Free Australian Genealogy Records: 15 Websites to Search First

One of the great joys of Australian family history is how much you can discover without paying for a subscription. Thanks to national and state libraries, archives, volunteers and family history societies, millions of Australian records are free to search online.

This guide brings together the free resources we turn to first, organised by the kind of information they hold. Work through them before reaching for a paid service, and you'll often find you've solved most of your questions before spending a cent.

Births, deaths and marriages

Civil registration of births, deaths and marriages is the backbone of Australian research. Each state and territory runs its own registry, and most provide free online historical indexes. These indexes typically give a name, a year, a registration district or place, and sometimes parents' names, which is often enough to confirm a family link and order a certificate if needed.

1. State and territory BDM indexes

• New South Wales: NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages family history search.
• Victoria: Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria family history search.
• Queensland: Queensland family history research service.
• South Australia: historical indexes are available through Genealogy SA and the state registry.
• Western Australia: WA Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages online index.
• Tasmania: the Tasmanian Names Index at Libraries Tasmania, which includes historical BDM records with digitised images.
• ACT and Northern Territory: historical records are more limited online; check the local registries.

Access rules differ by state. Indexes are usually free, while certificates and digital images may cost a fee. Records within recent "closed periods" are restricted for privacy.

Tip: civil registration began at different times: in Tasmania in 1838, in South Australia in 1842, in Victoria in 1853, in NSW in 1856, in Queensland in 1856 (as part of NSW), and in Western Australia in 1841. Before those dates, look for church baptisms, marriages and burials.

Newspapers

2. Trove

If you only use one free Australian resource, make it Trove, run by the National Library of Australia. It has digitised millions of pages of Australian newspapers, from the early colonial period well into the twentieth century, all free and searchable.

Newspapers can tell you things no official record will: birth and death notices, funeral reports, obituaries, court cases, accidents, land sales, sporting achievements, letters to the editor and community news. A good obituary can name an entire family and its arrival story.

Search tips for Trove:

• Search for a name in quotation marks, then add a place.
• Remember that newspapers often used initials, such as "Mr J. Smith", and married women were frequently referred to by their husband's name, such as "Mrs John Smith".
• The text is generated by OCR and contains errors. Try variations, and correct the text yourself when you find a mistake. It helps the next researcher.
• Use the date and state filters to narrow results.

Trove also includes digitised books, photographs, maps, diaries and government gazettes.

National records

3. National Archives of Australia (NAA)

The NAA holds Commonwealth records from 1901 onwards. For family historians the highlights are:

• First World War service records, digitised and free to view. They often include enlistment papers, medical details, movements, wounds, next of kin and correspondence.
• Second World War service records, many of which have been digitised or can be requested.
• Immigration and citizenship records, including passenger arrivals, alien registration and naturalisation files, which are especially valuable for post-war migrants.

Search the NAA's RecordSearch database. If a file isn't digitised yet, you can often request that it be digitised.

4. Australian War Memorial

The Australian War Memorial's website has free databases including the Roll of Honour, embarkation rolls, nominal rolls, honours and awards, Red Cross wounded and missing files, and unit war diaries. Combined with NAA service records, these can build a remarkably detailed picture of an ancestor's war service.

5. The Department of Veterans' Affairs nominal rolls

The DVA's WWII Nominal Roll and other rolls list service details for people who served, and are free to search.

State archives and libraries

Each state archive holds records of the colonial and state governments, including immigration, convict, land, court, school and inquest records. Many have free online indexes and research guides.

6. NSW State Archives

Strong for convicts, assisted immigrants, land grants, colonial secretary correspondence and more. The online indexes and guides are excellent.

7. Public Record Office Victoria (PROV)

Holds Victorian wills and probate files (many digitised and free to view), inward passenger lists, inquests, land and court records.

8. Queensland State Archives

Offers free indexes to records such as immigration, court, land and inquests.

9. Libraries Tasmania

The Tasmanian Names Index is one of the best free genealogy resources in the country, linking names to digitised convict, immigration, birth, death, marriage and other records.

10. State Records Office of Western Australia and State Library of WA

Holdings include colonial records, convict records for 1850–1868, and indexes compiled by volunteers.

11. State Library of South Australia and State Records of South Australia

Useful for passenger lists, the "Biographical Index of South Australians" and other local resources. Genealogy SA provides additional indexes.

Convict records

12. Convict indexes

The State Library of Queensland hosts a free database of the British convict transportation registers, 1787–1867, covering all convicts transported to Australia. The Convict Records website brings together information about individual convicts and ships. Our guide to finding convict ancestors covers these in detail.

