Tasmania Newspapers


 * Tasmanian Newspapers & Journals, links to several digitized sources
 * The Ryerson Index – Death notices and obituaries in Australian newspapers
 * The Sydney Dead Persons Society began indexing death notices in the Sydney newspapers. This project has grown into the Ryerson Index which now (July 2013) indexes death notices and obituaries in 222 newspapers and has over 4,000,000 entries.


 * 1600-- - Historic newspapers from 1​600 at Libraries Tasmania, index and images.
 * 1776-1980 - Australia miscellaneous genealogical records : COLLECTION RECORD, 1776-1980 at FamilySearch, index. Browse images
 * 1816-1900+ - Whitfield Index at Libraries Tasmania, images of index.
 * A selective index of personal names found in Tasmanian colonial newspapers, 1816-1900. There are a few entries for the years after 1900. The main emphasis is on the names of members of early settler and eminent families, though the scope is sometimes wider. The main data recorded are for births, deaths and marriages, wills and bequests, land grants and property sales. There is a small subsection of topical and geographic subject entries.


 * 1816 onward - Hobart Town Gazette 1816 Onwards An index to people listed in some issues of The Hobart Town Gazette, includes type of listing and date and page number of publication
 * 1835-1840 - Births, Deaths and Marriages Index 1835 - 1840, listed in the newspaper Cornwall Chronicle, index.
 * 1842 - Hawker's & Carrier's Licences. Tasmania.1842, published in the Hobart Town Gazette
 * 1854-1962 - Tasmania, Australia, Index to Marriage Notices in The Mercury, 1854-1962 - at Ancestry, Index ($)
 * 1854-1920 - Tasmania, Australia, Index to Death Notices in The Mercury, 1854-1930 - at Ancestry Index ($)
 * 1877-1921 - Tasmanian Ma​il 1877-1921 at Libraries Tasmania, images.
 * 1898 - Licenses to Retail Liquor1898 taken from Hobart Gazette
 * 1901-1935 - Weekly cou​rier 1901-1935​ at Libraries Tasmania, images.
 * 1914-1919 - WW1 Photographs (1914-1919) at Libraries Tasmania, index and images. Photographs and articles from the Tasmanian Mail and Weekly Courier illustrated newspaper.
 * 1920s-1950s - Wayn index
 * Digitised version of a handwritten card index to colonial Tasmanian Government records and colonial newspapers compiled by Amelia Lucy Wayn during the period from the 1920s to 1940s. They were then added to by staff employed in the Archives Office in the 1950s.

TROVE

 * TROVE
 * More than 40 historical Tasmanian newspaper titles are free online on Trove, and more are being added.​​

Government and Police Gazettes

 * 1907-1919 - Tasmania Government Gazettes at FindMyPast ($), index.
 * 1871-1900 - Tasmania Police Gazettes at FindMyPast ($), index.
 * 1884-1933 - Tasmania, Australia, Police Gazettes, 1884-1933 at Ancestry ($), index and images.
 * 1966-1994 - Tasmanian newspaper index. 1966-1994 at Libraries Tasmania, index.
 * The Tasmanian Index provides references to articles in the three metropolitan Tasmanian newspapers: the Mercury, the Examiner and the Advocate, and to many other Tasmanian journals and regional newspapers. Most articles are indexed, but there are some exclusions (including routine sport reports and results, and reports of court proceedings). The Index also includes references to the contents of a few important early Tasmanian publications such as John West's History of Tasmania (1852) and the Cyclopedia of Tasmania (1900 and 1931).

Australia

 * Australia Newspapers at MyHeritage, ($), index
 * Australia Newspaper Vital Notices, 1851-1997 at Ancestry, ($), index, incomplete.
 * Australian Lutheran at FindMyPast, ($), index.

What information can be found in newspapers
Given the relative ease of finding the precise date of births, deaths and marriages, with the right newspaper, you have a good chance of finding:


 * birth notices - generally published within a couple of weeks of birth
 * marriage notices - generally published on the day or sometimes as a "pre-marriage" notice a week or so in advance
 * death notices - generally published within a week or so of death
 * funeral notices - generally published with a week or so of death

In smaller towns, social pages of the newspapers would often write up the details of a wedding. These may appear up to a month or so later; I think the newspapers "saved them up" for days when there was no other social news to report. They often give a quite detailed list of the bridesmaids and groomsmen (often family members) as well as relatives and friends who attended. The dresses of the bride, bridemaids and mothers of the bride and groom are often described in great detail. Others who contributed to the ceremony or reception (singers, musicians, cake icing, etc) are mentioned and again are often relatives.

Similarly, smaller towns often publish obituaries, again appearing some time in the next month or so (possibly waiting for a slow news day). These will often have the full life story and a lot of vital clues can be found within them. Some newspapers will give an account of the funeral, listing the pallbearers and those who sent wreaths etc or simply attended (many of whom will be relatives). Sometimes the funeral and the obituary appear as a combined article.

In larger cities, there is far less likelihood of finding obituaries or accounts of weddings and funerals, unless the person was very well-known.

Engagement notices were often published, but with virtually no other records to provide any clues as to the date of the engagement, finding them tends to be a matter of luck or great persistance (reading through many editions of the newspaper).

Accounts of other events in the lives of your family (sporting achievements, accidents, etc) are frequently reported in the newspapers, especially in smaller towns. However, unless you have some awareness of the event from other sources that provides you with an approximate date, you are unlikely to find them except by luck or persistance. While there is a wealth of information in newspapers, the lack of indexing is a significant barrier to unlocking these valuable resources.