Immigration Into Australia: General Information Sites

Immigration into Australia: General Information Sites

Web Sites for Genealogists - An Australian gateway site for tracing your family history by Cora Num

Need Help with Shipping Research? See How to Find Shipping and Immigration Records in Australia, 2003 and my latest book (2010) How Did They Get Here? Arrivals after 1924. Click here for details.

National Archives of Australia hold Australian shipping and immigration records from 1924. Online Fact Sheets detail the holdings. Online Indexes this section details the Index to Passenger Arrivals 1921-1950. (See Online Indexes and Passenger Lists for details). Migrant Selection Documents are available for post World War II displaced persons and refugee arrivals. These are listed at item level on the RecordSearch database as are many of those for British migrants (1950-1973) (Series A1877).

Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney. Go to the Quick Links at the bottom of the page and click on Research Guides. Topics include seafaring ancestors, shipwrecks, convict ships, sailing ships, passenger ships to Australia plus many more. Use this site to also access information about the Welcome Wall and to search the online database.

Western Australian Museum Welcome Walls. A tribute to the migrants who passed through Fremantle. The Welcome Walls Passages Database listing over 16,700 inscriptions is searchable online. There is also details about the proposed Albany Welcome Wall. Updated

Australia's Virtual Immigration Wall of Honour. This free site, created by Janet Reakes, offers the opportunity to record the arrival of your family into Australia and to make contact with other descendants/researchers. The online data lists names, birthplace, county, country and arrival details.

National Library of Australia. This site contains a list of Immigrant Diaries (1822-1895) held in the Library's manuscript collection. It is arranged chronologically by year and date of departure.

Origins - Immigrant Communities in Victoria. This site contains the migration histories of 70 communities. There are photographs, graphs and statistics based on official government census data collected since 1854.

Pastkeys, established in 1986, are compilers of Indexes mostly relating to Immigration. These indexes available for sale on CD-ROM include:
Unassisted Arrivals to Sydney (NSW) Index 1842-57
Immigration Deposit Journals
• Immigration Deposit Journals (NSW) Index 1853-1900
• Immigration Deposit Regulations Supplementary Index 1856-1857
Free Railway Passes (NSW) Index 1880-1892
Convicts & Employers (NSW) Index 1828, 1832-1833, Jan 1838-Jan 1844
Deane Index Re-Indexed 1823-1840
Pastkeys Miscellaneous Indexes
• Unclaimed Letters (Ship/Regt) Index 1836-1852
• Unemployed Registers 1860, 1884 Index
• Wages Paid to Orphans Index 1849-51
The site also includes a series of useful articles
NSW Immigration Deposit Journals 1853-1900
Irish in the NSW Immigration Deposit Journals
Free Railway Passes
The Plight of the Colonial Unemployed
Trans Tasman Traffic in Colonial Times

Other Relevant Pages

Immigration into Australia: General Information Sites