Lesson 4 - Searching Birth, Death and Marriage Indexes - Australia

Searching BDM Indexes NSW, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania

Note: Click any State name to be taken to the search page for that State.

Remember all Australian BDM Registrar’s Offices have limits on the modern years you can search. Births usually need to be more than 100 years old.

Each site’s introductory screen should tell you what years are covered for each event.

NSW BDM Indexes has one of most flexible search engines. The search allows wildcard searches. You can replace any letter with *. This helps to find those names that have been misspelled or mistranscribed.

NOTE: The * can also be used in the Given Name field(s) and at the start of the surname field e.g. *kins will return Atkins, Jenkins, Hawkins etc.

A * is used to indicate multiple letters. A ? is used to indicate 1 letter.

You can also search a range of years with no limits i.e. 1850-1900. Other Indexes restrict you to up to 10-year blocks.

Below is a sample of a birth search.

You get a range of names that fit H*N*N.

Victoria BDM’s

Take the time to read this opening page. This site also allows the wildcard * search.

One of the advantages on this site is when you purchase any certificate, you receive an immediate email with a link that takes you to an image of the certificate.

Once again if you don’t get any results or the one’s you get don’t appear to match the information you have, try different spellings, a wildcard or a possible nickname e.g. I have found that in Cornish families Jane, Joan and Jenefer (sic) are interchangeable.

South Australia BDM's

Click on Database Search

Fill in the name you are looking for and a year and select up to +/- 7 years.

The wildcard for this site is % not *.

This search covers the whole database.

You can just type in a surname and no year and you get something like this as a result:

Then you can browse in any or all of the above.

Tasmania BDMs

Can be a little hard to use. Only covers events up to 1890. For events after 1890 you will need to use FamilySearch see Lesson 10

Western Australia BDMs

Nice database, allows wildcard % but you need to put % for every letter you want to replace. NOTE the dates you can search up to.

Queensland BDMs

Allows wildcard * search

Date can just be years, from-to.

Can download document within 14 days after purchase.

  

NewZealand BDMs

Unfortunately, NZ BDM Index does not allow wildcard searches, so you need to be creative when it comes to the spelling of your surnames.

I recommend you read About the Records before going to the Search screen.