Last week I reviewed some of the Australian collections on My Heritage. It wasn’t long before I needed to start looking into overseas records, since my great grandmother, Sarah Jane Sharp, was born in Yorkshire, England. I knew she was on the 1861 England Census, since the family arrived in Australia in 1863, and she was born in 1853. No hints had come up for her from My Heritage’s UK collections. Therefore, the first collection at My Heritage that I’m reviewing this week is:
1861 England & Wales Census
I found Sarah’s family on the 1861 census at FreeCen fairly easily, (hers was the 19th result when I searched to a Sarah Sharp, born between 1852 and 1854), but when I tried searching for her on My Heritage, restricting my search to the 1861 England Census, I had too many irrelevant results that I wasn’t able to find her. Even though I had specified a birth year, 1853, I was getting results for any birth year. I then looked at the options, and chose match exactly +-2 years. There were still 140 results (FreeCen had only come up with 34 results). I tried matching the place exactly, and couldn’t get any results for Yorkshire, England, or Wakefield, Yorkshire, England. I finally found her when I entered Wakefield, Yorkshire in the place field. Because of the difficulty in finding this one record, I won’t be using My Heritage for UK census records. The search on Ancestry is much better, plus Ancestry has Parish Registers for many of the English counties my ancestors came from, including West Yorkshire.
Australia, Victoria Birth Index, 1837-1920
Last week, I stated that I could use the Victorian Births, deaths and Marriages website to access this index. There is one exception. I received a hint from My Heritage for Geoffrey Roy Whimpey, who was born in November 1920. Since there is a 100 year restriction on birth records on the BDM website, this entry isn’t available there yet, but it does come up in the My Heritage database. I think their index probably comes from the old Great War Index 1914-1920 that I actually have on CD, but am unable to use as my computer doesn’t have a CD/DVD drive. By the end of this year, 2020, these indexes will be available on the BDM website.
Australia, Births and Baptisms, 1792-1981
There is a collection with the same name on FamilySearch – Australia Births and Baptisms, 1792-1981. I have not done a comparison of the two databases to see if there are any differences.
Australia, Military Lists and Awards
The description of the collection states: This collection consists primarily of three Australian military rolls: World War I embarkation rolls, the Australian World War I Nominal Roll, and the Australian Roll of Honour. These rolls are available for free on the Australian War Memorial website
Queensland Electoral rolls
The next collections in the My Heritage catalogue are for Queensland Electoral rolls. Since none of these are available online for free, I have done a comparison of the three subscription sites.
My Heritage
Queensland, Australia, Electoral Rolls 1959
Queensland, Australia, Electoral Rolls 1949
Queensland, Australia, Electoral Rolls 1941
Queensland, Australia, Electoral Rolls 1934
Queensland, Australia, Electoral Rolls 1922
Queensland, Australia, Electoral Rolls 1913
Queensland, Australia, Electoral Rolls 1906
Queensland, Australia, Electoral Rolls 1903
Queensland State Electoral Roll 1915
Queensland State Electoral Roll 1910
Queensland State Electoral Roll 1905
Queensland State Electoral Roll 1900
Queensland State Electoral Roll 1895
Ancestry
has the following years for Queensland 1903*, 1905*, 1906, 1908*, 1909-10, 1912, 1913*, 1914-17, 1919*, 1921*, 1922, 1925*, 1926, 1928-29, 1930*, 1931-32, 1934, 1936-37*, 1943*, 1949*, 1954*, 1958*, 1963*, 1968*, 1972*, 1977*, 1980* (the years with an asterisk have been transcribed, while the others were generated using OCR).
FindMyPast
Queensland State Electoral Rolls 1860-1884
Queensland State Electoral Rolls 1895-1915
Queensland Commonwealth Electoral Rolls 1903, 1913, 1922, 1934, 1949, 1959
FindMyPast also has the following in the Australia Electoral Rolls collection:
the years 1860-1884 and 1895-1915 for state electoral records and 1903, 1906, 1913, 1922, 1934, 1941, 1949, and 1959 for commonwealth electoral rolls – 45% have images
Queensland School Pupils Index
Queensland School Pupils Index, Part 5
Queensland School Pupils Index, Part 4
Queensland School Pupils Index, Part 3
Queensland School Pupils Index, Part 2
Queensland School Pupils Index, Part 1
These indexes are only available online on two subscription sites – My Heritage and FindMyPast. So far, I only have one person who was born in Queensland, who was possibly in this collection. Jean Florence Schmidt was born in 1918 in Queensland. She has two entries on these indexes on My Heritage, but only one on FindMyPast.
