The Immigration Discovery Centre (IDC) offers a range of information about family history research, shipping indices, immigration and cultural diversity.
The IDC is located at the Immigration Museum, Ground Floor Foyer, 400 Flinders Street Melbourne and is open 7 days a week between 10am and 5pm.
Staff at the IDC are available to assist with your enquiry and can be contacted via phone on (03) 9927 2726, via email at discoverycentre@museum.vic.gov.au or via post at Immigration Discovery Centre, GPO Box 666,
Melbourne 3001.
New arrivals: a family standing on a Melbourne Wharf after arriving on an ocean liner Achille Lauro. They are carrying several suitcases and a toy.
Source: Museum Victoria
The IDC is a point of departure for you to embark on your own journey of discovery and learning. We can help you locate primary records and family history documents across a range of archives and genealogical institutions. Some initial steps for unearthing your family history on the internet, together with the details of key institutions, are described below.
The Public Records Office of Victoria (PROV)
The Public Records Office of Victoria (PROV) holds records from the beginnings of colonial Victoria in the mid-1830s until today, including pre 1923 passenger lists to Victoria.
To access pre-1923 passenger lists
- Go to Public Record Office of Victoria website: www.prov.vic.gov.au
- On left hand side, click on Access the Collection
- On this page, click on digitised records and online indexes
- A list of indexes should appear
- Scroll down until you reach the sub-heading Database Indexes under the heading Immigration. Click on Unassisted or Assisted Inward Passenger lists to Victoria 1852-1923.
- You can now search for names of passengers who boarded ships to Victoria, Australia from overseas ports (including New Zealand) between 1852 and 1923.
Some handy hints:
- Keep your search as general as possible
- Try different spellings, as passenger lists are subject to errors
- Use an asterisk as a wildcard to open up your search. Eg. if you know the family name but are unsure of the given name you can place the initial with asterisk, Eg: A*.
VPRS 948 Outward Passenger Lists, The Rosetta, June 1888. This list details passengers taken from Melbourne to London in June 1888.
Source: Public Records Office Victoria.
The National Archive of Australia (NAA)
The National Archives of Australia (NAA) is the central repository for Australian Commonwealth Government records and holds information on naturalisation, military service and immigration as well as post 1923 passenger lists to Victoria. Only 10% of the material archived by the National Archives is so far featured on the internet.
To Access National Archives Records Online;
- Go to the National Archives Website: www.naa.gov.au
- Click onto the Collection tab
- Scroll down to RecordSearch and click on this link
- Click Search now - as a guest user
- You can now search for documents, photographs, posters, maps, films and sound recordings within the 6 million records created by 9000 Australian government agencies.
- In keyword field, type in the family name then click search (sometimes the search can be slow and can take up to five minutes to load)
- If there are any matching records click onto the display button
- Using the mouse, scroll down the list of records that appear
National Archives Database
Passenger lists for people arriving in Fremantle from 1926- 1949 have been indexed and are searchable on the National Archives database. To seach the database, you will need to sign in as a guest (click on the "guest" button at the bottom of the screen) and then, on the next screen, click on "Passenger Index".
Victorian Archives Centre
PROV and the NAA share a reading room at the Victorian Archives Centre located at: 99 Shiel Street, North Melbourne, tel: 9348 5600.
A map to the Victorian Archives Centre can be downloaded from the PROV website.
Other Useful Contacts
The State Library of Victoria's Genealogy Centre provides access to a variety of resources for Family Historians and Genealogists.
The Genealogical & Historical Societies website provides contact details for local societies located in Northern and Western Victoria.
Victorian Births Deaths and Marriages Online: the Victorian Department of Justice provides online historical indexes for births, deaths and marriages in Victoria dating back to the mid-nineteenth century.