Building Your
Family Tree
For Free
Compiled by Laurie Favelle, Canberra, September 2021
This is a collection of handy hints to get you started on your family story journey. It is by no means complete or exhaustive.
https://www.nla.gov.au/getalibrarycard/
Get a library card
To be eligible for a standard library card you must live in Australia and supply an Australian residential address.
A library card allows you to:
Request collection items for use onsite in our reading rooms
Access a select range of licensed electronic resources from offsite
You don't need a library card to:
Search the National Library catalogue
View our collections or other freely available Internet resources
Please note:
You will be asked to show your Library card when collecting requested material. Library staff will only hand out material to the person whose name matches that on the request callslip.
We are a reference library - you can use collection items in our reading rooms but not take material home
Cards are valid for two years but can be renewed
International visitors may apply for a temporary onsite library card when visiting the National Library in person
Apply for a library card
Need to update your library card?
You can change your details or renew your library card by visiting our renewals page.
Family history
The Library has a wonderful collection of Family History guides. You can access them here
https://www.nla.gov.au/research-guides/family-history
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Birth, Death & Marriage Records
NSW
VICTORIA
https://my.rio.bdm.vic.gov.au/efamily-history/60ad963f0a2f001bed0d7a98
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
https://www.genealogysa.org.au/resources/online-database-search
TASMANIA
This is the start, so have a good look at this basic info., then goto 2 and 3 https://www.justice.tas.gov.au/bdm/researching-family-trees
This is where the meat is, particularly the “Digitised Records”
https://libraries.tas.gov.au/archive-heritage/guides-records/Pages/BDM-registration.aspx
3.This is the Tasmanian Names Index...wonderful stuff, particularly if you have a Tasmanian convict lurking https://librariestas.ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/en_AU/names/
QUEENSLAND
https://www.familyhistory.bdm.qld.gov.au/ …….stay on this page and scroll down a bit.
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
https://bdm.justice.wa.gov.au/_apps/pioneersindex/default.aspx
NORTHERN TERRITORY
The NT does not appear to have an online digital search portal. Searches can be requested and there seems to be a fee structure in place. Keep in mind that SA controlled the NT until 1911 and probably provided ongoing administrative support for a time after that.
https://nt.gov.au/law/bdm/search-births-deaths-and-marriages-records
ACT
The ACT does not have free online access to historical records. However, remember that much of the ACT administration was done by NSW up until 1930. This is a good starting point….https://www.library.act.gov.au/find/history/frequentlyaskedquestions/personal_stories/family_histo
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NEWSPAPERS
Study the National Library information above for a full rundown on the resources available through their catalogues. However, the most useful tool to access for newspapers and other print material is Trove at https://trove.nla.gov.au/ .
If you are looking for more recent newspaper records, e.g. obituaries in the November 17th 2019 issue of the Sydney Morning Herald, you are much better off to have joined the library so that you can access eResources.
You can do it as a guest, but access will be limited.
Ryerson
Another great resource is the Ryerson Index. This is an index to death notices and obituaries in Australian newspapers. Ryerson is privately run by volunteers. It is not a definitive list of deaths and obits. It can be handy, nonetheless. It is also the reason you need to sign up to the National Library, as modern newspapers all seem to have paywalls of some sort.
https://ryersonindex.org/search.php
Coraweb
Coraweb is a goldmine of information providing links to a variety of newspaper resources as well as a huge range of other family history assets. Some of these will be free and some will have paywalls. Definitely worth checking out.
Military Records
If your Australian family story goes back far enough, taking a peak at military records can be very, very useful. This can also be relevant even if you are not particularly aware of a family member who served as one can often find “people of interest”. Most military records invariably contain the basic information, including age or date of birth, next of kin such as parents, partners, siblings, etc, all of which can be useful leads.
If you do a Google search for “military records”, “service records” or similar you will be offered a huge range of options. Many of these options are commercial genealogy organisations who offer access to military records, including Australian records. These organisations appear to have negotiated deals with, for example, the National Archives of Australia and purport to provide free access. They don’t! If you want to access the full record you will come across a paywall.
You probably know the sites to use but, just in case, here are the most useful and mostly free sites that I use all the time:
Australian War Memorial https://www.awm.gov.au/ . Now, be warned. As much as we know and love this place, service record information is limited. The AWM’s best records revolve around the Roll of Honour and the collection of records for in-depth research. For general family history purposes it is a good starting point, but definitely not a “one stop shop”.
National Archives of Australia https://www.naa.gov.au/ . This is the definitive site for individual service records. If a record has been digitised, then access is free. If it hasn’t been digitised then that can be requested with a modest fee. However, always ask yourself if you really need the full record. There is also more than one way to search NAA records and I have attached screen shots of suggestions.
Department of Veterans Affairs Nominal Rolls https://nominal-rolls.dva.gov.au/ The DVA has published four nominal rolls of service personnel. These are for WW2, Korean War, Vietnam War and First Gulf War. These rolls contain basic, but very useful, information. It's important to note that the unit mentioned in each record is usually the last unit/squadron/ship at time of discharge.
