governor general's last Sunday lunch are    quickly lost if the guv'mint or someone aren't doing their job.    Perhaps they had a budget cut the year Thunderbolt was born and decided only    to register two out of every five births at Wilberforce.    I'm particularly interested in just how gaps in records came about.    Or in any published studies on such.    For convict records there's been a few studies, apparently, of how records    came to get lost, or wilfully destroyed.    But what happened to those studies?   Perhaps they got lost too?    I suspect it is all very complicated ... if only we knew.    Cheers,    John    On Mon Mar 21 18:27 , Richard sent:          Hello      Does  anyone  have  certificates  of Thunderbolt's family - the BDM      certificates?      These should reveal the cold hard facts of the family lineage..      Richard