PASSENGER LISTSOne of the questions that is most often asked about our early ancestors is what ship (or plane)

did they arrive on and what port in Australia. In many cases its like finding a needle in a

haystack. So many of the passenger lists just have Mr or Mrs, Miss or Mstr, no initial, just the

Surname. You can view many of these original passenger lists at State Records at Gepps Cross

or copies at SAGHS at Unley, or the Adelaide Library, North Terrace.

The National Archives have two sources of “Passenger Lists”. These are:

!“Name Search” under “Immigration and Naturalisation records”

!“Passenger Arrivals Index” 1921 - 1950

The National Archives introduced a new “Record Search” website on the 7 July 2010.th

http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/recordsearch/index.aspx

Select “Search now - as a guest”, (but you can become a registered researcher).

In the opening “Record Search” select “Name Search” and then choose the drop down

category, “Immigration and naturalization records”.

I searched for the name “Connell” in 1965 and found the following (amongst many others).

The “Passenger arrivals index, 1921 - 1950" covers arrivals by ship in Fremantle, and

outports Western Australia and Perth Airport between 1 January 1921 and 15 January 1950.

Many ships bound for the eastern Australian states passed through Fremantle. The Fremantle

passenger lists include all those passengers who disembarked in Fremantle. They often also

include all other passengers who travelled further on the same ship and disembarked in other

Australian or overseas ports.

From 1944 the passenger lists include those for aircraft arriving at Perth airport. The lists

for Qantas flights usually include brief details for those enroute for other airports. The lists

for other airlines only have details for those leaving the aircraft in Perth. (This index was

compiled through a Work for the Dole project in Perth, Western Australia.)

“The Ships List” is home to many lists.

http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/australia/SAassistedindex.htm

Two lists of particular interest are:

! “Immigrants to South Australia (year coverage 1841 - 1861)

! “German immigrants to South Australia, 1837 - 1860"

(The year coverage is actually 1841 - 1861.)

Note: the original lists were created by an individual unfamiliar with German names, so name

spellings from the Biographical index SA (BISA) have been included in brackets. The list below

has been compiled from a variety of sources such as the BISA, the Birth-Death-Marriage

(BDM) index, the newspaper list (above), online research and has also been cross-checked to a

list by Dulcie Love, long time convenor of the Germanic research group at the South Australian

Heraldry Genealogy Society (SAGHS). There are a few gaps in this list, but from my

experience in researching German passenger lists, I have found that quite a few German

settlers migrated from South Australia to Victoria and Queensland.

Any feedback and/or correction would be greatly appreciated. Thank you — Robert

Clicking on the hyper-links below for each year highlighted, will take you directly to the list of

ships for that year.

1837 | 1838 | 1839 | 1841 | 1844 | 1845 | 1846 | 1847 | 1848 | 1849 | 1850 | 1851 | 1852 |

1853 | 1854 | 1855 | 1856 | 1857 | 1858 | 1860 . . . off-site resource links

I chose 1853 and the STEINWAERDER

Amongst the

passengers for this ship were the following “Bockmann” family.

My Great great grandmother is Johann Friedericke Adeline Bockmann who was 2 years old

when she arrived at Port Adelaide.

AUSTRALIAN SHIPPING/IMMIGRATION

A large number of links to Passenger lists is available from the website:

www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~auscdfhg/shipping_immigration.htm

Those listed below are only a fraction of those shown on the Web page. Some of these links

(lists) are no longer operating but many are and they are well worth while investigating.

One of the above sites is

http://www.members.optushome.com.au/lenorefrost/shipslog.htmlwith its opening page shown below.

One of the entries in this web page is “Ships’ Passenger Lists”.

VICTORIAN IMMIGRATION PASSENGER LISTS

Passenger lists are part of the Victorian State Records (PROV’s) Digitised Records and Online

Indexes. These can be accessed online by clicking on the entries below. If you click on a link to

digitised records you will be taken to a page where you can download a pdf of the digitised

record.

