Where do I begin searching?

I am so lucky that my family history has mainly been in Tasmania since the early 1830’s. I began my researching by asking questions of my mother who seemed to know everything about the family or at least her side of it. My father knows very little about his side and is amazed at what I am finding out for him. Unluckily, we haven’t had any heirloom bibles or notebooks handed down in the family, so I am having to start from scratch.

My number 1 spot

The LINC webpages which has just been updated this week. These are resources related to Tasmania but they do have other links to visit outside our clean, green state. Type in the name of your relative in the search bar at the top.

This search will include

  • births RGD 33
  • deaths RGD 35
  • marriages RGD 37
  • convicts
  • wills and more

Then visit the record, remembering to take note of the source of the record. How much did you find that was useful?

My number 2 spot

The National Archives of Australia – this is for information after 1900 when Australia became one federated country rather than separate colonies. I do a record search and will find war records as well as naturalization records, some passenger lists – both boat and plane. Part of the NAA this year is the Discovering ANZACs website – joint project with National Archives of New Zealand – where all World War I service men and women have their records open to the public. See another post I have written telling you where to find more war records.

My number 3 spot

This is Trove which is part of the National Library of Australia. It has a section of digitized newspapers from all states of Australia. These are being updated all the time. What is also great is they include a citation button in top left corner where you can copy the source of the record very easily. I use the Harvard/Australian version all the time to keep things consistent in the family tree software programme I use.

Readers: What are your three favourite repositories or places to find information for your family history? Do you have some for places outside Australia?

6 thoughts on “Where do I begin searching?

  1. Hello Sue, I am still trying to work out who to choose. My ggrandma is the one with the brickwall. She came from County Clare and I have not been able to find her on shipping records nor her parents/ family in Ireland. Would it be correct not to tackle her? Another option is my ggrandpa from Cornwall- much more info available and there is data I haven’t found…so maybe him?
    Regards Jenny

    • G’day Jenny,
      Why not expand a bit on both of them and add it to the discussion area of your group? That way others can also give you ideas but I know trying to break down brickwalls can be hard.

    • Jenny, I am facing exactly the same issues with my husbands ggrandmother. No shipping records, no records from Ireland and no marriage record in Victoria. I ‘believe’ from what I have found, that she did not marry, just lived with a married man, had a son to him, and when she died, he went back to his legal wife…… Brick walls all the way around her..

  2. Hi Sue, I think I may have found one of my ancestors on the LINC site but I can’t read it when I print it. I can read it on line but don’t understand some of the terms used. Is there someone with experience on these records you know that I could engage to interpret and transcribe the information for me?
    Thanks
    Russell

    • Hi Russell,
      If you type out what information you can decipher on a word document then send to me with the source of the record, I could then try filling in the gaps. Just use ?? for a word you can’t decipher.

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