The database comprises history notes on railways, sugar, mining, local history of Queensland. It includes notes from government and private archival records which were on open access to the researcher at the time; newspapers; Government Gazettes; Parliamentary Papers; Railway Public and Working Time Tables; industry journals; minutes of shire councils and ceased companies; oral interviews; diaries in libraries; magazines; notes on photographs etc.

Ernest Jones arrived in Brisbane with his family on the 'Eastern Empire' in 1866. He describes early Brisbane, cane growing in South-East Queensland, growing cotton and fruit at Buderim, and growing bananas, coffee and citrus. Accompanied by handwritten notes on the jottings by A.B. White (5 l.), 1973.