Getting Started - Obtaining Certificates

Written by admin

November 16th, 2008

OK so you have talked to your parents, grandparents and any other elderly relatives that you can find and they have given you what they know. You will probably find that for the next few months you will get more information coming through. Your initial discussion will get the memories turning over and your relations will keep finding things and remembering stuff and sending it through to you.

As I mentioned in a previous chapter you are ready to start getting some certificates. Certificates will help you fill in any gaps in people’s memories, confirm maiden names of spouses, confirm places of birth, list names and occupations of parents and much, much more. You can also use a set of children’s birth certificates to track the movements of the family. Just a cautionary word with information on certificates, you can find inaccuracies on some certificates. This is particularly true with death certificates where the information listed depends on the knowledge of the informant. If the informant was unsure of some details such as the maiden name of the deceased’s mother or the actual birthplace then these may be listed as unknown or worse guessed at. I have found both examples in my research. Don’t be concerned as this is all part of assembling the jigsaw puzzle of your family history. A slightly damaged piece is better than no piece at all.

Below is a summary of the different types of Australian certificates and the information they contain. Certificates from overseas will have slightly different information. Australian certificates are amongst the best in the world in terms of the amount of information they contain. However early Australian certificates are a bit limited. In most cases certificates before about 1850 will contain less information than shown below. There are some limitations on access to certificates and this varies slightly between the states. I have shown these limitations below as well as some useful links to each states web site.

Type of Certificate	Information Shown
Birth	Name of child, residential address, date of birth, parents names, where married, when married and age, age and sex of other children living or dead, name of informant,
Death	Name and profession, when & where died, age, cause of death, parents names and profession, where buried, where born and years in Australia, name of spouse, when married and age, names and ages of children
Marriage	Names of parties, when and where married, if previously married, children of prior marriage, birthplace, profession, age, residence, parent’s names, father’s profession

	Victoria	NSW	Qld	SA	WA	Tas
Address	https://online.justice.vic.gov.au/bdm/home	http://www.bdm.nsw.gov.au/familyHistory/historicalIndexes.htm	http://www.justice.qld.gov.au/829.htm	http://www.ocba.sa.gov.au/bdm/applying/online/applyonline.html	http://www.justice.wa.gov.au/_apps/pioneersindex/default.aspx	http://www.justice.tas.gov.au/bdm
On line search access	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No
Access range Birth Death Marriage	1853 – 1907 1853 – 1985 1853 – 1942	1856 – 1907 1856 – 1977 1856 – 1957	1829 – 1914 1829 – 1929 1829 – 1929	1842 – 1932 1842 – 1982 1842 – 1947	1841 – 1932 1841 – 1982 1841 – 1947	1839 – 1907 1839 – 1982 1839 – 1932
Cost	$17.50 to download image $25.80 to buy certificate Also 0.99c per search (no charge if no result)	$27.00 per certificate + postage No cost to search the index	$27.00 per certificate + postage No cost to search the index	$38.00 per certificate + postage	$30.00 per certificate + postage	$35.84 for a 5 year search – includes a copy of the certificate, for more extended searches the cost increases
How to apply	Download image or order certificate on line after locating record	Complete form using details found in search and send by mail with fee	Complete form using details found in search and send by mail with fee	Complete form if you know all the details & the date of the event, if not you will need to pay for a search	Complete form using details found in search and send by mail with fee	Complete form if you know all the details & the date of the event, if not you will need to pay for a search