Digitized records in the National Library of Australia

Digitized records are obviously not confined to the United States of America. I have a particular interest in Australia, since two of my ancestral families lived in Australia and I still have relatives there including some who moved there more recently. Thanks to my niece in Australia, I looked at the Website for The National Library of Australia.

The National Library has some very impressive resources, including the Australasian Genealogical Computer Index. This CD based database contains indexes to 3.9 million records drawn from the collections of 39 family history societies and institutions throughout Australia and New Zealand and is available to researchers in this fully searchable format for the first time. 19th & 20th century data drawn from cemetery records, shipping arrivals, newspaper entries, council rate books and war memorials are among the records included. Each entry shows name, date and type of event and the source from which it is drawn. Although this resource is only available in the Library, it is also available from the Society of Australian Genealogists.

The list of additional resources at the National Library and available from the Library online is way too long to include in a blog, there are 178 databases listed on the Website. Another example is the index to Cemetery Transcriptions, which is also available from the Australian Institute of Genealogical Studies, Inc.

The Library also sponsors the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program (yes, it is spelled that way) which contains more than 1.9 million pages.