Shipping RoutesFrom circa 1900
From West Coast of the STATES ..... across the Pacific to the East Coast of Australia via "South Sea Islands" including Hawaii. This was a standard mail route, various shipping lines, but the mail was by contract with (from memory) the Sonoma being one of the ships. I think the Sonoma was the first Australian mail ship into San Fran after the earthquake and resultant fire. I think the Sonoma crew were very actively involved in fire fighting on the Wharves.
From the East Coast of the STATES, down to Panama Canal, then through the Canal and across the Pacific to the East Coast. (You will need to confirm exactly when Panama Canal opened, I think it was in the 1910s ).
From the East Coast of the States, .... take train across to San Fran, then ship to East Coast of Australia (Mail runs advertised in San Fran newspapers, less than 3 weeks from Sydney via Auckland, to Hawaii, to San Fran). There was still some shipping going down the east coast of South America and then around there and then across the southern Pacific ocean.
From Europe, ships could go via Suez Canal or via West Coast of Africa down to Cape Town, then across to ALBANY and/or Fremantle in Western Australia, then on to Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney etc. OR if Via Suez, sometimes they then hugged the sub continent, and came down through Singapore, Torres Strait, down between the East Coast and the Great Barrier Reef, calling at all the ports, into Brisbane, then down the rest of the east coast of Australia.
Marriage Certificate. You have a New South Wales marriage certificate. There's actually no such thing as an Australian Marriage Certificate in that 'collective' sense. Each of the six colonies that were federated into one colony in 1901 remain responsible for their own internal affairs, and of course BDM registers are state based. The information on the certificate re the parents is recorded by the clergy. Perhaps you could consider approaching the Church of England Archives? St Stephens is part of the Sydney Diocese. Here is a link that may help.
http://www.ststephens.org.au/ If you were to order that same NSW BDM document today you would receive a completely different document, same information but set out differently.
Cheers, JM (I am waiting for the answer to your question re Census collections in the USA cause I too want to know the answer
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