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NSW First Nations family history guide

NSW First Nations family history guide

NSW First Nations Family History

Research guide

Tracing your family history and don't know where to start? Use this guide to find key family history resources for Aboriginal Australians.

Start researching your family history

Oral traditions in First Nations cultures are very strong so yarn with family members to gather as much information as you can before starting your family history journey. 

Here is a template to record information about your family. Download the template

Records used in First Nations family history research can be found in many of the same places as other Australians. Please check the resources page to help you find records for your family history journey. 

Indigenous Engagement are here to help

First Nations family history specialist staff are here to help wherever you are on your family history research journey. 

The Library is a treasure trove of information relating to researching family history. Koori Kin and Indigenous Engagement Branch assists First Nations people to fill in the gaps in their family tree. Before you contact us, please have a family tree, research notes or any birth/ death/ marriage certificates of your family. 

Staff can show you how to use the Library’s collections and resources, help you get a library card, and offer advice if you don’t know where to start. Please contact for help. 

Please note the State Library is not able to provide Confirmation of Aboriginality or provide advice on genetic testing. 

 

2. Ridgeway - Maher wedding party, Karuah AIM, Dec. 1927.,
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Content warning

This family history guide has been written by First Nations people for First Nations people. It may deal with the subject of family separations and intergenerational trauma. Ensure your cultural safety when doing First Nations family history research.

Getting started

Indigenous spaces- Support Indigenous people in the local area
Resources for First Nations family history

Find various resources ranging from government services to church records to help you start your family history journey.

Resources for First Nations family history
A hand is reaching for a book on a shelf
Books with First Nations family histories

You can find Aboriginal genealogies for people who lived in New South Wales in these books.

Books with First Nations family histories
How to look after your records and photos
How to look after your records and photos

Preserve your family history documents and ensure your children and their children can access their cultural information and heritage.

How to look after your records and photos

Selected resources

Tindale genealogies

A good resource if your family is connected to Boggabilla, Brewarrina, Cummeragunja, Kempsey, Menindee, Pilliga, Walgett, Wallaga Lake or Woodenbong.

Organisations with First Nations records

Other organisations that hold First Nations records

Organisations with Aboriginal records

Australian Indigenous index

Use the index to find articles in the Koori Mail and other newspapers and magazines

A number of magazines on a table. A hand is browsing the pages

Koori Mail

An independently owned Aboriginal newspaper reporting political, social and cultural issues and events by or about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Issues of the Koori Mail

 

Meet the First Nations specialist staff


Melissa Jackson is a Bundjalung librarian. She specialises in language enquiries and material, cultural consultation and First Nations family history. 

Kerry-Ann Tape is Ngiyampaa, and is a qualified librarian. She specialises in First Nations family history, Tindale genealogies, collection enquiries, transcription and supervised viewings.

Indigenous Engagement Branch
State Library of New South Wales
1 Shakespeare Place
Sydney NSW 2000
Australia

Family history and supervised viewing requests: 
General enquiries: 

Two smiling women are holding old documents

Melissa Jackson and Kerry-Ann Tape

Related stories

Talking Deadly

 A First Nations speaker series hosted by the Library's Indigenous Engagement team.

Talking deadly

Dyarubbin

Darug knowledge-holders, artists and educators Leanne Watson, Jasmine Seymour, Erin Wilkins and Rhiannon Wright share their culture and stories of special sites along Dyarubbin (Hawkesbury River).

Dyarubbin_Cropped

Eight Days in Kamay

On 29 April 1770, the Gweagal people of Kamay (Botany Bay) discovered James Cook and his crew as they sailed into the bay and came ashore.

Sydney Elders

This project by Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi artist Jonathan Jones tells a very personal story of Aboriginal Sydney.

Smiling portrait of an old woman holding a model of the Sydney Harbour Bridge covered in shells.

 

 

Mapping genealogy - Image 25, 2013.
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Image credit

Penny Evans born Sydney in 1966, is a Gamilaroi artist living and working on Bundjalung country. Though primarily working in ceramics the artist describes her work as being underpinned by collage. Her Artists Books ‘Mapping Genealogy’, a variable edition of 5 books, have been made by collaging and stitching together by hand and with a sewing machine an array of images and materials pertaining to her mixed descent NSW family heritage. One of these Editions was acquired by the State Library  in 2016 into the Mitchell Collection. ‘Proof’ another singular very dense artist book was created by the artist and collected by the State Library in 2017.