Immigration

We hold records of immigrant ships and their passengers travelling directly to Queensland from Europe from 1848.

In earlier records, some information can be limited and only the name of the immigrant, the date of arrival and the name of the ship may be available. In later records, particularly those created in the 20th century, there is more information available.

Finding immigration records

Search the indexes

The indexes are collections of information from our most popular records (usually peoples’ names) that link to ArchivesSearch catalogue. If you know the name and approximate arrival date of the person you are looking for, you can search the indexes below.

4 Tips to Search the Index to Assisted Immigration 1848-1912

Hello and welcome to Queensland State Archives.

Our indexes contain information gathered from original records. They’ve been created so people can search for names in some of our most popular records.

Our biggest index is the Index to Assisted Immigration 1848 – 1912. Created from Series 13086 – Registers of Immigrant Ships’ Arrivals, the index provides direct links to digital copies of passenger lists of immigrant ships arriving in Queensland and contains over 250,000 names. To search the index follow these 4 steps

Gather as much information as you can about names, dates and places before you try to search our indexes.

Go to our Search the Records page,

Click on Immigration

Click Assisted Immigration

Enter the name of the person you’re searching for in the search boxes. If you don’t get a result when you enter both names, try taking the given name/s out.

Have a look at the displayed results to see if you have a match. Clicking on the green plus sign will give you more information about you’re results. The information listed will be different for different indexes but will hopefully help you narrow things down.

If you think you have found the person you’re looking for, click on the ‘See image’ link. This will open the digitised copy of the passenger list. Search the page for the name you are interested in. You can now download, print, and/or save the image to your computer for your records.

This is one of a series of videos to help you find information at QSA. For other videos visit our YouTube channel and subscribe to keep up to date with any new additions.

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If you have any questions or would like to give us some feedback contact us via any of the options on our ‘Contact the State Archives’ page

Thanks for watching

Search the catalogue

ArchivesSearch provides access to QSA’s collection of records, including documents, letters, land orders, maps, plans and images. For help searching, read the ArchivesSearch help guide.

Contact us

Contact us if you need further help.

Archival research terms

Record—information of permanent and historic value, often in paper-based form (e.g. a letter, photograph, a map), but can also be a CD, a film or a digital file

Item—a single record or many records, e.g. an item may be a single architectural drawing, a 500-page leather-bound book, or a bundle of correspondence (letters, telegrams, reports)

Series—a group of related items created, received, or used in the same activity

Agency—the Government Agency responsible for creating a series. For example, the Department of Education is the Government agency who created a series of School Admission registers for Runcorn State School. An admission register for Runcorn State School would be considered an item within that series.