https://libraries.tas.gov.au/family-history/arrivals-immigration-and-departures/Arrivals, immigration, and departures
Introduction
Search the Tasmanian Names Index for arrival and departure records or browse this guide to find out about all the resources available on arrivals, immigration and departures that occurred in Tasmania.
Our records cover the years from 1803 through to 1900.
People could have arrived in Tasmania as:
- Unassisted passengers – they paid their own way
- Assisted passengers – subsidised or paid for by an immigration scheme
- Crew on a ship
- Military
- Convicts
Finding ancestors in early immigration records can be a challenge, especially if they arrive as free settlers in the 1800s.
Most records are for the Port of Hobart. Few records have survived from other ports. It can be worth checking passenger lists for other colonies such as South Australia and Victoria as ships carrying passengers to Tasmania often called there.
What is online?
Search and view many records in the Tasmanian Names Index, including passengers arriving and departing Tasmania.
Guides to immigration records
- Guide to records on child migrants from 1919
- Free immigration 1803-1946
- Assisted immigrant ships 1832-1889
- Guide to the Public Records of Tasmania: Records Relating to Free Immigration (comprehensive)
Records series online
- 1828-1833 Register of ships’ departures, with lists of crews and passengers (CUS33)
- 1831-1834 Governors Office – Despatches received from the Secretary and Under-secretary of state relating to advances to emigrants (GO3)
- 1829-1970 Marine Board of Hobart – Reports of ships arrivals with lists of passengers (MB2/39)
- 1837-1841 Colonial Secretary’s correspondence relating to arrivals of immigrants (CSO5/1/10)
- 1841-1843 Immigration Agents Department – Nominal register of arrivals under the Bounty System (CB7/9)
- 1851-1867, 1883-1889 Board of Immigration – Descriptive lists of immigrants arriving in Hobart and Launceston (CB7/12)
- 1853-1862 Board of Immigration – Register of the hiring and disposal of immigrants (CB7/16)
- 1867-1884 Board of Immigration Lists of bounty immigrants who arrived in Tasmania via Melbourne (CB7/23)
- 1870-1872 Immigration Board – Register of immigrants arriving from Germany (CB7/28)
- 1920-1943 Individual files by name concerning the nomination, arrival and settlement of people in Tasmania (SWD4)
- 1924-1935 Returns from the Immigration Office to the Commonwealth Immigration Office of Nominations, Immigration and Emigration (SWD14)
- 1946-1960 State Immigration Office – Migrant files (M1 – M7371) Files of British migrants arriving under the Joint Agreement between the United Kingdom and the Australian Government (AA59)
What else is there?
- 1829-1865 Index to passenger arrivals and departures from early Launceston newspapers
- 1841-1889 Index of assisted immigrants to Tasmania
- 1829-1865 Unassisted immigrants & coastal passengers to Hobart, Tasmania (Microfiche)
- 1960-1981 State Immigration Office – Migrant files (M1 – M7371) Files of British migrants arriving under the Joint Agreement between the United Kingdom and the Australian Government (AA59)
Records used for information on immigrant arrivals
- 1827-1833 Register of ships’ arrivals with lists of passengers (CUS30)
- 1912-1924 Immigration and intelligence Branch – Forms of nomination of persons to migrate to Tasmania on assisted passages nos 1-297 (SWD15)
- 1920-1943 Industrial Department/Social Welfare Department – Correspondence of the Immigration Office concerning the nomination, arrival and settlement of migrants (SWD4)
- 1946-1982 State Immigration Office – Index to migrant files (AA344)
- 1965-1966 Index to Swiss migrants (AA78)
Agencies responsible for immigration
- 1841-1855 Immigration Agents Department
- 1855-1885 Immigration Board
- 1886-1910 Chief Secretary’s Department – Immigration Committee
- Immigration Bureaus in Hobart and Launceston took over work from the Immigration Committees from 1908
- 1911-1924 Immigration Branch, Agricultural Department
- 1924-1930 Industrial Department
- 1930-1946 Charitable Grants /Social Services
- 1946-1982 State Immigration Office
Library resources
Related
- Find out more about the history of immigration to Tasmania 1803-1946
- Shipping and ship crews records guide
- Naturalisations records guide
- Guide to defence records includes information about migrants arriving as military pensioners and guards
- Trove for newspaper announcements of arrivals and departures
- Ancestry – available onsite in our libraries.
What is available from other organisations?
- National Archives of Australia – Passenger arrival records
- Coraweb’s resources for tracing shipping and passenger lists
- Tasmania, Australia passenger arrivals 1829-1957 accessible via Ancestry (available onsite in our libraries)