Churches & religion

View all records in this category

Our church and religious records cover a period of 1868 – 1966 and contains over 1.8 million Australian records to assist your family history research. It contains a huge amount of valuable and interesting information for historians and researchers in many areas, and will prove a valuable resource for many.

There are currently long runs of the Australian Lutheran (1913-1966), Truth and Progress (1868-1894) and the Queensland Freeman (1881-1888) available for searching. The Australia Lutheran records give an amazing insight into the issues of the day and the development and role of the church in Australian history. It also provides a large amount of information on specific events and people in Australian churches in the form of notices, including many marriages, deaths and obituaries.

The purpose of the Truth and Progress records was to begin frequent channels of communication with the churches, and to record and report important works in the church. These included conversions, baptisms, Sunday School and much more.

The aim of the Queensland Freeman records was chiefly to unite the Baptist community in Queensland, to strengthen, encourage and inform its members concerning church activities and to spread the Word throughout the whole of Queensland. However, the journal is particularly interesting for historians as it contains information on Baptist and secular events throughout Queensland, records of baptisms, information on ministers and other people, missions' reports, notices of meetings and many other interesting snippets of information.

The Sydney Diocesan Directory is also available and it contains lists of the Anglican clergy (for all states), significant biographical information for those who held office in the Sydney Diocese, as well as information on the cathedrals, committees, societies and schools. If you have an interest in Anglican history or have Anglican ancestors then these will definitely be worth checking.