Australia and New Zealand
Like the United States, Australia and New Zealand are fairly young countries where the majority of the population is only a few generations removed from its immigrant roots. Government-created records are scattered and inconsistent, and many have limited access because of very restrictive privacy laws.
Records of birth, marriage, and death in Australia and New Zealand are maintained at the state or territory level. A good listing of the BMD Registrars, along with links to the registrars that offer free or fee-based online access to Australian birth, death, and marriage indexes can be found at Cora Num's excellent website for genealogists (
Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand. It is believed that the Maori originally emigrated from Polynesia in canoes about the ninth century to thirteenth century a.d. There are currently a little more than 400,000 Maori living in New Zealand, comprising about 13 to 14 percent of the country's total population.
In New Zealand, registration of European births and deaths was first required in 1848 and marriage records from 1854. Registration of Maori births and deaths did not become compulsory until 1913, under a separate system of registration that applied to individuals of half or more Maori blood. The older New Zealand historical records (
The National Library of Australia in Canberra has a special section devoted to Australian family history (
Many people with Australian ancestry hope to discover a convict in their family tree. To this end, Convicts to Australia (
