How the South Australian BDM Registrar Could Make More Money & Make Everyone Happy...

Most of my family (distant family that is), who packed up their bags, farewelled their families, and set out for a new life in Australia back in the 1800s ended up in South Australia. Now many would say this is a good thing … which in some ways it is, because with my ancestors being here means I ended up here, and do love little ‘ol South Australia, so I’m thankful for that. And it also means I don’t have to research every other state of Australia either, which is a plus. But the downside comes when it comes to getting certificates. I do like to get certificates. You know, the PROPER ones, not just the transcripts. But to buy the South Australian ones you really need to win lotto or rob a bank – neither of which are likely for me. So I simply save up my dollars bit-by-bit and birthday money (tip: money is always a great present for a genealogist, as you can never have too many certificates!) and buy them when I can. But to buy the three certificates (birth, death and marriage) for one person you’re suddenly up for about $150 when you add in the postage. While I buy certificates when I can, I know myself as well as plenty of others who would buy more of them if they cost less. I don’t know why the South Australian Registrar charges what they do. But I do think they should take a long hard look at what the Queensland BDM Registrar have done. Because it works, and everyone is happy. They are in the process of digitising their ‘historical’ BDM certificates and making them available as instant downloads. So not only are they...

Australian Birth, Death and Marriage Records...

It goes without saying that genealogists are after BDM (Birth, Death and Marriage) records, and why wouldn’t we be?  They give us all sorts of interesting clues: parents’ names, place of birth, what someone died of, family members as witnesses or informants. Seriously they are truly genealogy gold! One thing everyone who is new to researching Australian records needs to know is that each state has it’s own records, so there is no one-place to search for all Australian BDM records, though there are some partial ones. So while it seems a little annoying that we have to check each states records one-by-one, be thankful that Australia only has six states as opposed to the 48 counties of England, or the 50 US states. 😉 Anyway back Australian records. We are fortunate enough to have access to some  indexes and images of Birth, Death, and Marriage records online. ————————————————————————————————————————– BDM RECORDS ONLINE But before getting to them, there’s something else to note, and that is that Australia has privacy rules (I know surprise, surprise!), so you will not find recent records online as they are still covered by the privacy period. Each state has their own rules as to how long, but it tends to be 100 years for births, 50-70 for marriages, and 10-30 years for deaths. So don’t expect to find births or marriages that occurred in the 1970s or later listed yet, and the end date on the links below is when the deaths go until. So first up here’s the records that you can find online, and even better, all of these are FREE: New South Wales 1788-1987 Queensland 1829-1987 South Australia 1842-1972 Tasmania 1803-1933 Victoria 1836-1988 Western Australia 1841-1971 and while these are only...