Cemeteries and burials

13. Cemetery and headstone databases

Many local councils and cemetery trusts provide free online burial searches. Volunteer projects such as Australian Cemeteries Index sites and the global Find a Grave and BillionGraves services include photographs and transcriptions of headstones, which can list several family members, ages and places of origin. Check details against official records, as volunteer transcriptions can contain errors.

Global free resources that cover Australia

14. FamilySearch

FamilySearch is completely free with a registered account. It holds Australian collections, including some church and civil records, as well as huge collections for the UK, Ireland and Europe, which you'll need once your research crosses the oceans. Its research wiki has detailed guides for each Australian state.

15. Free UK and Irish resources

Most Australian family trees lead back to Britain and Ireland eventually. Free tools that help include FreeBMD (England and Wales civil registration index), FreeCEN (census transcriptions), FreeREG (parish registers), the Irish government's civil records site, and the National Archives of Ireland's free 1901 and 1911 census.

Don't forget local resources

Some of the best information isn't online at all. Local historical societies, family history societies and libraries often hold indexes, cemetery transcriptions, local histories and photographs. Many state family history societies, such as the Society of Australian Genealogists in NSW, offer research help, libraries and courses.

Immigration and passenger records

For most Australian families, the arrival of an ancestor is a pivotal moment worth documenting. The records available depend on when and how they arrived.

• Assisted immigrants (1830s onwards): many nineteenth-century immigrants had their passage paid by colonial governments. Assisted passenger lists, held by state archives, can include age, occupation, native place, parents' names, religion and literacy. NSW State Archives and Public Record Office Victoria have excellent free indexes.
• Unassisted passengers: records are generally less detailed, but inward passenger lists for many ports survive. PROV's unassisted passenger index is a good example.
• Twentieth-century migrants: the National Archives of Australia holds passenger arrival records, migrant selection documents, alien registration and naturalisation files. Post-war migrant files can include photographs.

Shipping arrivals were also reported in newspapers, so Trove is worth searching for the ship's name and arrival date.

Wills, probate and land records

Wills and probate files can name children, grandchildren, in-laws and property, and they often resolve family relationships that other records leave unclear. Public Record Office Victoria has digitised many Victorian probate files, which are free to view. Other states hold probate records in their archives or supreme court registries, with indexes available online in some cases.

Land records, including grants, purchases, leases and selections, can show where an ancestor lived and when, and they sometimes name family members. State archives and land titles offices are the places to look.

When does a paid subscription make sense?

Free resources can take you a long way. But subscription sites, such as Ancestry and Findmypast, do offer things that are hard to replicate: indexed collections searchable all in one place, electoral rolls, passenger lists, record hints that automatically suggest documents, and millions of user-contributed trees.

A good approach is to exhaust the free resources first, write down what you still need to find, and then take a free trial with a clear plan. You'll get far more out of the trial that way. Our guide to record archives compares the main options.

Adding DNA to your research

Records tell you what happened; DNA can confirm who is related to whom. If you've hit a brick wall, such as an ancestor whose parents are unknown, a DNA test can reveal cousins who hold the missing piece of the puzzle. For most Australians, AncestryDNA is the best option because of its large British, Irish and Australian user base. See our guide to the best DNA test in Australia.

Research tips for Australian records

• Record everything. Use a research log to note what you searched and where, including searches that found nothing.
• Cite your sources. Note the record, the archive and the reference number as you go.
• Be flexible with names. Spellings varied widely, and people sometimes used middle names or nicknames.
• Think about boundaries. Colonial and state boundaries changed. Queensland was part of NSW until 1859, and Victoria until 1851.
• Use the siblings. If you can't find a direct ancestor, find their brothers and sisters.

Our free search cheat sheet has more techniques for finding hard-to-locate people.

A suggested search order

If you're starting from scratch, this order works well for most Australian families: begin with your state's birth, death and marriage index to work back to the late 1800s; use Trove to add death notices, obituaries and family stories; check immigration records to find each family's arrival; turn to convict and colonial records if your family arrived before the 1850s; then follow your emigrant ancestors back to Britain, Ireland or Europe using FamilySearch and the free UK and Irish resources. Add war records whenever an ancestor was of fighting age in 1914–18 or 1939–45.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best free genealogy website in Australia?

For newspapers, Trove is unmatched. For official records, start with your state's birth, death and marriage index and state archives. FamilySearch is the best free all-round database.

Are Australian census records available?

Very few. Most Australian census returns were deliberately destroyed after statistics were compiled. Some early colonial musters and the 1828 NSW census survive, along with some fragments from other colonies. Electoral rolls and directories are often the best substitute.

Can I see my ancestor's WWI service record for free?

Yes. The National Archives of Australia has digitised First World War service records, which are free to view online.