!Index to Unassisted Inward Passenger Lists to Victoria 1852-1923

http://www.prov.vic.gov.au/indexes/index_search.asp?searchid=23

!Index to Assisted British Immigration 1839-1871

http://www.prov.vic.gov.au/indexes/index_search.asp?searchid=24

!Index to Outward Passengers to Interstate, U.K. and Foreign Ports, 1852-1901

http://www.prov.vic.gov.au/indexes/index_search.asp?searchid=42

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The NSW Government has a very useful website

http://mariners.records.nsw.gov.au/shipdate.htm

This is separated in to 2 lists, 1845 - 1879 and 1880 - 1922. Coverage is sparse in the second

list.

Choosing January 1948 (partial screen below),

Choosing the ship “Kelso” gave the following passenger list.

SOUTH AUSTRALIAN PASSENGER LISTS

Shipping Arrivals and immigration !803 - 1853

http://www.familyhistorysa.info/shipping/passengerlists.html

If you are unsuccessful in finding the person or family you want, on this same web page are 43

other sources you can explore. This is a very comprehensive list of sources, with a few on line,

others at State Records etc.

SOUTH AUSTRALIAN NATURALIZATIONS

http://www.ach.familyhistorysa.info/naturalizations.htmlThis web site although not a passenger list, gives detail of age, how many years in Australia etc.

which gives a clue to when a person has arrived in the country and narrows down the years to

search.

BOUND FOR SOUTH AUSTRALIA

PASSENGER LISTS 1836 - 1851

http://www.slsa.sa.gov.au/fh/passengerlists/Adelaide.htmThis website has been available for many years and is another valuable source of passenger

lists. It is now part of the State Library of South Australia.

The url below takes you to the 1836/37 Passenger lists from which you can

choose to search the later years.

http://www.slsa.sa.gov.au/fh/passengerlists/SAShips1836-1840.htm

Choosing HMS Buffalo gives you a passenger list and crew. Part of this list is shown below.

ON-LINE AUSTRALIAN BIRTH, DEATH AND MARRIAGE RECORDS

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

For Western Australia, http://www.bdm.dotag.wa.gov.au allows you to search for:

BIRTHS 1841 - 1932,

DEATHS 1841 - 1965,

MARRIAGES 1841 - 1936

On the left hand side of the opening page select “Family History”. On the “Family History “ page,

select under the “Historic Index Search” paragraph the words “Searching Western Australian

Online Indexes”. This takes you to the page with the paragraph heading, “Searching Western

Australian Online Indexes”. At the end of the paragraph is a small box “Select”. This gives you the

option of selecting births, deaths or marriages. A birth search for “Barclay” between 1904 and

1906 gives results like below:

VICTORIAN BDM’s

For Victoria

https://online.justice.vic.gov.au/CA2574F700805DE7/HomePage?ReadForm&1=Home~&2=~&3=~

(Advice: highlight the above line, press Ctrl C, go to your search engine and paste using Ctrl V.)

Select “Historical Research”, then choose “Search Historical Indexes”

Then use the following entry form for your searching the historical indexes.

The following year ranges can be

searched:

BIRTHS 1853 - 1908,

DEATHS 1853 - 1985,

MARRIAGES 1853 - 1942

and

CHURCH Baptisms,

marriages and burials 1836 -

1853.

Unfortunately Victoria charges

to view the results. The cost is

$0.99 per page that can contain

20 results.

NEW SOUTH WALES

For New South Wales records: http://www.bdm.nsw.gov.au/index.htm allows you to search for

BIRTHS 1788 - 1909, DEATHS 1788 - 1979, MARRIAGES 1788 - 1959.

On the right hand side of the opening page select “Family History” (green box), which takes you to

the “Search Historical Indexes page” from which you can search Births, Deaths or marriages.

