Follow us on FacebookPassenger lists and immigration
This list includes links to online databases of passenger lists and ships arriving from foreign ports to major ports in Australia. Some links to travel within Australia are also included.
Jump to:
- Australian Capital Territory
- Queensland
- New South Wales
- Victoria
- Western Australia
- South Australia
- Tasmania
- Northern Territory
- National
Australian Capital Territory
Queensland
- Queensland Migrant Shipping (1840-1865) - Apart from Moreton Bay (Brisbane), arrivals have been recorded from coastal ports such: as Bowen, Bundaberg, Burnett Heads, Cairns, Cleveland Bay, Cooktown, Hervey Bay, Keppel Bay, Mackay, Maryborough, Port Denison, Rockhampton, Thursday Island, Townsville and Wide Bay
Queensland Archives has compiled indexes of their archival records. Use these links to get to the page and search the index database by name.
- Rations issued to immigrants, Maryborough 1875-1884
- Immigrants nominated for passage, Maryborough 1884 to 1896
- Nominated immigrants, Maryborough 1904 to 1907
- Assisted Immigration 1848-1912
- Nominated immigrants 1908-1922
- Immigration 1922-1940
- Indigence Cases 1899-1948
- Land orders 1861-1874
- Land orders 1862-1878
- Oronsay immigration 1925-1972
- Passage certificates 1887-1906
- Passport clearances 1923-1940
- Register of Immigrants 1864-1878
- Register of immigrants, Toowoomba, 1880-1888
- Registers of immigrants 1882-1938
- Registers of immigrants, Brisbane 1885-1917
Once you get to the Queensland Archives page, here's how to use it:
- Scroll down to "Index Categories"
- Click on the appropriate radio button for the type of records you are looking for - this will then expand to show what record sets are available.
- Click on the appropriate radio button for the records you are looking for - this will then expand (below the list) to show a search area where you can input names etc.
You may also be able to download the full index using a link that will appear on the top right of the page or below the search box (depending on what device you are using, eg: desktop, iPad etc).
New South Wales
- Assisted Immigrants arriving in Sydney, Newcastle, Moreton Bay and Port Phillip The Index covers Port Phillip (1839-1851), Sydney and Newcastle (1844-1859), Moreton Bay (Brisbane) (1848-1859), Sydney (1860-1879), Sydney (1880-96)
- Sentenced beyond the Seas Australia's early convict records - 1788-1801
- Miscellaneous Immigrants 1828-43 - names of some passengers who paid their own fare and some assisted immigrants
- Miscellaneous Immigrants 1828-43 - names of some passengers who paid their own fare and some assisted immigrants
- Unassisted Immigrants 1842-55 - free or unassisted passengers, ship's masters, and from 1854, crew arriving in NSW
- Unassisted passenger and crew arrivals, 1854-1900 - Covering Shipping Inward lists from the Shipping Master's Office, lists for the 1850s, 1860s and 1870s are almost complete, 1880s and 1890s to follow. Searchable by person's name, vessel name, and date; includes transcribed passenger lists and links to scans of the original lists.
- Vessels Arrived in Sydney, 1837-1925
Victoria
- Index to Unassisted Passenger Lists to Victoria 1852-1923
- Index to Assisted British Immigration 1839-1871
- Index to Outward Passengers to Interstate, UK, NZ and Foreign Ports 1852-1923
- Outward Letter Books, Immigration Branch, 1849-1851
- German Immigrants – Estray Correspondence and Passenger Lists (1849-1950)
Western Australia
- Dead Persons' Society - An entry point to shipping information for all states and features material on convicts and the military.
- Welcome Walls projects - Free Online Search In Fremantle, over 400 panels commemorating the names of migrants who arrived through this area have been erected at the Western Australian Museum - Maritime at Victoria Quay.
- Inward and Outward Passenger Lists - Information pages only
South Australia
- Early shipping & passenger lists - Passenger lists for 1,320 ship voyages with 32,000 emigrant families arriving in SA (usually Port Adelaide) from Germany (Prussia) up to 1854, UK & Ireland to 1850 and other ports to 1847
- Colonial South Australian Pioneers - Historical passenger lists, births, marriages & deaths 1836 to 1850s
- The Manning Index of South Australian HistoryThe Index contains many thousands of references to South Australian newspaper and magazine stories for the years 1837 to 1937. It also includes extensive selected text from the indexed publications, other primary and secondary sources and numerous extracts from Mr Manning's own writings.
Tasmania
- Index to passengers & ships arrivals - 19th Century
- Departures - index of people leaving Tasmanian ports
- Index to Naturalisations 1835-1905
- The Shipwreck Watch - a journal of Macquarie Island Shipwreck stories
Northern Territory
The Nothern Territory Department of Arts and Museums is responsible for the Northern Territory Archives. A list of collections in the archive is available for download in PDF format (warning: 250+ pages) which can then be searched offline. The archives can also be searced online using the "Archives Navigator" service although it is not straight forward and no indexes are available. Read the Information for Researchers page for information on the service.
National
- Irish Orphans - Irish Famine, a searchable database of the young women who came from the workhouses of Ireland to Australia between 1848 and 1850 on a special emigration scheme
- Emigrants - a searchable database compiled from public submissions. Designed to connect those holding records and those seeking records.
- OzShips - An alphabetical list of about 92,000 immigrants to Australia. Note: this is an index only and does not contain original images of the passenger lists.
- Australia's Red Coat Settlers - dedicated to the Soldier's, their Spouses and families of British Regiments who settled in Australia
- First Fleet Online - information about the convicts who were transported to Australia in 1787
- Passenger list for the first three fleets to Australia
- The Ships List
- Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild
- Faye Guthrie's The Ships of the First Fleet 1788 - historic pictures of the first fleet ships
- Australian Register of Historic Vessels - database by the Australian National Maritime Museum
Last update October 2017