Passport Records

It's great to see more Queensland records being added to Findmypast - for example, the indexes to passport registers 1915-1925 and passport registers and receipts 1926-1939. Most applicants lived in Queensland but some gave an interstate or overseas address including England, Canada, Papua, Ceylon, Fiji and China.

The National Archives of Australia and Queensland State Archives hold various series of passport records. They include:

• Immigration Department: passport clearance register 1926-1935 (Qld State Archives series 7149; one item). This register gives the passenger's name, ship and date of arrival, State of disembarkation, ship and date of departure, passenger's reason for returning overseas, and whether he/she was planning to return to Australia.


• Immigration Department: passport receipts 1930-1939 (Qld State Archives series 10222; thirteen items). These are duplicates of passport clearances issued to assisted immigrants. They give the passenger's name, ship and date of arrival in Australia. Some also give the ship and date of departure and how long the person expected to be away.


• Passport registers 1915-1974 (National Archives of Australia, Brisbane Office). After the Passports Act 1920, Australian residents over sixteen years of age needed a passport if they left the country. This did not apply to those going to New Zealand, Papua or Norfolk Island. Others who were exempt included merchant seamen and defence force personnel on duty. The National Archives Brisbane Office holds passport registers 1915-1974 and various other records of people departing Australia. Some of those passport registers have been indexed in the Queensland Passports Index 1915-1925.

If a person 'vanished' (either temporarily or permanently), passport records are definitely worth a look. They can also reveal interesting information about overseas holidays or trips to visit relatives.

NOTE!  The transcription on Findmypast is a useful finding aid, but it does not include all details, so it is essential to get a copy of the original document. If you can't go to the Archives yourself, ask about my copying service.

For other countries, these links take you to lists of passport records on:

• Findmypast (including the British Index to Register of Passport Applications 1851-1903)


• Ancestry (including records for the USA, France, Portugal, Latvia and other countries).

(This post first appeared on https://qld-genealogy.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/queensland-passport-registers-1926-1939.html.)

Queensland Customs House Shipping Index 1852-1885

"Queensland Customs House Shipping 1852-1885 Passengers and Crew" is an exciting new index compiled from Brisbane Customs House records (Shipping Inwards Series J715) held at the Brisbane Office of the National Archives of Australia. It is a vital resource for genealogists and others who are researching merchant mariners or passengers from Europe to Queensland.

Note that this index includes over 90 voyages that are not in the Queensland State Archives online index.

Most voyages were to Brisbane, but there are a few from Brisbane to an overseas port. The ships sailed from Batavia, Boston, Dundee, Glasgow, Greenock, Hamburg, Hong Kong, Liverpool, London, New York, Newcastle on Tyne, Plymouth, Queenstown, Singapore, San Francisco, Sydney, the South Sea Islands and Southampton. (Queenstown is the old name for Cobh, the port for Cork, Ireland.)

For some ships there are two lists, one prepared at the time of departure and another on arrival. Some of the records are for ships that carried passengers but were not specifically migrant vessels.

Each person's entry may include name, title, age, sex, marital status, occupation, nationality, whether passenger or crew, comments, ship, year and port of departure/arrival, etc.

The index is available on CD-ROM from the Queensland Family History Society. It is also online at FindMyPast. Some given names are abbreviated in the records, so you may need to search for an initial or an abbreviation (eg, 'Chas' for Charles). Searching is free at FindMyPast. To see transcriptions you need either pay-as-you-go credits or a one-month or twelve-month subscription.

(This post first appeared on http://qld-genealogy.blogspot.com.au/.)

Matilda JESSUP, 1870s

Queensland State Archives hold documents (dated 1878) about Matilda JESSUP. They give details of her arrival on the Scottish Hero with her husband; his death from typhoid (which she also had); her mother-in-law's death from burns suffered when she fell in a fire; and a passage back to England for Matilda and five children on the Windsor Castle.

If you need my help to obtain a copy of this document from Queensland State Archives (the cost would be about $15), email me at the address shown in the sidebar here.

If you are not familiar with in-letters, see:

• I is for In-Letters and Invalid Pensions (opens in a new window)


• more examples of information in Col.Sec. in-letters (scroll down on that page).

Police Station criminal offence register

Here are 2 examples of entries in Police Station, Croydon: criminal offence register, 20 Dec 1894 - 13 Jul 1905 (Qld State Archives item ID 293075) - and note that Qld Police Gazettes will give more details including detailed physical descriptions of the offenders:

Sep 1897. Offenders: William MALLOY and William FOTHERGILL. Offence: ship desertion, H.M.S. Torch at Cairns, 26 Aug 1897...

Sep 1897. Offender: Edward LOPDELL. Offence: wife and child desertion (Alice, Ernest Edward and Ethel May LOPDELL) at Muttaburra, 17 Jul 1897. Offender supposedly gone to Hughenden or Croydon. Warrant issued. Not to be arrested if he enters into recognizance to pay for the support of his wife and children.

Wansfell passenger list: wrong year shown?

Qld State Archives have discovered that the date written on a passenger list for the Wansfell may be wrong. Land orders, civil registration indexes and a Health Officer's Report suggest that the passenger list is probably for a voyage in 1863, not 1865.