Roman Catholic Church Records in Australia

Archives
Catholic archives generally are closed to the public and refer family historians to the Mitchell Library and The Society of Australian Genealogists for finding Catholic records.

Libraries
Mitchell Library Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales 1 Shakespeare Place Sydney NSW 2000 Australia Telephone: (02) 9273 1414 Enquiries: Ask a Librarian


 * Births, marriages, and deaths guide

Societies

 * The Society of Australian Genealogists, based in Sydney, provides an expert and specialist family history service, and holds microfilms of records of churches of all denominations throughout Australia and overseas. The SAG sells copies of their microfilms to family history societies, historical societies, and libraries.

Writing to Local Churches
Birth, marriage, and death registers are kept at the current individual churches. Contact the current minister to find out what records are still available.
 * Catholic Churches in Australia
 * Make an appointment to look at the records. Or ask the minister of the church to make a copy of the record for you.
 * To find church staff available, you might have to visit on Sunday.
 * Ask for small searches at a time, such as one birth record or a specific marriage. Never ask for "everything on a family or surname".
 * A donation ($25-$40) for their time and effort to help you would be appropriate.
 * If the church has a website, you may be able to e-mail a message.
 * See the Letter Writing Guide for Genealogy for help with composing letters.

Historical Background

 * The Catholic Church in Australia is part of the worldwide Catholic Church under the spiritual and administrative leadership of the Holy See. From origins as a suppressed, mainly Irish minority in early colonial times, the church has grown to be the largest Christian denomination in Australia, with a culturally diverse membership of around 5,439,268 people, representing about 23% of the overall population of Australia according to the 2016 census.
 * The permanent presence of Catholicism in Australia came rather with the arrival of the First Fleet of British convict ships at Sydney in 1788. One-tenth of all the convicts who came to Australia on the First Fleet were Catholic, and at least half of them were born in Ireland.A small proportion of British marines were also Catholic. Some of the Irish convicts had been transported to Australia for political crimes or social rebellion in Ireland, so the authorities were suspicious of Catholicism for the first three decades of settlement.
 * Catholic convicts were compelled to attend Church of England services and their children and orphans were raised by the authorities as Anglicans.
 * The absence of a Catholic mission in Australia before 1818 reflected the legal disabilities of Catholics in Britain and the difficult position of Ireland within the British Empire.
 * The Church Act of 1836 established legal equality for Anglicans, Catholics and Presbyterians and was later extended to Methodists.
 * Establishing themselves first at Sevenhill, in the newly established colony of South Australia in 1848, the Jesuits were the first religious order of priests to enter and establish houses in South Australia, Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory – Austrian Jesuits established themselves in the south and north and Irish in the east.
 * The goldrush saw an increase in the population and prosperity of the colonies. When gold was discovered in late 1851, there were an estimated 9,000 Catholics in the Colony of Victoria, increasing to 100,000 by the time the Jesuits arrived 14 years later.
 * While Austrian priests traversed the Outback on horseback to found missions and schools, the Irish priests arrived in the east in 1860.
 * Until about 1950, the Catholic Church in Australia was overwhelmingly Irish in its ethos. Most Catholics were descendants of Irish immigrants and the church was mostly led by Irish-born priests and bishops.
 * The Catholic Church also became involved in mission work among the Aboriginal people of Australia during the 19th century as Europeans came to control much of the continent.
 * From 1950 the ethnic composition of the church began to change, with the arrival of Eastern European Displaced Persons from 1948 and more than one million Catholics from countries such as Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Germany, Croatia and Hungary, and later Filipinos, Vietnamese, Lebanese and Poles around the 1980s. There are now also strong Chinese, Korean and Latin American Catholic communities.