Papua New Guinea Emigration and Immigration

Immigration records
Accessibility: By personal visit or hire a researcher. Archives generally do not do research.

Record type: Record of immigrants, foreign residents, and citizens.

Time Period: 1890-present.

Content: Immigrant’s name, age, occupation, birth date and place, former residence, destination; wife’s name, childrens’ given names and ages or number of children; religion, race, nationality, sometimes picture. Chinese immigration records give names and places in Chinese characters.

Location: National Archives, municipal archives, Chinese community kapitans. Reliability: Good.

Research use: Very valuable for making proper connections to place of origin in other countries.

 Immigration to Fiji 

Polynesian Immigrants Records, 1876-1914, are available at the National Archives of Fiji. These are records of Pacific Islanders who were brought to Fiji as laborers. Although the first ship arrived in 1864, records were not kept until 1876. Laborers came from New Hebrides (Vanuatu), Solomon Islands, Banks and Torres Straits Islands, Gilbert Islands (Kiribati), and Papua New Guinea. There were about 23,000 who went to Fiji. Others were taken to Queensland, Samoa, and New Caledonia.

These records include general shipping records, agents, and recruiters' journals, plantation records, and personnel documents. For more information see this link here.