Emigration from Scotland

[emsmith]

I am trying to discover how many people have emigrated from Scotland since 1788 to Australia, and especially since 1835 to Victoria. Can anyone point me in the direction of where I can find such statistics?

[WilmaM]

Firstly ,

That's quite a question you have posed - a vast number I suspect is the answer.

For a more specific number you'd have to look to Australian Government sources, though how would such a thing be measured?

Census records may hold the answer, if they responded with Scotland rather than Britain, as birth place.
Passenger lists could help, but as I understand it many ships would have sailed from England so may not be an accurate guide for Scots parties.

Is this any help? https://origins.museumsvictoria.com.au/ ... fessionals.
They may be able to point you in the correct direction anyway.

[emsmith]

Thank you Wilma.
That was one of the sites I had looked at, but frustratingly it has only used selective time periods, not the whole time of European settlement.

[billymac]

The Australian census records are abysmal. They are nothing like the Scottish, US, British or even Irish census details. Once the census statistics information was collated, all personal information was destroyed. Don't ever expect to see your great grandfathers family on an Australian census return.

I quote from the Australian Bureau of Statistics/National Archives:
"Since 2001, the ABS and National Archives of Australia have given respondents the option to have their complete census data, including name and address, stored in the Census Time Capsule. The capsule is stored securely at the National Archives for 99 years after each census and is released publicly at the end of that period. The first capsule opening will be on 7 August 2100"
Very sad really.
Regards,
Bill (in Australia)

[Currie]

Before 1901 there was no Australia as a country, just an island by that name .There were only a number of entirely seperate British colonies that did things their own way. It seems they didn't get around to synchronising their censuses until 1881.

If the census records had survived presumably those prior to Federation would be the property of the individual States and they may or may not be now available online depending on the States individual policies or priorities.

For NSW it seems things may have worked out differently had there not been a very large fire in 1882 that destroyed all their census records.

For Victoria you can blame the police officer in 1891 who had the bright idea that he could demand access to census papers to help him track down whoever he chose. The Government Statist destroyed the forms to keep them out of the hands of the police, and to protect his staff.

Read all about it here. https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.as ... bId=414105

Alan