Victoria Church Records

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Victoria Wiki Topics
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Beginning Research
Record Types
Victoria Background
Local Research Resources


Online Resources and Websites[edit | edit source]

Ancestry.com[edit | edit source]

Findmypast.com[edit | edit source]

MyHeritage.com[edit | edit source]

Records Prior to Civil Registration[edit | edit source]

FamilySearch Library[edit | edit source]

Australia[edit | edit source]

Related Civil Registration of and Church Records of New South Wales, Including Victoria Prior to 1851[edit | edit source]

  • From 1788 to 1856 the only birth, death or marriage records kept in New South Wales were the registers maintained by the established churches. As registrar's offices assumed responsibility for registration, they requested copies of earlier church records to incorporate into their collections. The New South Wales Registry holds transcriptions of these early church records. Any surviving original registers are located in the NSW Archives.
  • Unfortunately, the extant records for this period are not comprehensive. Some ministers, missionaries and other authorized administrators kept records but not all were in a position to be this diligent. In addition many of the records contain inaccuracies and bad spelling. Distances to town centres, distrust of authority and lack of participation in formal church services contributed to the church registration system's inability to adequately record the details of all births, deaths and marriages that occurred in New South Wales.[1]
  • The church records are indexed with civil registration.
  • New South Wales Birth, Death, and Marriage Index

Libraries[edit | edit source]

State Library of Victoria
328 Swanston Street
Melbourne 3000
Australia

Phone:03 8664 7000

Family History Connections Library
1/41 Railway Road
Blackburn 3130, Victoria, Australia

Postal address: PO Box 339, Blackburn 3130, Victoria, Australia
Phone: 03 9877 3789
Email: info@familyhistoryconnections.org.au
Website

National Library of Australia
Parkes Place
Canberra ACT 2600
Australia
Telephone: +61 (0)2 6262 1111

Address postal enquiries to:
Reader Services
National Library of Australia
Canberra ACT 2600
Australia

Societies[edit | edit source]

Based in Sydney, SAG provides an expert and specialist family history service, and holds microfilms of records of churches of all denominations throughout Australia and overseas. The SAG sells copies of their microfilms to family history societies, historical societies, and libraries. [2]

Genealogical Society of Victoria
Level 1, 10 Queen Street
Melbourne, Victoria 3000
Australia

Phone: 03 9662 4455
Email: gsv@gsv.org.au
Website

Geelong Heritage Centre Archives
Geelong Regional Library Corporation
51 Little Malop Street
Geelong 3220
Australia

Telephone: 03 4201 0600
Fax: 03 4201 0502

Ballarat & District Genealogical Society Inc.
Ballarat Research Hub at the Eureka Centre
102 Stawell Street
South Ballarat
Telephone: 03 5317 7123
Fax: 0467 241 352
Email: secretary@bdgs.org.au
Website

Writing for Records[edit | edit source]

Originals of parish records may still be held at the local church.
See the Letter Writing Guide for Genealogy for help in composing a letter requesting information from a local church.
Address directories for major religious groups are listed here. Baptist, Pentecostal, and Reformed churches have multiple umbrella organizations. For those, use Google.

Historical Background[edit | edit source]

