The voice of Nick Vine Hall has been stilled for ever. He passed away on 31st October 2006 at the Bethlehem Hospital, South Caulfield, after a protracted illness. He leaves a wife, Patricia Barth, two children and five grand children to whom we extend out deepest sympathy.

His funeral will take place at St Thomas'  Anglican Church, North Sydney at 2.00pm Thursday 9th November.

Nick commenced his full time role as genealogist and family and maritime historian at the age of 27 years when he became Director of the Society of Australian Genealogists in Sydney. For 27 years he was "Resident Genealogist" on ABC radio stations, reaching an estimated one million listeners.
Nick published many works on genealogy, family history and maritime history. He was the major driving force in saving the Australian Census. As Chairman of the AFFHO Census Working Party, he utilized all his marketing and lobbying skills to campaign over many years for the retention of the name identified forms collected under the Australian census – a cause dear to the hearts of family historians.

Nick was very proud of his Huguenot ancestry and was a founding member of the Huguenot Society of Australia established in 2003. His last published work was  "The Happy Huguenots - Parts 1, 2 & 3", a family history which was Highly Commended when entered in the Alexander Henderson Award for 2006. 

Descended from a long line of master mariners, Nick has been a maritime historian for many years, specialising in the field of ships pictures, especially during the 19th and 20th centuries. His ships' pictures database now exceeds 200,000 entries.  He has donated a copy to the A.I.G.S. which will be lodged in the Blackburn Library for ready access by researchers. The preparation of the hardcopy format was interrupted by the onset of his illness and is now in course of preparation.

Another of Nick's projects was the collection of the names of early American and Canadian residents in Australasia. In his last weeks, he supervised the preparation of this material for publication on the Institute Website at the following link.

Nick will be sadly missed by literally millions of people whose lives he has enhanced by lectures, radio talks, publications and willingness to give advice on searching for their family roots.