Hi there,
Apologies for the long post, which is a brief sketch of how I currently think about family history searchings to help people seeking info about Australia's way of operating. Hopefully other RChatters will pick up anything I have got wrong or overlooked.
Importantly, there are no census records available for any of our 20th Century census, so it is very difficult to establish if person A is related to any other person without first obtaining a BDM certificate.
BDM certificates are issued by the relevant state body in which the event was registered, this is because those civil instrumentalities were created in the colonies long before the six colonies were federated at the dawn of the 20th century by an Act of the English Parliament, signed by Queen Victoria.
Each state has a different approach to the release of information on those certificates, and there are closure periods that restrict who may obtain the more current ones. For example in NSW birth certificates for anyone born less than 100 years ago are not open to the general public to purchase. Marriage certs the closure period is 50 years for NSW, and deaths it is 30 years for NSW. Different states have different closure periods. However, many of the states certificates contain a great deal of significant family history information, much richer and deeper than say English certs, more akin to the depth of info in Scottish certs. I realise that English certificates contain much less information and are much more readily available.
To work around those closure periods, I tend to rely on directories, electoral rolls, and newspaper cuttings. Some electoral rolls are uploaded via the commercial websites, but I also have off line resources, including electoral rolls for the decades before WW1, as have many other RChatters who help on the Aussie Board.
Any NSW d.c. should give you not just the person’s d o d, but also the cause of, and the burial/cremation details, including funeral directors. Many funeral director firms have been in existence since federation 1901 or earlier, and their records often include the details for who paid for the funeral, their then address etc. Death certs also show the deceased’s parents names (including nee name and any former names of the mother), the age of the deceased, place of birth, spouse, when married, and the children of the marriage/s and their ages, noting any deceased. Of course any information on a dc is only as reliable as the informant’s own knowledge, but the informant’s details showing relationship if any to the deceased are also found on the dc (my remarks relate specifically to NSW).
On the Australian Resources Board there are links to many different resources available in each of the states/territories of Australia. Here’s the main link :
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,369775.0.html If any of your elusive people saw military service with any branch of the Australian Defence Forces, then the National Archives of Australia has a grand resource, records that are often already digitised, or can be digitised, these are very often many pages long, containing enlistment papers, physical descriptions, next of kin, and correspondence, some WWII records include photos.
If you are considering purchasing any NSW BDM certificates, I recommend you use any of the official transcription agents, appointed by the NSW BDM Registrar General’s office. These transcriptions contain all the information found on the official real deal certificates, they are much less expensive, and can be sent by email as an attachment (eg pdf). The details about transcription agents is found at RChat’s NSW resources board within the one linked above.
Hope this long post helps to get you RUNNING rather than walking or crawling.
Here’s a link to another very good RChat thread, prepared to help people seeking assistance in their Australian family history.
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,368728.msg2632620.html#msg2632620 Of course, Australia’s various states and territories have their own privacy legislation/rules/guidelines, and so too does RChat, so a simple rule that I try to follow is
Unless I know for certain that a particular person is no longer living, or they would be at least 110 years of age, it is best not to write their name in any post.
Many cheers, JM
