The destruction of original census records in Australia (General)

by admin , Forest of Dean, Sunday, June 07, 2009, 19:15 (5721 days ago) @ pullin

Even though I have lived in Australia for a large proportion of my life I have never had any need to refer to Australian records as all my ancestors were born in the UK. Your question prompted me to search the internet for old Australian censuses information and I found there is virtually no reference to any 19th century Australian censuses.

In my search I came across an article which explained the reasons why.

The strange history and problematic future of the Australian census.

The individual records of most colonial and all Commonwealth censuses are not to be found in the libraries or archives. The destruction of original census records in Australia has been the result of misadventure and government policies reflecting great fear about the impact of popular privacy concerns on public compliance with the census operations. This paper explores the history behind the anomalous practice of destroying census records in Australia, and poses questions about the role of the census in the writing of histories of Australian people and Australian communities...

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-33252269_ITM

I wonder where would we be with our family history research if Australia's mother country had adopted the same policies!

In contrast, from Australian convict records you are able to gain much information about a person. These records are well preserved the same as the birth, marriage and death records are.

Australian birth, marriage and death certificates can contain lots of useful information for the family historian. Death certificates, in particular, can be very informative and often include the names of children and the length of time spent in Australia.