Australia is a melting pot of ancient and modern, east and west, Indigenous, colonial and multicultural. It is home to the longest continuous culture on the planet and a multicultural community of people from every country on the planet. Finding records about your ancestors depends on when they came, how they came and where they came from.
Understand the HistoryUnderstand the History
Indigenous HistoryIndigenous History
Australia's indigenous community does not have a written record repository before the colonial period. When the British so it is not possible to build traditional lineages in the same way as you can with other cultures. However as the aboriginal community have reclaimed their culture, they are rebuilding the cultural records of their traditional language groups.
When the British began to colonise the country, Indigenous Australians were not counted as part of the population and so scant records exist about the communities. Early colonial records related to indigenous communities include Blanket Lists, which are records of the distribution of blankets to indigenous communities. [1]
[Tindale's] significant contribution to documenting Aboriginal Australia arose from his association with Maroadunei, a Ngandi songmaker from Arnhem Land, who Tindale met on his first expedition to Groote Eylandt from 1921-22. Maroadunei introduced Tindale to the concept of 'tribal boundaries', establishing that Australian Aboriginal people were not 'free wanderers' but were linked by culture, kinship and language and were bound to the land geographically and ecologically.[2]
Tindale also amassed a vast collection of genealogies in hand written field notes. The full Tindale Collection is housed at the South Australian Museum, with parts of the collection relevant to specific areas held at other museums. The collection includes a large set of genealogies collected by Arthur Tindale. IATSIS, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, can help people with indigenous heritage research their family history. The National Library of Australia also has a fact sheet on tracing First Australians Family History.
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European SettlementEuropean Settlement
On the 22nd of August, 1770, Captain James Cook claimed the southern land mass today known as Australia for the British Crown. Cook did not understand or acknowledge indigenous ownership or title, so from the British perspective Australia was one large mass, with no borders. Over time colonial borders were further defined so WHERE you look for records depends largely on WHEN your researching.
In 1787 the boundary of New South Wales was set, in London, as a line through the continent at 135 degrees of longitude. In 1828, the boundary was moved across to 129 degrees of longitude and the western part became Western Australia. In 1836 South Australia took a 'bite' from New South Wales. The establishment of Queensland in 1859 divided the remainder of New South Wales into two. The western borders of Queensland and South Australia were adjusted in 1862 to align the borders.[3]
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Australian borders in 1788 -
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Australian borders in 1851 -
Australian borders in 1859 -
Australian borders from 1911
Convict recordsConvict records
In 1788, with the arrival of The First Fleet - 11 ships carrying over 1400 convicts plus soldiers - a British penal colony was established on the east coast, at Sydney Cove. Similar colonial settlements were established along the east coast, as far south as Van Dieman's Land (Tasmania), and Moreton Bay (Queensland). These were all managed by the colonial government, under the ultimate authority of the crown - first under King George, then, from 1837, Queen Victoria.
If your ancestor came to Australia as a convict, records may exist in both British and Australian archives. Court records, prison registers and ship manifests may be in the UK National Archives. Convict registers, authorisations to marry or Certificates of Freedom, issued when a sentence had been served, are housed in state archives around Australia. Much of this data has now been digitised.
Key archival resources include:
- National Archives (UK) Convict Research Guide - Information about where to look for records of prisoners and convicts in the UK National Archives
- Proceedings of the Old Bailey 1674-1913 - TRanscriptions of Old Bailey trials. Search by a variety of parameters including keyword, name, date or crime. Records include links to Digital Panopticon, a site that cross references millions of records from fifty datasets, relating to the lives of 90,000 convicts from the Old Bailey.
- NLA Convict Research Guide - Convict sources in the National Library of Australia
- MHNSW Convict Records - Convict sources in Museums of History NSW
- Libraries Tasmania Convict Records - records of convicts held in Tasmania
- Western Australia State Records Office - Convict Records - records of convicts held in Western Australia
- Convict Records - combined dataset of convicts of transported to Australia from 1787 to 1867. includes data from the British Convict Transportation Register, courtesy of the State Library of Queensland.
- MyHeritage Wiki - Australian Convicts
MigrationMigration
Free SettlersFree Settlers
The first free settlers, five single men and two families, arrived in the colony in 1793.
The number of free settlers and merchants steadily grew, as did the number of native born people and convicts who had served their time and were now free citizens. And, as the size and importance of the free citizenry grew in relation to that of the convicts and military, so, inevitably, would also grow a demand for democratic change.[4]
Initially settlers were overwhelmingly from the UK - England, Ireland and Wales. Gold rushes in NSW and Victoria brought people from Europe and Asia into the country chasing their fortune. Chinese miners and Afghan Cameleers were some of the earliest non-anglo migrants to Australia. However, discrimination and racism was rife, with the Chinese especially demonised. South Australia, the only territory not to have been established as a penal colony, attracted a large cohort of German settlers.
To encourage British (read white) migration to the colonies, the government instituted an Assisted Migration program. This helped people who could not afford the fare to relocate to areas being developed.
At the end of the 19th century the disparate colonies voted to form a Federation of states.
