Happy Australia Day!! On Monday my brother in law became an Australian citizen. Another convert from dark old England, joining the lucky country. I explained to my six year old that we celebrate Australia Day to mark the landing of the first fleet but many people have come to settle Australia before and after that. That’s why we are called a multi cultural country. I love Australia and being Australian and I definitely feel like I was born into a lucky country. Many people have come here to Australia for a better life and so did my ancestors. I don’t have any Convict royalty in any of the lines I have researched. Ancestors from every side of my family come to Australia for a better life. I tip my Aussie Akubra to them and marvel at their courage.
Although there are many nationalities that have come to Australia, being in South East Queensland I am surrounded by Poms. I also am related to one as my mother in law was a ten pound pom. A great source of information about immigration and naturalisation is the National Archives of Australia. (They also hold military records for any Australian soldiers.) http://www.naa.gov.au They also have a new area that they are promoting called Photo search. I haven’t found any photos that have been very good yet, but it can only get better.
If you click on the above link you are at the home page of the National Archives of Australia. You can click “search the collection” then the next page will have “Record Search”. Click those options to get you to the search page and I generally do a name search. I find the name search the most useful and I always un tick the box about exact spelling. A box with the number of results comes up, from there you can refine your search putting in the first name or/and a year. If the result displayed is available you can request a full copy and click for it at the top right hand. The information obtained generally shows the date of arrival, where they travelled from and sometimes how they arrived in Australia and all their full names and years of birth.
After finding my mother in law’s details for her voyage to Australia I found the name of the boat that she came out on – the P&O liner called the “Iberia” and found some wonderful photos and information on the boat. It must have been such an adventure coming all that way and the amazing thing was that my mother in law told me that she learnt how to swim on that voyage. That must have come in handy coming to Australia. lol (The photo search on the National Archives Website does have some photos of the boat but not as good as the web.) I hope you all have a great Australia Day and happy searching for your relatives journeys to our lucky country.
It has been 9 years now since mum passed away. I was certainly good to see pictures of the ship that mum come over in. Memories can fade but digging up this really makes you feel like you know them that little more.
Thanks