Queensland historical certificates

[trish1]

Births which occurred more than 100 years ago; marriages which occurred more than 75 years ago and deaths which occurred more than 30 years ago can be searched online - and certificates ordered online. Some records have been digitised for downloading (but not the complete set). Although expensive by SP standards - they are cheaper than buying a recent certified certificate

Images are $20 and if you have to purchase a paper copy $28 (only way I could find the pricing was to do a pretend order)

Not sure when it came online - wasn't there last weekend - today was the first time I tried to do a search & found the new site.

https://www.qld.gov.au/law/births-death ... -research/

NB - Civil registration started in 1856 (Qld was then still part of NSW) so any records before that date will be church records only. For anyone in Australia pre 1856 records are available at libraries/family history centres throughout Australia so can be accessed for no charge at these venues. Records for Qld until 1861 are also available through NSW records.

Births
1825 to 1890—available as images or certificates.
1891 to 1913—available as certificates only.
Deaths
1825 to 1890—available as images or certificates.
1891 to 1964—available as certificates only.
1965 to 1979—available as images or certificates.
1980 to 1983—available as certificates only.
Marriages
1825 to 1889—available as images or certificates.
1890 to 1938—available as certificates only.

Trish

Edit - our $AU has dropped a little lately - on current rates $20AU is 12.30 GBP, and $19.18US

[trish58]

Thanks for the info Trish, yes much cheaper which is always good news.

Trish

[LynnC]

Just want to chime in here, I downloaded a couple of death certificates this week, of my g-g-g-grandparents (both from the late 1870s). Hassle-free and, although more expensive than SP, but worth it in terms of the information provided. I couldn't find an example on the site so was pleasantly surprised to get the following info in addition to the standard - cemetery, funeral director, minister, religious denomination, how long in Australia, country of birth, length of marriage/where married, names & ages of living children, number of dead children.

As you can see, a level of detail that makes it worth splashing out if you were hesitating. I know unfamiliar certificates can sometime be disappointing, so thought this was worth sharing.

[Currie]

Thanks Lynn,

The three Eastern States (colonies then) introduced their BMD registration systems about the same time as Scotland, and they were all very similar to Scotland, except that they didn’t reduce the amount of info collected after the first year of operation. The other States jumped in earlier with a system more like the English one, but added more stuff around the end of the century.

You’ll probably get many more instances on the early Australian certificates of information not being known because recent immigrants etc are far distant from family and there’s no one to ask.

More here. http://www.jaunay.com/bdm.html

All the best,
Alan

[trish1]

Hi Alan & Lynn

I thought I wrote a reply a couple of days ago - but it's disappeared. My comment was very similar to Alan's - with a couple of ad-ons

- Birth certificates in the eastern states (excl Tasmania) include the ages of older siblings - so often useful to buy the certificate for the youngest in the family. Marriage certificates have age & sometimes birthdate of the couple & also place of birth. NSW Marriage certificates pre 1900 often have information missing - if you can locate the church records for such marriages - the detail was collected - it just wasn't recorded by the registry.

Pre civil registration records are similar to Scottish Church records - may/may not have useful information.

[trish58]

It's a great pity the UK records of BDM can't take a leaf out of the books of Scottish, Australian, USA records, I have found the info on other countries records just amazing (though I do complain about the prices) Having said that, they are real value for money.

Trish