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Archives in Australia

Web Sites for Genealogists - An Australian gateway site for tracing your family history by Cora Num
National
Australian Society of Archivists site offers access to the Directory of Archives which lists contact details, access conditions, acquisition focus and web links to a diverse range of Australian archives.

Australian War Memorial. This extensive site is a must for family history research and contains biographical databases, collection databases, extensive digitised records, online Information Sheets plus extensive advice on research and family history. (See Service Personnel for details of databases).

National Archives of Australia holds Australian government records from 1901 plus a significant collection of records transferred from the colonies pre 1901. Online services include RecordSearch - the collection database, PhotoSearch and 260+ Fact Sheets. Records are held for defence service personnel, (See Service Personnel for details), merchant seamen, 20th century passenger arrivals, displaced persons. (See Immigration into Australia: Online Indexes and Passenger Lists for details) and naturalisation (See Naturalisation).

Noel Butlin Archives Centre holds the records of industrial organisations, businesses, professional associations, industry bodies and the labour movement. A List of Holdings is available online.

National Film and Sound Archive preserves Australia's moving images and sound recordings.

Australian Capital Territory 
Archives ACT provides access to publicly available ACT Government records older than 20 years.

New South Wales
State Records New South Wales, Indexes Online cover: Bankruptcy and insolvency, [surviving] census records; Colonial Secretary's papers; convicts; court (includes divorce), police and prison records; deceased estates and probate; education and child welfare; immigration and shipping; Indigenous Australians; land records; naturalisation; railway employees, registers of firms and street names. Most of these indexes can be searched at once using the KeyName Search. Extensive online guides and finding aids are available. See Aboriginal, Birth, Death and Marriage Records, Census, Convicts, Criminal & Court Records, Immigration into Australia, Maps and Land Records, Naturalisation, Occupations and Wills and Probate for further details on the indexes. 

Northern Territory
Northern Territory Archives Service offers online guides to the collections.

Queensland
Queensland State Archives Online Indexes cover assisted immigration; Brisbane Hospital Register, Boer War; civil servants; coloured labourers; company records; consumptive patients; criminals; dental board; divorce; inquests; Justices of the Peace; land selections; mineral leases; passports; passage certificates; teachers; trustees plus wills and probate. ArchivesSearch provides access to the QSA database plus there are 42+ Brief Guides available. See Birth, Death and Marriage Records, Criminal & Court Records, Immigration into Australia, Maps and Land Records, Occupations, Service Personnel and Wills and Probate for further details on the indexes. 

South Australia
State Records of South Australia offers online searching using the collection search engine, ArchivesSearch. Records available for name searching include official assisted passenger lists (1845-1886); social welfare records; marine certificates of competency; registers of prisoners; mounted police records; marine and harbors board personnel. See Criminal & Court Records, Immigration into Australia: Indexes, Immigration into Australia: Ships' Crew and Occupations, for further details. 

Tasmania
LINC Tasmania. LINC (Learning and Information Network Centre) brings together the services of the State Library of Tasmania, the Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office (TAHO) and others. TAHO online name indexes include:
• Arrivals  - index of passengers and ships arriving, mainly in Hobart in the 19th century
• Census index - index of people (householders) (1842-1857). * 
• Colonial Tasmanian Family Links database - is not a direct index to records but contains a large amount of information (not necessarily verified) about Tasmanian families
• Convict applications for permission to marry - index of convicts applying to marry free people or other convicts (1829-1857) #
• Departures - index of people leaving Tasmanian ports (1817-1867)
• Divorces - index of people getting divorced (1861-1920)
• General index  - indexes a range of records, mainly names, but some subjects #
• Inquests - index of records of inquests into people's deaths (c.1828-c.1930). Inquests into fires are in the general index# 
• Naturalisations - index of people applying to become citizens (1835-1905) #
• Tasmanian convicts - index of all convicts transported to Tasmania and those convicted locally through the convict system #
• Wills - index of wills and letters of administration of estates registered for probate (1824-1989)
* indicates digital images of the records are available online. # indicates some digital images available. See Birth, Death and Marriage Records, CensusConvicts, Immigration into Australia, Local History, Naturalisation and Wills and Probate for further details. 

LINC Tasmania - Digital Tasmania is a project to digitise Tasmania's archival and heritage collections. A significant amount of material has been digitised and is available online for free. There are original records, books, maps and plans, pictorial works, newspapers and journals and card indexes. 

LINC Tasmania - Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office - online guides.

Victoria
Public Record Office Victoria Online Resources include database indexes and digitised records covering education; health, mental health and welfare; immigration; land places and local government; legal, justice and consumer affairs; registration and licensing; sport, recreation and culture; transport and infrastructure and images online. Records cover asylums, company records, convicts, divorces, insolvency, ships' passengers, teachers, old age pensions, pastoral runs, prisoners, publicans plus wills and probate. See Birth, Death and Marriage Records, Convicts, Criminal & Court Records, Immigration into Australia, Maps and Land Records, Occupations, and Wills and Probate for further details.  

Western Australia
State Records Office of Western Australia offers access to a series of useful Collection Guides. Archives Explored Online (AEON) currently provides title information for 2 million+ government records. 

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© Cora Num 1997-2012. Last updated 1 January 2012