Moonee Valley Family & Local History Blog

Did you know you can now search the Victorian Government's Births, Deaths and Marriages index for free online? Until now searching this index came at a cost to people who wanted to do family research, but not anymore. Start searching Victoria's:   Birth records from 1836 - 1914 Marriage records from 1836 - 1942 Death records from 1836 - 1988 The index for these records is free, however if you're after a digital or physical copy of any record you will have to pay. Rates are $24 AUD for a digital copy and $31 AUD for a posted physical copy. Index of Birth record from BDM search To start your search visit the Births, Deaths and Marriages website today.

This index lists over 3,000 pioneer doctors from the 1700s through to 1875, features include colonial medical life, ships' surgeons, general practitioners. The Australian Medical Pioneers Index draws on material from sources such as medical registers, newspapers, pictorial archives, hospital histories and early medical publications.

Archives Office Tasmania (Australia ) now has digitised transcriptions of Wills and Letters of Administration from 1824-1989 online and are free to download.

SHIPPING INDEXES The Public Records Office of Victoria and their volunteers have been busy updating the outwards immigration index the next instalment being for years from 1887-1896 which includes another 290,348 names to the index. Total range now from 1852 to 1896 with 797,460 outward passengers named. This index will continue to be indexed and the series will end in 1923. PROBATE INDEXES The first stage of the index to probates in Victoria covering the years 1841-1925 is now online and allows researchers to search for wills and probates by family name, place, occupation and date which then links to the record and digitised image of the will and/or probate file, however not all wills and probate files have been digitised at this stage. Both shipping and probate indexes are available online at Public Records Office Victoria

This index has been compiled by A.I.G.S. volunteers to assist researchers find if, when and where their ancestors were granted Crown land in Victoria. The names listed are those of the persons who are recorded as the first buyers or selectors of land from the Crown - hence the term 'Crown Grantee'. The names have been transcribed from Parish maps and schedules published by the previous Department of Survey and Mapping, this Department is now part of Land Victoria. Part 1 Index consisted of 67,000 names from 600 parishes; Part 2 is a database containing approx. 148,000 names extracted from 700 Parishes. To access these indexes bookings may be made by calling the Sam Merrifield Library, Moonee Ponds on 8325 1950.