Australia Emigration and Immigration

Australia Wiki Topics
Beginning Research
Guided Research Research Strategies Record Finder Finding Town of Origin Online Learning
Record Types
Biography Business Cemeteries Census Chinese Records Church Records Civil Registration Colonial Records Convict Records Court Records Directories Emigration & Immigration Genealogy Heraldry Land and Property	Medical Records Military Records Naturalization & Citizenship Newspapers Obituaries Occupations Online Records Orphans and Orphanages Periodicals Probate Records Religious Records Schools and Education Records Taxation Voting Records
Australia Background
Church Directories Church History Encyclopedias & Dictionaries Gazetteers	Historical Geography History Languages Maps Social Life & Customs
Cultural Groups
Cultural Groups Chinese Records
Local Research Resources
Archives & Libraries Societies FamilySearch Centers

Australia

Emigration and Immigration

Ship Bega of the Illawarra Steam Navigation Company

Online Records

• Ireland-Australia transportation database National Library of Australia
• Genealogical Index To Australians and Other Expatriates In Papua New Guinea at FindMyPast - index & images ($)
• Australian Contingents To South Africa at FindMyPast - index & image ($)
• Australia Passenger Indexes archived on the Wayback Machine
• Australia's First Fleet
• Australia's Second Fleet
• Australia's Third Fleet
• 1786-1849 Australia Convict Ships 1786-1935 at FindMyPast; index & images ($)
• 1788-1968 Ozships: Australian shipping 1788-1968
• 1788–1868 Ireland-Australia transportation database National Archives of Ireland

Guide to penal transportation records: Ireland to Australia, 1788–1868

• 1811-1856 Australia, Assisted Emigration at FindMyPast - index & images ($)
• 1824-1874 Australia Convict Tickets of Leave 1824-1874 at FindMyPast - index & images ($)
• 1826-1972 Australia, Inward, Outward, & Coastal Passenger Lists 1826-1972 at FindMyPast; index & images ($)
• 1848-1850 Famine Orphans from Cork to Australia 1848-1850
• 1848-1850 Earl Grey Irish Female Orphans in Australia Passenger Lists
• 1850 Irish Orphan Girls who sailed on the Eliza Caroline The “Eliza Caroline” arrived in Port Phillip on 31 March 1850.
• 1852-1857 List of emigrants, 1852-1857 at FamilySearch Catalog; images only
• 1873-1924 Alphabetical register of all inward passengers to Albany, 1873-1924 at FamilySearch Catalog; images only
• 1890-1960 Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960 at FindMyPast; index & images ($); includes those with Destination of Australia
• 1904-1914 Germany, Bremen Passenger Departure Lists, 1904-1914 at MyHeritage; index & images ($); includes those with Destination of Australia
• 1946-1971 Free Access: Africa, Asia and Europe, Passenger Lists of Displaced Persons, 1946-1971 Ancestry, free. Index and images. Passenger lists of immigrants leaving Germany and other European ports and airports between 1946-1971. The majority of the immigrants listed in this collection are displaced persons - Holocaust survivors, former concentration camp inmates and Nazi forced laborers, as well as refugees from Central and Eastern European countries and some non-European countries.
• Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild Choose a volume and then choose Australia under "Listed by Port of Departure" or "Listed by Port of Arrival".
• Immigrant Ancestors Project

The Irish Ancestor

There are many Indexes in The Irish Ancestor, of convicts requesting wife and children to be sent out to Australia, at the government's expense.

• Indexed in PERiodical Source Index at FindMyPast ($)
• FIGRS Index to the The Irish Ancestor ($)
• WorldCat listing of libraries holding The Irish Ancesor collection
• The Irish Ancestor 1969-1986 Digital Download ($)

New South Wales

• 1791-1816 List of convict ships and prisoner's names from Ireland to Sydney, 1791-1816 at FamilySearch Catalog; images only
• 1816-1825, 1898-1911 New South Wales, Australia, Departing Crew and Passenger Lists, 1816-1825, 1898-1911 at Ancestry; index & images ($)
• 1828-1842 Australia, New South Wales, Index to Bounty Immigrants, 1828-1842 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index & images
• 1828-1890 Australia, New South Wales, Assisted Immigrants Inwards, 1828-1890 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index & images
• 1828-1890 Assisted immigrants inwards to Sydney, 1828-1890 at FamilySearch Catalog; images only
• 1839-1896 Index to Assisted Immigrants 1839-96, Moreton Bay, 1848-1859, Port Phillip 1839-1851
• 1842-1851 Index to unassisted Immigrants 1842-1851
• 1846 New South Wales, Australia, Passengers Arriving at Port Phillip, 1846 at Ancestry; index & images ($)
• 1850-80s Mariners and Ships in Australian Waters - primarily New South Wales, unassisted records from the 1850-80s, incomplete
• 1853-1900 New South Wales, Australia, Immigration Deposit Journals, 1853-1900 at Ancestry; index & images ($)

