Online Indexes and Passenger Lists

Immigration into Australia: Online Indexes and Passenger Lists

Web Sites for Genealogists - An Australian gateway site for tracing your family history by Cora Num

Need Help with Shipping Research? See How to Find Shipping and Immigration Records in Australia. Click here for details.

See also Migration Schemes and Passenger Lists

National
National Archives of Australia, Index to Passenger Arrivals. New

An online database to Inward passenger manifests for ships and aircraft arriving at Fremantle, Perth Airport and outports. Currently arrivals at WA ports (1921-1950) and Perth airport (1944-1950) are available for searching. For access log onto RecordSearch, then select Passenger Index. These records include all passengers disembarking but also those travelling onto other Australian ports such as Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne. For further details see Fact Sheet 220: Index to Passenger Arrivals.

The Ships List - Emigrants from Great Britain & Ireland to Australia: 1825-1832 extracted from the British Parliamentary Papers (1833, XXVI, 279). It is arranged by colony and lists name, trade, number of persons in each family and amount (£) given to each. The ship of arrival is not listed.
Ozships: Australian Shipping 1788-1968. This site lists shipping arrivals and departures. It also includes 92,000+ passenger list entries which can be browsed alphabetically.

A list of 14,000+ SS Great Britain passengers on voyages from Liverpool to Australia (1852-1875).

Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild New has 9,000+ passenger list transcripts online including ships to Australia. The Special Lists collection includes World War II Refugees to Australia by Tom Stiglmayer which lists migrants from Germany, Hungary, Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania. The index is arranged by year (1937-1966) with ships listed alphabetically. Each ships' list has names, nationality and reference

New South Wales
State Records New South Wales, Indexes Online, Immigration and Shipping include:

Assisted Immigrants to Port Phillip (Vic) 1839-1851, Sydney and Newcastle 1844-1859, Moreton Bay (Brisbane) 1848-1859, Sydney 1860-1879 and 1880-1896. Lists names, events, age, remarks, vessel, year and references for access to the passenger lists. A vessel search returns an alphabetical list of all immigrants aboard.
Miscellaneous Immigrants 1828-1843 lists the names of some passengers who paid their own fare and some assisted immigrants. Details given include name, ship, date of arrival, age, events (eg shipwreck) and references. It does not cover all arrivals for this period.
Unassisted Immigrants 1842-1855 lists those who paid their own way. It includes ships' crew. A search returns names, age, ship, status, arrival date, from port, references and remarks.

Mariners and Ships in Australian Waters.

This site, hosted by SRNSW, offers access to an index of unassisted passengers and crew plus transcriptions and digital copies of the original passenger lists held by SRNSW. This ongoing project currently has lists for the 1850s, 1860s, 1870s and 1880s almost complete with the 1890s and 1900s to follow. This site also includes lists for 1845-1847 and 1849.

Society of Australian Genealogists - Online database Ships Muster Index: Passengers and Crew Departing NSW, 1816-1825 by Norma Tuck. This index can be searched by names, ship and year.

Peter Madden's Emigrant Databases for Galway, IRL (1828-1864), Tipperary, IRL (1828-1865) and Inverness, SCT (1828-1854 ongoing). These databases record the details of assisted emigrants from these counties to New South Wales and Queensland. They list name, age, year and ship of arrival, native place, parents' names and residence plus the names of relations in the colony.

Queensland
State Records New South Wales, Indexes Online, Shipping and Immigration

index to Assisted Immigrants includes those arriving at Moreton Bay (Brisbane) 1848-1859.

Queensland State Archives Indexes to Assisted Immigration 1848-1884 and 1883-1912 lists passengers from the United Kingdom and Europe only. Those who paid their own fare are not listed, though a few of the later lists may record fare paying passengers. Records for the 1860s are incomplete. The index lists names, age, ship, date and QSA references.

Queensland State Archives, Passport Register Indexes 1926-1939. New

These two indexes record the names of immigrants arriving in Queensland. They are the Passport Clearance Register Index 1926-1935 and the Index to Passport Receipts 1930-1939.

Queensland State Archives, Index to Passage Certificates 1887-1906. New

This index to the register, kept by the Sub-Immigration Agent, Warwick, records applications by sponsors of immigrants. The index lists name , notes (applicant or nominee), date, receipt number and QSA references.

South Australia
Family History South Australia - Passenger Lists 1803-1850

for 1,200+ ships. Surname searching is available.

State Records of South Australia offers online searching of Official Passenger Lists of Emigrants Selected by the Colonization Commissioners 1845-1886 using the collection search engine, ArchivesSearch.

The Ships List. Immigrants to South Australia, (UK, assisted passage) 1847-1886. This ongoing project by Robert Janmaat currently has selected lists for 1847-1856 available. A surname search of all Australian lists hosted by The Ships List is available by clicking on Passenger Lists.

We're Bound for South Australia by Diane Cummings with passenger lists for ships to SA 1836-1851 arranged by year and alphabetically by ship. Images of transcripts of the passenger lists are available online. Surname searching is not available. Includes intercolonial and overseas arrivals.

The Ships List, German Emigrants to South Australia 1837-1851 New

by Robert Janmaat. This developing site currently has 30+ passenger lists online (1837-1849).

Tasmania
Archives Office of Tasmania Index to Departures (1817-1867). This ongoing index lists names; rank; ship, date and port of departure; where bound; ship to colony; status and remarks.
Archives Office of Tasmania Index to Passengers & Ships Arrivals in the 19th Century. New

This index includes passengers, crew, ship's masters and ships arrivals mostly to Hobart. This ongoing project currently covers surnames beginning with ‘A’ to ‘I’ from about the 1820s to about the 1860s. Free email copies of the actual records can be obtained by completing the online copy request form.

Victoria
State Records New South Wales, Indexes Online, Shipping and Immigration

index to Assisted Immigrants includes those arriving at Port Phillip 1839-1851.

Public Record Office Victoria - Database index to Assisted British Immigrants to Victoria (1839-1871). A search returns names, age, month, year and ship of arrival plus book and page number which refer to the passenger lists held on microfiche.

Public Record Office Victoria - Database Index to Inward Passenger Lists for British, Foreign and New Zealand Ports (1852-1923). This database lists unassisted passengers to Victoria and a search returns name, title, age, arrival date, ship name and fiche reference to the relevant passenger list.

Public Record Office Victoria - Database Index to Outward Passengers to Interstate, UK, NZ and Foreign Ports (1852-1896). This database of passengers on ships leaving Victoria returns names, ship name, departure month and year, destination, film references, age and page number.

Western Australia
National Archives of Australia, Index to Passenger Arrivals.

Western Australian Genealogical Society. Click on Genealogy for access to lists of Ships to the Swan River Colony (1829-1830) transcribed from early newspapers. Passenger lists are available.

Other Relevant Pages

Immigration into Australia: Online Indexes and Passenger Lists