The Colonies formed the six States: New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, Western Australia, South Australia, and Queensland. Three weeks after they were united as the Commonwealth of Australia under the new Constitution, King Edward VII became Head of the Commonwealth of Australia when his mother, Queen Victoria, died on 22 January 1901.[3]
With Federation in 1901, migration became more regulated. A White Australia Policy was enshrined in law as the Immigration Restriction Act. The act was finally repealed in 1959.
Even with immigration restrictions people came to Australia from across Europe, with large cohorts from Greece and Italy coming in the 1940s. Australia accepted the largest proportion per capita of Holocaust survivors after WWII. In the 1970s, an influx of boats of Vietnamese refugees eventually led to an increase in migration from Asia.
Today Australia is a melting pot of people from mixed backgrounds as the descendants of these migrants have integrated and intermarried.
Strategies for tracing migration recordsStrategies for tracing migration records
Before 1924, the administration and recording of shipping and passenger arrivals was the responsibility of each Australian colony or state. The surviving original records are now held in each respective state archives or public records office. We either holds copies of these records or provide access to them.
After 1924 immigration became the responsibility of the Commonwealth Government. All immigration and naturalisation records after 1924 are held at and available through the National Archives of Australia. The National Library of Australia has a handy fact sheet for the Shipping lists, Immigration & Naturalisation records..
MyHeritage holds several immigration related indexes in it's collection including:
- Inwards Unassisted Passengers to Victoria, 1852-1923
- New South Wales, Assisted Immigrants Index, 1839-1896, and
- Queensland Naturalizations
Research your ancestors on MyHeritage
The National Archives of Australia also holds several collections relevant to Immigration. Passenger arrivals after 1924 can be searched directly via the Passenger Arrivals tab in Recordsearch. Select Immigration and Naturalisation from the drop down menu in the Name Search tab to find applications for naturalisation and sponsorship.
Musters, Census and Electoral RollsMusters, Census and Electoral Rolls
MustersMusters
Prior to the first NSW census in 1828, general musters were used to assay the population and record how many people were receiving rations from the authorities. MHNSW has a comprehensive research guide to census and muster records.
...other classes of musters included settlers musters, musters of livestock, musters of convicts, or specific ones that included only males, females or children or convicts per a certain ship.[5]
The National Archives in London hold several muster returns from Australia.
CensusCensus
Museums of History NSW (MHNSW) also holds early census records including, the original 1828 census books, which were subsequently inscribed in the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register. You can browse the digitised, alphabetically organised pages of the 1828 Census. Another census was held in 1841 and digitised index is available at MHNSW.
Electoral RollsElectoral Rolls
Who was entitled to vote in Australian elections has changed over time. Initially only men who held property but in 1902 suffrage was extended to all Australian men and women, excluding Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders who were administered under the Flora and Flora Act. Compulsory registration was introduced in 1911. Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders were finally granted the right to vote in 1962, and in a 1967 referendum, Australians overwhelmingly voted to grant full citizenship rights to Indigenous Australians.
Electoral rolls are applicable to local, state and federal jurisdictions, each of which has a different boundary, however citizens only have to register once for all 3 jurisdictions. They can place a relative in time and space. The rolls were regularly updated and include the voters name, address and profession. Examining matching surnames at the same address may help you find adult relatives.
The National Library of Australia holds a research guide to Australian Electoral Rolls
MyHeritage holds a selection of Australian Electoral Rolls from 1893 to 1949 in the collection.
NewspapersNewspapers
Australian Newspapers are available online via Trove and OldNews. Newspapers are an extremely valuable source of information about the day to day life of ordinary Australians. Family Notices, passenger lists, court reports and news articles can deliver priceless details into the life of your relative.
OldNews has a Names & Stories Index that uses AI to extract the data from the digitised newspapers in their collection.
Research your ancestors on MyHeritage
Tracing Births, Marriages and Death recordsTracing Births, Marriages and Death records
Each state in Australia manages registration of vital records in their own repository. Privacy legislation restricts access to records in the indexes, unless one can can prove direct descent.
MyHeritage holds a collection of indexes for vital records across most territories in Australia [catalogue collections].
Search Australian Births, Marriages and Deaths on MyHeritageSearch Australian Births, Marriages and Deaths on MyHeritage
Research your ancestors on MyHeritage
Each state (except NT) has a searchable index. See Birth, death, and marriage records in Australia for more information.
The Ryerson Index is an index of death, funeral and obituary notices published in newspapers across the country. Results include the type of notice - death, funeral or obituary, the date the event took place, the publication and date of publication. Searching Ryerson is free (the platform is ad supported so advertising popups are constant and intrusive). The index is regularly updated so it contains details for deaths that do not appear in indexes subject to privacy legislation.
See alsoSee also
Explore mor about Australian family history recordsExplore mor about Australian family history records
Webinars at Legacy Family Tree Webinars:
- Using MyHeritage for Family History Research in Australia
- Convicts: From Trial to Freedom
- Polled! Finding your Ancestors in New South Wales Colonial Muster and Census Returns
- Looking for ‘Aliens’ Down Under: A Guide to Australian Naturalisation Records
- Finding Mob: Researching Indigenous Australian Family
- Civil Registration in Australia