Technical services librarian Ros Dorsman said in 2009 the team started with public notices such as births and deaths and then broadened its coverage to include community pages and local news.

She said the online index system can be used for research of the region or for an individual to research their family history.

“Newspapers are always the superior primary source for local information. Often there’s no other place to obtain this information,” she said.

Five volunteers from the Orange Family History group have gone through the newspapers weekly to enter names, dates and page numbers onto the database.

The researcher will then be directed to the corresponding article which has either been recorded on microfilm by the state library and can be read online or they’ll be shown where to find the physical copy of the newspaper – depending on when the information was published. 

Ms Dorsman said the team of indexers have worked through copies of the CWD from 1945 to mid 2018, although some gaps may occur as copies of the newspaper were not available.

They have also indexed old Orange newspaper The Sun from 1899 to January 1901 and Sunday from 1990-1998.

At the end of December a total of 162,263 records had been completed which equates to about 15,000 hours of volunteer time.

Ms Dorsman said the library staff are impressed by the team’s efforts to ensure the information is available to curious residents.

“It’s part of our local cultural heritage and it’s also part of people’s personal history,” she said.

“It gives people the basic bones to build their history around it.”