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Dr Dianne Snowden

Tasmanian Honour Roll of Women logo
Dianne Snowden

Awarded for service to education and training

Born: 14 June 1957 - Cooma, New South Wales

Entered on roll: 2017


“Understanding and protecting heritage for the future”

Historian Dr Dianne Snowden has contributed to Tasmanian history and heritage through the protection and management of cultural heritage, and by ensuring significant records are preserved for future research.

Dianne started researching her family’s history when she was 15 by interviewing her grandmother. Interviewing family members is encouraged by Dianne who is a genealogical researcher and Unit Coordinator and Lecturer in Researching Family History at the University of Tasmania (UTAS) and a member of Tasmanian Library Advisory Board and the Female Convict Research Committee. She taught family history from 1980 at Adult Education and at UTAS from 2009 until 2016.

The early interest in genealogy turned into a career with Dianne majoring in history at the Australian National University and gaining a PhD from UTAS. In 1989, Dianne was the first Tasmanian to be granted a Diploma in Family Historical Studies from the Society of Australian Genealogists.

Dianne’s experience as a genealogical researcher has included researching and co-writing many works. Patchwork Prisoners, The Rajah Quilt and the women who made it, co-written by Dianne in 2013, was shortlisted for the Australian Historical Association Kay Daniels Award.

Women and children have been the focus of much of Dianne’s historical work. This is reflected in publications and her work with the Friends of the Orphan School, which has included recognising the genealogy of the orphans. Through research Dianne discovered she had a Tasmanian ancestor, a convict woman who arrived in 1845 with two children who were placed in the orphan school at New Town in Hobart.

Dianne was the first woman to be appointed Chair of the Tasmanian Heritage Council (2012-2014), a role she held for an interim period  from October 2005 to February 2006.

Dianne has served as Chair of the Female Factory Historic Site and the Tasmanian Honour Roll of Women 2008-2009, and was a member of the National Trust Board and the National Archives of Australia Advisory Committee.

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