The AIF Project is an excellent resource for those researching WW1 service and events. It has more detail than the AWM site and contains links to individual NAA records. https://aif.adfa.edu.au/aif/index.html
Boer War records have been problematic until recent years. The “go to” source has been The Murray Index, developed by Lt Colonel PL Murray for the Department of Defence in 1910. This was supplemented by a range of other sources, including local memorials, local museum records, private references and, of course, the AWM. Since the commencement of a campaign to create a Boer War Memorial on ANZAC Parade, a great deal of work has been done, with the result that there is a Boer War Memorial website. This is now an excellent resource for this conflict which also provides a great deal more than just the Boer War. Check it out. https://www.bwm.org.au/ancestor_search.php
Missing, Wounded and POW Enquiry - WW1 - https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/redcross
Missing, Wounded and POW Enquiry - WW2 https://digitised-collections.unimelb.edu.au/handle/11343/190446
Finally, research a unit! If you have a battalion, squadron, ship, specific unit (eg 1st Independent Company) try a google search. There is a huge amount of material out there. Wikipedia often turns up something (and they have references/links). There are a vast number of unit histories and books out there. I have found WW1 battalion histories as ebooks, on CD’s, as PDF documents and as hard copy. I have found individuals in the images tab simply because they were part of a particular unit record or story. There are blogs and podcasts where all the work has been done already. And so it goes on.
Building Your Family Tree
You may think I’m an enemy of the commercial genealogy websites. Be assured that I AM NOT!
Commercial genealogy and family tree building sites do a great job. In my view, the three that are way out in front of the pack are Ancestry.com, Findmypast and MyHeritage.com. These are excellent, with significant links and resources. You can start your family tree on these sites for free….but….you will constantly come up against pay walls as you seek further details. The only way to deal with these is to join one of them and pay the maximum price to obtain full membership. Anything else is a waste. I have a full membership of MyHeritage! But remember, Ancestry and Findmypast are available for free, for research purposes, if you have a free National Library membership.
Ancestry, Findmypast and MyHeritage are also available as an off site resource through membership of your local ACT library. If living outside ACT you should check with your local library service
(NB: Ancestry (Library Edition) is temporarily available offsite to registered National Library readers until 31 December 2021. In-Library-only access will be restored from 1 January 2022.)
Building a family tree is actually a long term project. Once you start it will keep on growing - if you continue to work at it. So when you get to the stage of life where you need to review your budget, a decision to cancel your genealogy membership has significant and potentially fatal implications for your family tree. The answer is to build your tree on a totally free site.
My free family tree website of choice is FamilySearch.org. https://www.familysearch.org/en/
This website is owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ & Latter Day Saints - the Mormons from Utah in the US. It is a not for profit that is philosophically committed to the collection and conservation of family history and records. The other, commercial, websites seem to have a two way exchange of information which is quite beneficial when trying to expand your tree. I should add that I have been a member of FamilySearch for many years and have never, repeat never, been approached for financial support, religious indoctrination, or any purpose not directly related to genealogical purposes.
If free sounds good to you, then I would recommend you build your family tree on FamilySearch.
WikiTree https://www.wikitree.com/ is also another free resource. I am a bit of a novice at this one, but have a look. It seems to work very well.
CEMETERIES
It's appropriate that we deal with this last, as it is where we all end up. Well….we used to; not so much perhaps these days. Nevertheless, they can be a great resource and I must confess to having spent many hours loitering in - or perhaps haunting - various cemeteries.
Cemeteries can be frustratingly barren of useful information, for example due to damaged, non-existent or faded headstones, or they can yield rivers of genealogical gold. Sometimes, you need to get into the old car and go to a particular site, perhaps just on spec! However, there are some online resources that can save you the trouble. Many of those sources you can find referenced in the National Library Eresources site. Nevertheless, some useful hints are:
Australian Cemeteries Index https://www.austcemindex.com/
Australian Cemeteries Website https://www.australiancemeteries.com.au/
Find a Grave https://www.findagrave.com/ This site is currently owned by Ancestry.com, but there does not appear to have any paywalls.
Billion Graves is a fairly recent entry into this market. It is free for the basic stuff, which is often all you need, but there is a membership/subscription if you wish to dig deeper https://billiongraves.com/
This is just a small sample. It's good to remember that many cemeteries, particularly the larger ones, keep digital records of plots and locations. If you know the cemetery where your subject is buried you can search that cemetery on the web. A frequent example is where you locate a funeral announcement published in a newspaper you identified in Trove (National Library). That announcement advises that the deceased will be interred at, say, Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney. You can check out the Rookwood website. Often there’s a headstone photograph or details of the inscription. This can be important because you can often find the names of a spouse and children listed there. All of a sudden your tree starts to expand. Bingo!!
