Speaking of Australian Records...

I have a continuing interest in Australian genealogy records, although I admit I haven't done as much as needs to be done, because part of my family immigrated from England to Australia and then a smaller part came to the U.S. The National Archives of Australia has a very impressive Website with tens of thousands of digitized records, the Mapping our Anzacs Website. The scanned image above comes from an online collection of hundreds of thousands of military records maintained by the National Archives.

The National Archives of Australia has a RecordSearch function that describes over 7.5 million records created by 9000 Australian Government agencies, mostly since 1901. They continuously add new descriptions and digital images and currently, there are over 18.2 million digital images available for viewing. Physically doing research at the National Archives requires registration as a researcher, but viewing the records online can be accomplished as a guest. A search for one of my family surnames, Parkinson, returned 1203 items. Obviously, I need to refine my search criteria a little, but the amount of information is impressive.

In some cases, actually getting to the digital image is a little tricky, the Anzac records are a notable exception, and in most cases there is a fee for viewing the files. Presently, the fee for overseas viewing is $15 (Australian) for less than 100 pages in a file.

If you have family or connections to Australia, the National Archives Website is certainly one place to start your research.