A birth search gives results like below:

Registration Number Last Name Given Name(s) Father's Given Name(s) Mother's Given Name(s) District Purchase

171/1864 ARMSTRONG WILLIAM J WILLIAM J FANNY Buy Now

5191 VOL 142B/1860 ARMSTRONG JOHANNA WILLIAM ELIZABETH Buy Now

659/1862 ARMSTRONG ROBERT H ROBERT H ISABELLA SYDNEY Buy Now

QUEENSLAND

For Queensland records: http://www.justice.qld.gov.au/ allows you to search for

BIRTHS 1829 - 1914, DEATHS 1829 - 1964, MARRIAGES 1829 - 1934.

On the left hand side of the opening page select “Family History Research”, On this next page

“Family Historical Records” page select “Search our Historical Records”. And then on the next page

select “online historical index search” Under “Historical Index searching”. NB: In setting the

search dates you must use the (dd/mm/yyyy) format. (A bit frustrating). A typical output for a

birth search is shown below:

AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY

For ACT records, http://www.ors.act.gov.au/bdm/WebPages/bdm_deaths.html Allows you to

search deaths in the ACT from 1930 - 1979.

On the opening page at the bottom select “ACT Historical Death Index 1930-1979". This gives you

an excel spreadsheet with part of the output shown below:

Reg No Surname Given Names Date of Death Fathers Given Names Mothers Given Names

1930/1 BELL Baby 27/01/1930 Sidney John Charlotte Jane

1930/2 MARTIN Baby 2/02/1930 Leslie W alter Ivy Hilda Mary

1930/3 RUSSELL Catherine 19/02/1930 W illiam Catherine

1930/4 SHUMACK John 20/02/1930 Peter Elizabeth

DEATH NOTICES

THE RYERSON INDEX is an index to death notices and obituaries in Australian newspapers. It

also includes some funeral notices, probate notices and obituaries.

http://www.ryersonindex.org/

Because the Index was originally created by the Sydney Dead Persons Society, its strength lies in

notices from NSW papers - including in excess of one million notices from the Sydney Morning

Herald alone. However, the representation from papers from other states continues to grow, with

additional papers being regularly added, so that the Index can now truly be considered an

Australian index. As at the 14 August 2010 there were 2,573,817 entries sampled from 177th

different newspapers. An example of the type of results from a search using the “Pyke” surname.

NEW AUSTRALIAN BIRTH, DEATH & MARRIAGE RECORDS on

ANCESTRY.COM

The recent announcements that Ancestry.com had added AUSTRALIAN birth, death and

marriages for the years from 1788 to 1985 caused some excitement amongst genealogists.

Sadly it was just an advertising gimic.

Certainly there are Australian births, deaths and marriages which will help many people

find their relatives, but many will also be disappointed. Searching for my father born in 1904 in

Boulder City, Western Australia drew a blank! In fact there are no W.A births. The selection

menu is shown below.

Shown in the table below are the actual span

of years covered in each category for each

Australian State as at 23 July 2010. Although thisrd

coverage is much less than available from individual

State “Digger” CD’s, it is still an advancement if

those “Digger” records are not available to you.

The selection menu for the recently

added Australian records.

To illustrate the use of the Ancestry.com Australian Births, I have chosen a family in

Queensland. The father is Lionel Boudier Armstrong and his wife Margaret (Maggie) nee Jones

From other research I know their children are as shown below (Taken from Brother’s

Keeper children display).

Using the following entry screen, putting “Armstrong” as the child’s surname, “Lionel” and

“Margaret” as the parents name, and 1892 +/- 10 years as the searching period, and Queensland

as the location, the resulting display (relevant part only) is shown below.

Only six of the nine children were found with those born in Eidsvold, Queensland between 1884

and 1888, not found in the search. In summary, the new Australian records in Ancestry.com, do

have limitations. Try and check your findings with other resources.

Known Children of Lionel and Margaret Armstrong.

Entry screen for searching for

children born in Queensland with

parents Lionel and Margaret

Armstrong.

The 6 (out of 9) children found from the search

created by the search.