Immigration into Australia

Eventually, we will find that an ancestor is born outside of Australia, we can then look for the immigration records that correspond with that person. European settlement began in 1788 with the formation of a British penal colony in New South Wales. These settlers were convicts sent here to be separated from their general population. Check out Convicts for more on this.

During the Gold rush era, at the beginning of the 1850s, a vast development in population occurred, this included large numbers of British and Irish settlers, followed by a lesser number of Germans and other Europeans, as well as the Chinese. This group were subject to restrictions and discrimination, making it impossible for many to stay in the country so you may find they have more than one emigration record. 

POPULATE OR PERISH

After World
War II Australia believed that having only just avoided a
Japanese invasion, Australia must “populate or perish” So they
launched an immigration program.

The Commonwealth arranged for assisted passage to Australia on chartered ships and aircraft with over 1,000,000 British subjects immigrating under the Assisted Passage Migration Scheme. These migrants were called “Ten Pound Poms” due to the payment of £10 in processing fees to migrate to Australia.

The scheme originally targeted citizens of all Commonwealth countries but progressively extended to other countries such as the Netherlands and Italy. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Europeans migrated to Australia as well. You’ll find a lot of these migrants moved through Italy during the post-war times.

The qualifications were really straightforward: they needed to be of sound health and under the age of 45 years. However, under the White Australia Policy, people from mixed-race backgrounds found it very difficult to take advantage of the scheme.

ASSISTED immigrants
had to provide a variety of different information, including parents’ names and
where they were living at that time and more. Some records even hold medical
examinations and photos.

The more well off immigrants paid for their own passage here they are classed
as UNASSISTED and are more difficult
to find as there is little information to distinguish them from others of the
same name.

From the late 1970s, there has been a significant increase in
immigration from Asian and other non-European countries, making Australia now
a multicultural country.