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Family history

If you are thinking about investigating or recording your family history, it can be difficult to know where to start. Maybe you’ve got an old family tree to start from, or perhaps you’ve just got a name.

Consider these quick and easy starting points to get you going.

Quick and easy ways to get started

  • Talk to older relatives about what they understand about the family's history. You will need to check this information with other records and documents.
  • Start from the most recent relatives and work back in time, usually starting with birth, death and marriage records.
  • Focus on one person or one family at a time.
  • Do some internet searching and consider using social media networks. Sometimes you can be lucky and find relatives or existing research about your family published online.
  • Check with local librarians and local historical societies in the town, city or suburb where your relatives lived.
  • Note down where you have found information.
  • Be prepared: remember that family history research can take a long time and can be difficult.
  • Find search tips by watching our short Ancestry Library Edition video on our Merri-bek Libraries YouTube channel, or using the family history research guides on the State Library Victoria website.

You can also consider joining a family history group or class. You can find out more about this:

If your family history includes Indigenous Australians, the following resources might be helpful to you:

Continue reading for more information about the resources available to help you find information about your family history.

Ancestry Library Edition

Merri-bek Library members can have free access to Ancestry Library Edition database at Merri-bek Libraries. You will need to visit one of the libraries in person to use the Ancestry Library website.

Ancestry Library Edition has many types of records you can search, including births, deaths and marriages, immigration and shipping, directories, census, and military records for many countries.

Sometimes you will get a small amount of information and sometimes you will get a link to view original certificates or records.

It is a good idea to search within a specific database, rather than searching across the whole of Ancestry. Under the ‘Search’ tab, select ‘Card catalogue’. You can then find specific databases by selecting the record type and country. You can then search within that specific database e.g. Australian Births 1788–1922. You can also limit your search by country of origin.

You can find more search tips by watching our short Ancestry Library Edition video on our Merri-bek Libraries YouTube channel,

Births, deaths, and marriages

Major life events like births, deaths, and marriages often leave a paper trail, so these records can be a great place to find family history information.

Places to search for birth, death and marriage records

The sources below can help you view or request records. Different resources will give you different amounts of information. For privacy reasons, you can't search records from recent decades.

  • The Ryerson Index indexes death notices and obituaries in Australian newspapers.

Tips on using Births, Deaths and Marriages

When searching Births, Deaths and Marriages, keep your searching broad. If you can't find a combination of first and family names, search only on family name. Extend the years you are searching for. Many researchers discover that a person's registered name is different from the name they used in daily life. If a name might be spelled a different way, try using an asterisk instead of some letters.

You will only be able to see the full copy of the original certificate when you purchase a copy through the Births, Deaths & Marriages Office in the state it was issued in. Note down Registration Numbers of certificates you are interested in. You will need to contact state offices of Births, Deaths and Marriages to purchase a copy of the original certificates using that number.

Cemetery records

Many cemeteries have online grave records you can search.

Records relating to children

A number of records are kept about children, including information gathered along their education journey through public or private schooling and apprenticeships. You can search educational records through the Public Record Office Victoria.

Adoption and state ward records

Travel, immigration and citizenship

As a country made up primarily of immigrants, the Australian collection of travel, immigration and citizenship records is extensive.

Passenger and immigration records

The following resources can help with locating and accessing passenger and immigration records:

Census records

Census records from England, Scotland and Wales have been digitised for 1841 to 1911 and can be searched on the Ancestry Library Edition website at library branches. Some Irish records are also available.

If you don't have much information about the family, select the last available individual census for the region, for example England 1911, and search for your family within that individual database. Then select earlier census databases based on the information you find from 1911.

If you have some information already, you could check each census, one at a time, to get more detail about the changes within the family over time.

Italian records

The Italian Historical Society in Carlton have specialised Italian family history resources.

You can choose to search on Italian records only within Ancestry by selecting Card Catalogue from the Search Menu, and limiting by European and then Italian record databases on the left-hand side menu.

Military or war service

Documents about people who were in the Army, Navy or Air Force in Australia are held by the National Archives of Australia and the Australian War Memorial.

You can learn more about Merri-bek’s contribution to World War I in the Remembering World War I exhibition.

Court, legal and prison records

If your relative fell afoul of the law, there’s likely to be some historical documentation about it. State Library Victoria has a guide to court cases in Australia, and Public Record Office Victoria’s justice, crime and law collection includes court and prison records.

