Since 1901 Australia has conducted elections and kept detailed electoral rolls. Included are some links to naturalisation records and some census records.
The laws have changed a few times since Federation: Compulsory voting was introduced in 1924, Women's right to vote was won progressively across the different states between 1895 and 1911, Indigenous Australians won voting rights in 1962. Included are some links to naturalisation records and some census records.
Jump to:
- Australian Capital Territory
- Queensland
- New South Wales
- Victoria
- Western Australia
- South Australia
- Tasmania
- Northern Territory
- National
Australian Capital Territory
Queensland
Queensland Archives has compiled indexes of their archival records. Use these links to get to the page and search the index by name.
- Naturalisations 1851-1908
- Australian South Sea Islanders 1867 to 1948
- Coloured labour and asiatic aliens in Queensland 1913
- Aboriginal War Census Returns 1915-1916
New South Wales
- New South Wales Index to 1841 Census free to search, pay to order copies
- Naturalization, 1834-1903
Victoria
- Victorian Census returns 1836
- Victorian Census returns 1838
- Victorian Census returns 1841 (includes NSW)
- Electoral rolls (historic)
Western Australia
South Australia
- 1841 Census—South Australia
- The Manning Index of South Australian History The 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
- Tasmania - Index to census records 1837 - 1857 this is an Australian Government link which has a downloadable .csv file
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.
- List of Holdings PDF (250+ pages) see link at the bottom of the page
Other lists:
Recommended reading...
Unofficial Ancestry.com Workbook: A How-To Manual for Tracing Your Family Tree on the #1 Genealogy Website
Your Step-by-Step Guide to Ancestry.com!
Ancestry.com keeps growing, but how can you find your ancestors on the huge and ever-changing site? In this workbook, an essential companion to the Unofficial Guide to Ancestry.com, you'll learn how to use Ancestry.com to its full advantage with detailed guides to searching Ancestry.com's digitized records. Each section briefly discusses how to search Ancestry.com for a particular type of record (including census records, vital records, and historical publications), then shares detailed, illustrated tutorials that put those strategies into practice. And with the worksheets and genealogy forms in each section, you can easily plan your own Ancestry.com searches and apply what you've learned.
National
- Australian Electoral History - page with links to information about election history. Useful for determining when a person should appear on the rolls and under what circumstances they may not appear.
- Censuses and Musters 1788-1901 - list and timeline only, state by state
[Last update August 2024]
