Could I have your opinion please?

[jaybelnz]

You people are very lucky to be able to access census info. Here in NZ, all we can get is logistical data of the different regions!  All we can count on to assist with our NZ research is Electoral Rolls, which are available in libraries in each region and are published online after an election.  Of course, until recently, someone would only be on the roll if they were over 21, but since the voting age is now 18, we should be able pick up some extras on there!

Genealogy clubs have been battling to have the census records on line, which would give much more scope for finding more family names, ages, occupations etc!  Still no go though, as yet, but as ever, hope springs eternal, even if we do have to wait for years before they are released.  Hopefully our children will take up the research, and be able to add new information to our trees!

[pinefamily]

Australian census records have always been destroyed never kept, apart from some early NSW ones.

[Lynne Tann-Watson]

I only just discovered this about Australian census records when doing some family history stuff for an Aussie friend. How awful that is! The census here is such a valuable source of information. I don't think I could have got nearly as far as I have without it.

[jaybelnz]

That's really interesting, I didn't realise that Australia didn't release their's either!

[andrewalston]

They are not just "not released" in Oz, but physically destroyed.

Maybe the decision was made by a lot of ex-convicts wanting to cover their tracks.

[pinefamily]

I think it's more to do with privacy issues, although they were never kept right from when they were first collected.
Andrewwalston, you may have something there; it's only been in the last 30 or so years that it has become "fashionable " to have convict ancestry. Strangely even I do, despite having a mostly South Australian ancestry. Two of my ancestors moved here from Tasmania/Van Diemen's Land. They may have even come across together; I have yet to track their crossing.

[barryd]

America seems to be one of the best Counties for releasing records. However it varies from state to state for the more recent records. No one in England/Wales should have to pay for a Birth/Marriage/ Death Certificate for someone Born/Married/Died in 1837.

[pinefamily]

You should see the cost of Australian certificates; and despite being one country, each state has its own fee system. The information on them varies from state to state as well.

[majm]

 

Both my parents,  all four of my grandparents,  all eight of my great grandparents, and back through the earlier generations ... many were born, raised, married, and died in New South Wales.   Both my parents attended primary schools in NSW in the 1920s, and I am well aware that among the 'Social Studies' topics they were taught were lessons on Convicts.  It was not considered something to be hidden away.  When I commenced my schooling in the 1950s, in rural NSW, among my school teachers were many who were proud to tell us about their 'forebears' who had come to NSW as 'Convicts' and who had been 'emancipated' because of 'Good Behaviour'.   We even went as a school group for trips to various Central West NSW cemeteries .... in daylight ... to be shown headstones, footstones, memorials to their 'forebears' including a) convicts  b) ship deserters  c) bushrangers c) Pillars of Society  d) children who died of diseases which we now could get injections to stop catching measles, diptheria, etc...   

It was not until I finished secondary school and came down to Sydney (so in the 1960s) that I discovered that it was not socially acceptable IN SYDNEY to discuss having any kind of interest in a NSW heritage at all, and as to having a convict heritage ... it was a no no.  And one must never mention any background other than which Eastern Suburbs you and your parents live in if you were in the Menzies Piano Bar on a Friday evening.... drinking a Coca Cola with some Barcardi.      When I then spoke with my Infants and Primary school teachers, they laughed and shook their heads ... Sydneysiders are in their own prison.... I left Sydney when I married in 1974.  I visit it, and sometimes stay for weeks ....

Have you read Babette Smith's books ... including Australia's Birthstain I recommend it.

Re the convict records ... please have a read through here ... https://www.records.nsw.gov.au/archives/collections-and-research/guides-and-indexes/stories/new-south-wales-convict-records-lost

Re the early census records ... these were lost because of a fire https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/107996854 Evening News 23 September 1882

Post Federation Census records https://guides.slv.vic.gov.au/earlycensus/after1901  so from 1996 to the latest census ... there is a choice to opt in to having the individual information retained and restricted for 100 years.
 

JM