Queensland

• 1848-1912 Assisted Immigration 1848-1912
• 1848-1912 Queensland Assisted Immigration 1848-1912 at FindMyPast; index only ($)
• 1848-1912 Queensland, Australia, Passenger Lists, 1848-1912 at Ancestry; index only ($)
• 1848-1972 Queensland, Australia, Immigration Indexes, 1848-1972 at Ancestry; index only ($)
• 1851-1904 Queensland, Australia, Naturalisation Index, 1851-1904 at Ancestry; index only ($)
• 1852-1885 Queensland Customs House Shipping 1852-1885: Passengers And Crew at FindMyPast; index only ($)
• 1864-1940 Australia, Queensland, Immigration indexes, 1864-1940 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index only
• 1885-1917 Queensland, Brisbane Register Of Immigrants 1885-1917 at FindMyPast; index only ($)
• 1913 Queensland, Australia, Index to Aliens, 1913 at Ancestry; index only ($)
• State Library of Queensland

Victoria

• 1839-1871 Index to Assisted British Immigration 1839-1871; index only
• 1839-1871 Australia, Victoria, Assisted Immigrant Arrivals at Victorian Ports, 1839-1871 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; images only
• 1839-1923 Australia, Victoria, Inward Passenger Lists, 1839-1923 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index & images
• 1839-1923 Victoria, Australia, Assisted and Unassisted Passenger Lists, 1839-1923 at Ancestry; index & images ($)
• 1851-1928 Victoria, Australia, Index to Naturalisation Certificates, 1851-1928 at Ancestry; index & images ($)
• 1852-1915 Outward Passengers to Interstate, UK, NZ, and Foreign Ports 1852- 1915
• 1852-1915 Web: Victoria, Australia, Outward Passenger Index, 1852-1915 at Ancestry; index only ($)
• 1852-1923 Inwards Unassisted Passengers to Victoria 1852-1923 at MyHeritge; index only ($)
• 1852-1923 Index to Unassisted Immigration to Victoria between 1852 - 1923
• 1852-1924 Australia, Victoria Coastal Passenger Lists, 1852-1924 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index & images
• 1852-1924 Australia, Victoria, Outward Passenger Lists, 1852-1924 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index only

South Australia

• Passenger Lists Immigration South Australia, index. Immigrant passenger arrivals in South Australia (usually at Port Adelaide) from Australian ports up to 1847, UK & Ireland up to 1850 and Germany up to 1858, totaling more than 2,000 voyages.
• 1836-1841 Emigrants Seeking Free Passage To South Australia 1836-1841 at FindMyPast - index ($)
• 1836-1849 Chronological list of passenger lists for ships arriving at South Australian ports from overseas 1836-1849 at FamilySearch Catalog; images only
• 1837-1866German Emigrants to South Australia, 1837-1866, index
• 1849-1940 Australia, South Australia, Immigrants Ship Papers, 1849-1940 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index & images
• 1853 - South Australia, Australia, Passenger Lists, 1853 at Ancestry; index & images ($)

• 1888-1893, 1896-1940 Australia, South Australia, Lists of outgoing passengers departing from Port Adelaide for overseas ports, 1888-1893, 1896-1940 at FamilySearch Catalog; index & images

Tasmania

• 1829-1957 Tasmania, Australia, Passenger Arrivals, 1829-1957 at Ancestry; index & images ($)
• 1834-1837, 1841-1887 Tasmania, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1834-1837, 1841-1887 at Ancestry; index & images ($)
• 1841-1884 Tasmania, Australia, Immigrant Lists, 1841-1884 at Ancestry; index & images ($)
• 1854-1887 Tasmania, Australia, Immigrant Applications and Bounty Tickets, 1854-1887 at Ancestry; index & images ($)
• 1920-1943 Australia, Tasmania, Correspondence of the Immigration Office Concerning the Nomination, Arrival and Settlement of Migrants, 1920-1943 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; images only
• 1945-1968 Australia, Tasmania, Migrant Files, 1945-1968 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; images only

