Australian Records - Ryerson Index



Australia mapThe Ryerson Index Online Database contains 5,030,350 death notices and obituaries from 285 different Australian newspapers. If you have had any ancestors who may have died in British Territory and later nation of Australia, this is a must online site to check. The exception might be those military servicemen from other nations who died during World War II in or near Australia.

Some helpful suggestion in using the search box: have the surname and include if there were spelling variations. Have one or more locations that the ancestor may have died in or lived in Australia. Know an approximate time range of the ancestor’s death, such as 1931 to 1939.

Australia - Young's store in 1900After placing the search information, if there are any matches on the index a list will appear. The surname first, then any given names, death date, their age, a location, the newspaper name and date the death notice or obituary appeared in that newspaper.

Keep in mind there can be an obituary and a death or funeral notice, so the same person might in more than one newspaper article.

You can not get the actual obituary from this Ryerson Index – it is solely a guard that something about a specific person does exist and where / when. That can be worth quite a bit in eventually locating an obituary or even an official death certificate.

There is a button just above the search list where you can print the list of names and dates you found.

Australia-Jesse KershawThe earliest dates on the index go back to 1803. They continue through the decades even into the more recent years of the 2010s.

To help further go to the Australian Cemeteries Index online. Here are some 2 million headstone inscriptions. Many of these listings provide information; name, dates but also a photo of the headstone. An icon of a camera is next to those listing with a photo.

Photo: Australian map; Young’s store in Victoria, Australia in 1900; Headstone of Jesse Kershaw, died in December 1920.

Related FamilyTree.com genealogical blogs:

Newspaper Articles from Australia

Biographies from Australia

 

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