What is the Date-Range for Australian Images on Ancestry.com?

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Ancestry.co.uk is very popular, so it is logical to explain the principle of the 'time span' of record libraries, using it's collection of records. The point to be made is that there will be times when the vital event of your ancestor, like birth, death or marriage, is closer in time than the end-date of the collection offered by service providers, like Ancestry.com.au. This is because of privacy rules in favour of the living. If you don't check the time span first you may be searching for a record which does not appear! 

Bricks and Mortar Source

The final analysis may be that you have to apply to the Birth, Death and Marriage (“BDM”) Registry office for the district in which the event took place. This is a resort to a bricks and mortar site which then provides the image. Cheer up though. A search may still be possible online, through the Registry's website. You may just have to prove your family relationship.

Finding Date Range of Collections

Sometimes service providers mislead about the date-range of services shown on their Home pages. Oh, yeah. They say you have access to birth records as late as 1985 (e.g.: one of the big three service providers; not Ancestry, not FamilySearch); but when it comes down to it, you find some small print that says "We do not have images for this period as yet, due to privacy laws". The privacy buffer can vary from 30 years to a hundred years. So friend, go directly to their list of collections; their "backend" databases, and find out!.

Handball of Collections

To complicate matters, it is possible that the bricks and mortar Registry Office has passed its indexes to another body! For example, the Government of South Australia has passed its indexes to the South Australian Genealogy & Heraldry Society Inc. (indexes online) and the SA State Library (on CDROM). Speaking generally now, about this type of scenario, a copy of the original certificate or "image", often is sourced online from the Registry office; sometimes by other means; and the delivery made electronically, or by post.

What's the difference between an index and an image? Go here.

Whats worse, some bodies have received custody of parish records located outside a 'workable' geographical area around their office, and thay have a less than helpful approach to providing access to their indexes online. If you don't live in the  area, they have made it very "simple": go to FindMyPast, and pay for a look. But GENUKI may have them online, FREE.  

GENUKI means Genealogy in the UK and Ireland (GEN-UK-I). UK includes England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, including Northern Ireland.  It is a non-commercial service, maintained by a charitable trust and a group of volunteers. For research in the UK, check GENUKI first to see where the parish records are, because you might otherwise miss a freebie.

Combat Commercialism

One of your defenses against commercialism in the family history market place is the knowledge that what commercial sites want you to pay for might be free somewhere else! Take FreeBDM for example. Another charitable Trust. Again, check the coverage first, as it has limitations.

Ancestry Collections

Filters on Collections

Libraries of records are called "collections" (see left). You can identify the name and date-range of Ancestry's Australian BDM “Collections” through the Card Catalogue in Ancestry.com.au. In the main menu on the Home page of the Ancestry, Australian site select: "Search">>Card Catalogue. This will show the name and date-range of the Collections available for Australia.

Set the filter to English and you will see the Collections for England, as shown here. 

You can find the list of collections for other sites, like FamilySearch Tree, by digging around. In FamilySearch go to "Search>>Records>>(bottom left) 'Browse By Location' " (parenthesis added).

Advantages and Disadvantages
A search on a particular Collection will allow you to focus on your target; but realise that you give up some utilities you may not have appreciated. Ancestry automatically searches all spelling variations and phonetic versions unless told not to. There are tools, however, you can use to do the same thing, like use an asterisk (*) in the search terms.

The list of Collections enables a researcher to focus on some lesser known collections to supplement principal data already searched; or vice versa, to predict where it may be found in the main Collections. 

Examples of other Collections

• The Ancestry collection: “Australian Electoral Rolls” 1903-1980 (not including South Australia), and the Australian Postal Directories for towns can offer 'indicative' information, narrowing the parameters for fruitful searches on the BDM records;
• H. Wise & Co. ("Wise Directories") provided Business and Trade Directories and Alphabetical Indexes in the colonies; Wise's directories in New Zealand began, for postal reasons, in 1872-73 to 1955, published by H. Wise & Co., Princes Street, Dunedin and covered all New Zealand. 
• Naturalisations in Australian States for foreign nationalities: copies held by QLD State Library ("Naturalisation" only required for non-British subjects, until 1949. Then Brits required registration as an Australian citizen after one year's residence in Australia as an immigrant);
• Most cemeteries are willing to search their ‘burial’ database for your relative and give you ‘age at death’ and ‘birth place’ data off their screen. A Western Australian Cemetery charges $5 for a paper copy of the Burial Record. They are usually well worth your investment. But first do a search on the Perth Metropolitan Cemeteries Index online, and in old newspapers, to determine the likely death date. The burial record includes place of death. Be prepared. You will be surprised how many other people with the exact, same name died within a few years! You would not be the first person to jump to a conclusion. A headstone could verify!.