Effective family research requires some understanding of historical events that may have affected your family and their records. Learn about the key events, governments, laws, migrations, and religious trends surrounding your ancestors; they may help you understand political boundaries, family movements, and settlement patterns. These historical events may also have led to the creation of records, such as land and military documents, that mention your family.

Your ancestors will become more interesting if you also use histories to learn about the events in which they may have participated. For example, you might learn about events that occurred in the year your great-grandparents were married.

The following are some key dates and events in the history of Australia:

1788	The European settlement of Australia began with the English establishment of a penal colony at Sydney Cove, Port Jackson. Its initial population was more than 1,000 convicts and military personnel, known today as “First Fleeters.”
1790	The second fleet arrived in June and saved the colony from starvation. The population of the colony numbered more than 1,700.
1791	The third fleet arrived in August to October and included the first Irish transportees. The population of the colony numbered nearly 2,900 and included 87 free settlers, 44 of which were former convicts. The rest of the free settlers were discharged seamen and marines.
1793	The first free settler immigrants arrived in January.
1803	Australia’s first newspaper, the weekly Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, began publication in March. The first settlement in Van Dieman’s Land (called Tasmania since 1856) was founded at Risdon Cove. The settlement was later moved to the present-day site of Hobart.
1825	Van Dieman’s Land was proclaimed a separate colony, independent of New South Wales.
1826	Registration of births, marriages, and deaths in each parish was required by law.
1828	The first regular census was taken in New South Wales. The population was estimated at 36,598, including 15,728 convicts. The Swan River area of Western Australia was settled. The following year it was proclaimed a colony, and the site for Perth was selected.
1835	The “bounty” system of assisted immigration 1841 operated during these years.
1836	The Church Act gave all churches equal status.
1836	South Australia was proclaimed a colony, and 1837 the first settlement of Adelaide was established.
1838	New Zealand was proclaimed a colony, independent of New South Wales, on 3 May.
1839	Government-assisted immigration to Australia began.
1840	By “order in council,” New South Wales stopped receiving convicts. The order was rescinded by the British government in 1848, but few convicts were received thereafter.
1842	Electoral rolls, a valuable census of those eligible to vote, began to be published each election year in New South Wales. Those for Queensland began to be published in 1852 and those for Tasmania in 1859.
1850s	The Australian Gold Rush brought prospectors and emigrants from all over the world. More than a half million people emigrated to Australia during that decade.
1850	The New South Wales Legislative Council resolved to cease receiving transported convicts. Transportation to eastern Australia ended two years later, and transportation to Western Australia began.
1851	The Port Phillip district officially became the colony of Victoria, independent from New South Wales.
1858	The total population of the five existing colonies surpassed one million.
1859	The colony of Queensland separated from New South Wales.
1863	The area later known as the Northern Territory annexed from New South Wales to South Australia. It remained under South Australian administration until 1911, when the Commonwealth assumed administration. New Zealand offered free land grants to Australian volunteers to fight in the Second Taranaki War. By the end of the year, 1,475 volunteer military settlers from Australia had gone to New Zealand.
1868	Transportation of convicts to Australia ended. Approximately 160,000 convicts had been sent from Britain.
1901	Australia became a Commonwealth.
1911	The Australian Capital Territory was vested, and the Commonwealth took over the administration of the Northern Territory.
1917	The transcontinental railway was completed.