Genealogical Research in Australia and New Zealand

During the 1970s genealogists had been making representations to State Governments in Australia for public access to records of births, death and marriages as the then policy of governments was that the indexes and entries were not available for general public examination. Similar moves were made in New Zealand. As genealogists in the United Kingdom would appreciate this put Australian researchers at a great disadvantage.

In 1980 the Tasmanian Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages transferred its pre1900 records to the State Archives. This meant public access was then allowed to the indexes and entries. South Australian pre1900 records were transferred in 1982 and Queensland released its pre1900 indexes of marriages and deaths on microfilm for sale in 1982. Then in late 1982 the Registry in New South Wales made available for purchase its pre1900 indexes for births, deaths and marriages. Since then access has been extended to making available indexes on microfiche and then on the internet. The internet sites are listed below.

As an example, the NSW index contains about 3 million entries and has proved to be of great assistance to genealogists by saving time and money. It can be split into two groups. Civil registration in NSW commenced on 1 March 1856 and, as in the UK, researchers must depend upon parish registers prior to civil registration. However, in the late 1800s the Registry attempted to gain access to known extant parish registers and these were incorporated into the indexes, in a similar manner as to what has occurred in Scotland. Although its known that not all pre1856 events have been included, a great majority have. This means the two indexes are now available for research - church registers 1787 to 1856 and civil registrations from 1856 into the 1900s.  

To enable researchers to appreciate the type of information that can be extracted from the NSW indexes, below is a list of Clan surnames extracted from the NSW pre1856 indexes. Some of these entries reflect the earliest presence of Clansfolk in Australia. As there are too many entries for Thomas and Thomson, these have not been included.

New South Wales pre1856 Index to baptisms, marriages and burials:

The surnames checked were: Combe, Combie, McColm, McComas, McComb, McCombe, McCombie, McComish, MacOmie, MacOmish, Tam, Thom and Thoms (and variations).