Australia Business Records and Commerce

Online Records

 * 1831 - Australian almanack, for the year of our Lord 1831
 * 1869 - Indian and colonial mercantile directory for 1869
 * 1873 - Australian handbook & almanac & shipper & importers directory
 * 1888 - The Australasian federal directory of commerce, trades & professions
 * 1893 - The Australian handbook (incorporating New Zealand, Fiji, and New Guinea) shippers and importers' directory & business guide for 1893
 * 1893-1899 - Australasian federal pastoral directory List of stockowners [ranchers] in the colonies of New South Wales, New Zealand, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, and Tasmania.
 * 1913, 1923, 1925, 1931, 1954: Australia Pastoral Directories at Ancestry; index & images ($); Also at FindMyPast ($)
 * 1954 - List of stockowners in the states of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Northern Territory, and Tasmania

Content of Business Records
Australia businesses and commercial companies seldom contain dates or places of birth, marriage, or death but they can have valuable genealogical information.
 * For example, lawyers at the time kept detailed records for their clients. Included in these records are:
 * probate material
 * adoption records
 * insurance papers
 * lawsuits, and other sources that may help you trace your ancestors.
 * Some bank ledgers in Australia give:
 * the name
 * occupation
 * residence
 * age
 * place of birth (by county and country)
 * year of immigration and name of ship
 * a physical description of depositors.
 * Pub owners, butchers, lumberjacks, auctioneers, or other professionals had to be licensed. Licenses were granted by the courts, and notices were then published in the Government Gazette. For further information about gazettes, read the Court Records article.

Finding Business Records
Many business records are deposited in Australian national archives, state archives, and other local repositories. For further information, read the Archives and Libraries article.

The Family History Library has few business records. To find call numbers for the records in the library, use the Place Search in the catalog under:

AUSTRALIA - BUSINESS RECORDS AND COMMERCE

AUSTRALIA,[STATE] - BUSINESS RECORDS AND COMMERCE

AUSTRALIA,[STATE], [TOWN] - BUSINESS RECORDS AND COMMERCE

There is an ABN (Australian Business Number) Lookup tool online.