Merri-bek is home to the historic Pentridge Prison. While no longer a functioning prison, the history of this institution is fascinating and significant.

Life in Merri-bek

As a citizen of Merri-bek (formerly Moreland and always Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung Country), your family member may have participated in democratic processes or been featured in a local publication. Select the following headings to learn more about the records you can access from these.

Electoral, voting and Council records

Electoral rolls will give addresses and sometimes occupations of adults who are eligible and registered to vote.

You can search Australian electoral rolls 1903-1980 on Ancestry Library Edition at library branches.

Brunswick Library holds some historic voter rolls from the 1960s to 1980s for the Wills electorate in the Les Barnes Local History Room. State Library Victoria also holds historic electoral rolls.

You may be able to find your relative mentioned in Council newsletters, policy publications or annual reports. Council minutes and other local government records are archived at the Public Record Office, whose Guide to Councillors’ Records may be useful to you.

Historic local government directories also list councillors and key council staff in each municipality. Francesca Folk Scolaro’s Tribute to Mayors of Brunswick (1857–1993) may be of interest.

Newspapers

Your family member may have been mentioned in a newspaper article, family notice or obituary.

Trove Historic Newspapers houses some early 20th century editions of the Brunswick and Coburg Star and Brunswick and Coburg Leader, and state/national papers including The Argus (1848-1957), The Age (1854-1954), and many others.

State Library Victoria holds copies of most Victorian newspapers, some of which are available on microfilm. Most are not indexed, which means they are difficult to search without specific dates to check. The State Library also offers online access to historic newspapers from a range of countries.

Merri-bek Libraries offers the newspaper database Access Global NewsBank, which includes text-only versions of local newspapers such as the Coburg Moreland Leader (2009-2013), the Hume Moreland Leader (2000-2018) and the Moreland Leader (2003 to present). You will need to login to this resource with your full library card number without the A and B (20003xxxxxxxxx). If you haven't changed your password, it will be your date of birth in DDMMYYYY format.

Many historic local newspapers are kept by Merri-bek Libraries in the following branches:

  • Brunswick Library
    • Brunswick and Pentridge Press 1859–1861
    • Brunswick and Coburg Gazette 1930–1932
    • Brunswick Guardian 1930s/1940s
    • Leader Budget 1945–1948; 1950, 1963–1966
    • Brunswick Sentinel 1960, 1966–1995
    • Brunswick Express 1968
    • Moreland Sentinel 1995–2001
    • Moreland Leader 1985–2005 (librarian access only—contact Adult/Information Services Librarian)
    • Moreland Leader 2001–2018
  • Coburg Library
    • Community News 1983—
    • Coburg Courier 1968–June 1995
    • Moreland Courier July 1995–June 2001
    • Coburg/Moreland Leader 1983–2001
    • Moreland Leader 2001–2018
  • Glenroy Library
    • Broadmeadows Observer 1994–1995
    • Moreland Observer June 1995–
    • Moreland Community News 1994–2008
    • Moreland Leader (Northern edition) 2008–2018

Other published works

You can check the following websites for any published works books that mention your family’s history or the places they came from. There may be mentions of the family in general histories about places, so try checking the index when you pick up a book.

You can also consider visiting the State Library Victoria's Newspapers and Family History Reading Rooms. You can find out more about this resource on the State Library Victoria website.

Postal directories

Some postal directories for Australian states are available for searching on Ancestry Library Edition. This can be accessed by logging into the Ancestry Library website. See Australian City Directories.

State Library Victoria has digitised the Sands and McDougall Victorian postal directories from 1860 to 1974 and has made them available to view and search on their website. 

You can look up a person and find their address (see Alphabetical Index section), or look up an address and find out who was the main occupier at that house (see Suburbs and Streets section). It could also list a resident's occupation.

There are also postal directory holdings on microfiche at Merri-bek Libraries. These include the following:

  • Port Phillip Directories
    1839–1867 Brunswick Library
  • Sands & Kenny Directory
    1857–1861 Brunswick and Coburg Libraries
  • Sands & McDougall Directories
    1862–1883 Brunswick Library
    1862–1872 Glenroy Library
  • Balliere's Victorian Directory
    1868–1881 Coburg Library
    1868–1872, 1875, Brunswick Library
  • Wise's Post Office Directory
    1868–1900 (incomplete) Coburg Library
    1883–1890, Brunswick Library