  • The first British settlement in the area later known as Victoria was established in October 1803 at Sullivan Bay on Port Phillip. It consisted of 402 people (five government officials, nine officers of marines, two drummers, and 39 privates, five soldiers' wives and a child, 307 convicts, 17 convicts' wives, and seven children).They had been sent from England in HMS Calcutta, principally out of fear that the French might establish their own settlement and challenge British rights to the continent.
  • In 1826, a number of convicts and a small force composed of detachments of the 3rd and 93rd regiments landed at Settlement Point (now Corinella), on the eastern side of Western Port Bay. This was abandoned 12 months afterwards.
  • Victoria's next settlement was at Portland in 1834.
  • Melbourne was founded in 1835. The region around Melbourne was known as the Port Phillip District, a separately administered part of New South Wales.
  • In 1838, Geelong was officially declared a town, despite earlier European settlements dating back to 1826.
  • On 1 July 1851, the absolute independence of Victoria from New South Wales was established proclaiming a new Colony of Victoria.
  • Days later, still in 1851, gold was discovered near Ballarat, and subsequently at Bendigo.
  • The colony grew rapidly in both population and economic power. In 10 years, the population of Victoria increased sevenfold from 76,000 to 540,000.
  • Immigrants arrived from all over the world to search for gold, especially from Ireland and China. By 1857, 26,000 Chinese miners worked in Victoria, and their legacy is particularly strong in Bendigo and its environs. [3]
  • The new settlers brought with them their religious traditions, such as Irish Catholicism, Scottish Presbyterianism and English Anglicanism among others. [4] When gold was discovered in late 1851, there were an estimated 9,000 Catholics in the Colony of Victoria, increasing to 100,000 by the time the Jesuits arrived 14 years later.[5]
  • More than 75% of Victorians live in Melbourne. Urban centres outside Melbourne include Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, Shepparton, Mildura, Warrnambool, Wodonga and the Latrobe Valley.[6]
  • Parish registers began for:
Baptist Church in 1843
Church of England in 1836
Congregational Church in 1841
Independent Church in 1839
Presbyterian Church in 1838
Roman Catholic Church in 1839
Wesleyan Methodist Church in 1840[7]

Information Recorded in Church Records[edit | edit source]

The information recorded in church or parish registers varies somewhat from religion to religion, and later records generally give more complete information than earlier ones. Most church registers for the Anglican, Catholic, and Presbyterian denominations provide the following information:

Baptisms[edit | edit source]

  • Birth and baptism dates
  • Place of baptism
  • Christian name of the child
  • Christian and surname of the father
  • Christian name of the mother (some include maiden surname)
  • Parents’ abode
  • Occupation of the father
  • Name of the officiating minister

Children were generally baptized within a few days of birth. If a child died soon after birth, death information was sometimes added as a note.

Marriages[edit | edit source]

  • Date and place of marriage
  • Full names of the bride and groom
  • Parish of residence of the bride and groom
  • Marital status of the bride and groom prior to this marriage
  • Married by banns or license
  • In the case of a minor, whether with consent of parents
  • Name of the officiating minister
  • Signatures or marks of the bride and groom
  • Signatures or marks of witnesses

Marriage registers may also include other information about the bride and groom such as their ages, occupations, and names of parents. In cases of second and later marriages for a woman, they may include her former married names along with her maiden name.

Marriage registers sometimes include the published banns. These were announcements of intent to marry which were made for two or three Sundays prior to the marriage, and gave an opportunity for anyone to come forward who knew of any reason why the couple should not be married.

Burials[edit | edit source]

  • Dates of death and burial
  • Place of burial
  • Name of the deceased
  • Place of abode at time of death
  • Age of the deceased
  • Occupation of the deceased
  • Name of the officiating minister

Occasionally parents' names, cause of death, and even the date and place of birth are given for the deceased. Burials were recorded in the records of the church where the person was buried. The burial usually took place within a few days of death. Burial records exist for individuals for whom no birth or marriage record exists. In addition, stillbirths may have been recorded in a burial register when no baptism occurred.

FamilySearch Library[edit | edit source]

Additional sources are listed in the FamilySearch Catalog:

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ "History of the Registry", at New South Wales State Archives and Records, https://www.nsw.gov.au/births-deaths-marriages/about-us/history-of-registry#toc-church-registrations, accessed 1 February 2022.
  2. ↑ "Information for Family Historians and Genealogists," at Sydney Diocesan Archives, http://www.sydneyanglicanarchives.com.au/genealogists.html, accessed 4 February 2022.
  3. ↑ "Victoria 9Australia)", in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_(Australia)#British_colonisation, accessed 16 February 2022.
  4. ↑ "Religion in Australia", in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Australia#Christianity, accessed 16 Frebuary 2022.
  5. ↑ "Catholic Church in Australia", in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_in_Australia, accessed 16 February 2022.
  6. ↑ "Victoria 9Australia)", in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_(Australia)#British_colonisation, accessed 16 February 2022.
  7. ↑ "Parish Registers in Australia", by Nick Vine Hall, 1990.

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