Western Australia

• 1852-1930 Western Australia, Australia, Crew and Passenger Lists, 1852-1930 at Ancestry; index & images ($)
• 1897-1963 Fremantle, Western Australia, Passenger Lists, 1897-1963 at Ancestry; index & images ($)

Australia Offices and Archives to Contact

National Archives of Australia
National Office
Kings Avenue
Parkes ACT 2600
Australia

Phone:02 6212 3600

• Ordering digital copies of records
• Fact sheets

• Immigration records - Fact sheet 227
• Records relating to Italian migration held in Sydney – Fact sheet 100
• Records relating to Italian migration held in Brisbane – Fact sheet 236
• Records relating to Italian migration held in Brisbane – Fact sheet 207

• Research Guides

• Chinese immigrants and Chinese-Australians in NSW, by Julie Stacker and Peri Stewart, revised 2003
• More people imperative: immigration to Australia, 1901–39, by Dr Michele Langfield, 1999
• Good British stock: child and youth migration to Australia, by Barry Coldrey, 1999
• Safe haven: records of the Jewish experience in Australia, by Malcolm J Turnbull, 1999
• Chinese–Australian journeys: records on travel, migration, and settlement, 1860–1975, by Paul Jones, 2005
• Citizenship in Australia: a guide to Commonwealth Government records, by David Dutton, 2000

---

State Library of South Australia
North Terrace and Kintore Avenue
Adelaide, Australia

Phone us: +61 8 8207 7250
Toll free for regional SA: 1800 182 013
Email us: slsainfo@sa.gov.au
Family History FAQ's

• Guide: Immigration to South Australia: Home

Finding the Town of Origin in Australia

If you are using emigration/immigration records to find the name of your ancestors' town in Australia, see Australia Finding Town of Origin for additional research strategies.

Australia Emigration and Immigration

"Emigration" means moving out of a country. "Immigration" means moving into a country.
Emigration and immigration sources list the names of people leaving (emigrating) or arriving (immigrating) in the country. These sources may be passenger lists, permissions to emigrate, or records of passports issued. The information in these records may include the emigrants’ names, ages, occupations, destinations, and places of origin or birthplaces. Sometimes they also show family groups.

Immigration into Australia

• Between 1788 and 1900 over 1,000,000 people immigrated to Australia. Most of them were from the British Isles, but some were from Europe and Asia.
  
• Prior to 1900 there were four classes of immigrants to Australia:

• Convicts sent to Australia after they were tried and convicted for crimes committed in the British Isles. Tasmania and New South Wales were the states that received most of the convicts before 1830.
  
• Bounty immigrants were chosen by Australian colonists to come from the British Isles to Australia.
• Assisted immigrants came to Australia through the financial assistance of the government, organizations, or wealthy individuals.
• Paying passengers came to Australia through their own means.

Convicts

• European migration to Australia began with the British convict settlement of Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788.
• The First Fleet comprised 11 ships carrying 775 convicts and 645 officials, members of the crew, marines, and their families and children. The settlers consisted of petty criminals, second-rate soldiers and a crew of sailors. There were few with skills needed to start a self-sufficient settlement, such as farmers and builders, and the colony experienced hunger and hardships. Male settlers far outnumbered female settlers.
• The Second Fleet arrived in 1790 bringing more convicts. The conditions of the transportation was described as horrific and worse than slave transports. Of the 1,026 convicts who embarked, 267 (256 men and 11 women) died during the voyage (26%); a further 486 were sick when they arrived of which 124 died soon after. The fleet was more of a drain on the struggling settlement than of any benefit.
• Conditions on the Third Fleet, which followed on the heels of the Second Fleet in 1791, were a bit better. The fleet comprised 11 ships. Of the more than 2000 convicts brought onto the ships, 173 male convicts and 9 female convicts died during the voyage.
• Other transport fleets bringing further convicts as well as freemen to the colony would follow. By the end of the penal transportation in 1868, approximately 165,000 people had entered Australia as convicts.

For Further Reading

• Listen to the podcast: Transportation to Australia Over 162,000 British and Irish convicts were transported to Australia between 1787 and 1868. Roger Kershaw explores the reasons behind the policy of transportation and looks at the experiences of the people who were shipped beyond the seas, using case studies from the archives.