Jeff Brown, surveyor-general for the Australian Capital Territory, is seen here in 2015 having just blazed a tree on the ACT-NSW border to replace a tree blazed by Surveyor Harry Mouat during the border survey of 1915.

Blazed trees and more will be revealed this week at the 'Whole Histories; keeping the stories alive' conference to be held at St Clement's in Galong. Mr Brown will bring his 40 years of experience and expertise to the conference in his keynote address 'Unlocking history with maps and survey plans'.

Until he took up the position of surveyor-general over the border four years ago, he worked in private practice, managing his own business for 23 years. He has worked in most Australian states and territories (except South Australia and Tasmania).

With a long-held interest in Australian history, Mr Brown has found a wealth of historical information is contained in the maps and survey plans of this country, provided you know how to use them, he says. Maps from the extensive archival map collection of the Yass and District Historical Society illustrate the settlement of the district, how land was taken up and importantly for historians (and others) how to disseminate the information that the maps contain. Beginning with the Sir Thomas Mitchell 1834 Map of the Colony, Mr Brown's presentation will move on to explore the attributes of County Maps, Parish Maps, Portion Plans and Estate Sales Plans.

Mr Brown will also speak about different map series, early survey plans, topographic and feature maps explaining how information can be changed in different versions of a map. He will also speak about the various online resources that are available in NSW and the ACT.

Names that appear on the earliest maps of Yass include Hamilton Hume, Henry O'Brien, Thomas Meehan, Luke Reddall and John Hanley, whose lands virtually surrounded the town and for years shaped the way in which the town developed. Henry O'Brien even went as far as to develop a private town that he named O'Connelltown after Daniel O'Connell, the Irish politician who campaigned for Catholic emancipation in the 1820s.

The Yass collection contains other mapping treasures which are available in the Society Archives, upstairs in the Soldiers Memorial Hall on Tuesdays (2pm-5pm) and on the first Saturday of the month (11am-3pm).

Whole Histories conference is hosted by the Yass and District Historical Society from Friday to Sunday, May 12, another local initiative to educate, entertain and develop valuable networks through the use of our local history.