Great news for fans of the hit TV show Who Do You Think You Are? The new Australian series starts on SBS One on Tuesday 2nd April at 7.30pm.

Celebrities in this series include actress Asher Keddie, actors Michael Caton, Lex Marionos and Don Harry, TV personality Rove Mc Manus and actress Susie Porter.

In the first episode, comedian and television presenter Adam Hills traces the desperate journeys undertaken by his migrant ancestors.

Adam is keen to find out what brought his two great grandfathers to Australia in the early 20th century.

His great grandfather, Oscar Kluckhenn, who arrived in Australia in 1907 at age twenty, had to hide his Austrian nationality as World War One loomed.

Adam also traces the story of great grandfather Joseph Vassallo’s journey from Malta, and discovers a tale of migration through desperation.

Want to discuss the show? Join the conversation on Facebook or Twitter using the hash tag #WDYTYA.

December Monthly Newsletter

Recently Updated Collections | Australian & UK Updates

Not only do we continually add new content, we also constantly update our existing content. Parish records are a wonderful source of information on births, marriages and deaths before 1837 (when Civil Registration began). Have a look at our updated Dorset and Liverpool Parish records for new information on your family.

(Add to AU versions only) If you’ve got convict ancestors, they may be in the recently updated NSW, Gaol Description and Entrance Books, 1818-1930  covering convicts from Sydney, Darlinghurst, Albury, Berrima, Goldburn, Maitland and Newcastle prisons.

Research Tip | Making The Most Of Holidays

Family get-togethers around holidays like Christmas are a great time to find answers to your family history mysteries. Whether you are planning on conducting formal interviews with your relatives to find out more about your family or just a little discreet prying, a little pre-planning can go a long way. We have put together some tips to help you make the most of your time with family.

Find out more in our blog.

Facebook Update | Add Ancestry to your Interest List

If you are one of our 10,000 friends on Facebook, you may be aware that due to changes to the website, Facebook no longer shows every Ancestry.com.au page post to all likers of our page. Ensure you don’t miss out on any news by adding Ancestry to your interest list. Simply visit our Facebook page  and on the right hand side of the page, next to the “Like” button there is a drop down box. Click on the drop down and click “Add to Interest List”. Thank you for your continued support!

Member Services | AU & NZ Christmas Opening Hours

Keep up-to-date with the latest news from Ancestry.com.au on our Facebook page, Twitter feed or through our blogs. We share member stories, tips on researching your family tree, and details of new records being added to the website. It also gives you the opportunity to connect with us — you can ask us questions or share your discoveries.

Join us on Facebook

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Read the Ancestry blog

Share your stories on Sticky Notes

Find the latest video tutorials to help you with your research:

1) Researching Irish Ancestors: Click here

2) Researching British Ancestors: Click here

3) Researching Military Ancestors: Click here

Ancestry Brad Argent gives you tips and hints on researching your Immigrant Ancestors on Ancestry.com.au. Watch now: Researching Immigrant Ancestors

Ancestry Brad Argent gives you tips and hints on researching Birth, Marriage and Death Indexes from Ancestry.com.au. Watch now: Reasearching Birth, Marrige & Death Indexes

1. Refine Search: Easily add information or remove it from your search – no more scrolling to the bottom of the page
2. Categories: Narrow your search by new, better organized content categories and subcategories
3. Matching Person: Get the best matches possible from family trees on Ancestry
4. Record Preview: Hover over a search result to preview more detailed information without having to click on the result
5. Image Snapshots: View sections of newspaper and journal images highlighting your search terms to see whether a match is relevant
6. Photo Results: See thumbnails of photos in your search results
7. Record Counts: Quickly learn how many matches you have
8. Site-wide Search: Search all of Ancestry at once without sacrificing a thing – and find photos, historical records, newspapers and histories all on the same page in a simpler, easier-to-read layout.

1. Type-ahead Tools: Type information into a search field and Ancestry will forecast what you’re typing and fill in the remaining fields based on information already in your family tree
2. Advanced Search Options: Narrow your search with advanced search options that make sure your results exactly match the terms you’ve specified
3. Powerful Filters: Easily browse titles in Ancestry’s card catalogue by filtering a title’s category, location and/or date simultaneously
4. Sorting: Sort the list of titles you’re interested in alphabetically, by the date it was added or last updated, by popularity or by size.
5. Keyword Search: Find a specific title on Ancestry using keywords.

Don’t give up. When you’re faced with the tough task of tracing an elusive female back through history, it pays to be persistent, particularly because you’ll find plenty of rewards by tracing female family lines, too. Instead, tackle the challenge of following a female with the following tips – you may find that your great-great-grandmother’s maiden name and hiding place aren’t so far out of reach after all.

Tip 1: Ask around. Does anyone else in the family know the maiden name or recall other family names that could be associated with Great-Grandma?

Tip 2: Check online family trees. You may discover that someone else has already jotted down a maiden name for Great-Grandma (although you’ll want to reconstruct the research to be certain it’s the right maiden name and the right Great-Grandma).

Tip 3: Look at home. Is there a family member with an attic full of memorabilia? Something hidden in there, including wedding announcements, funeral cards, details on the backs of photos, notes on postcards and letters, or even an old diary, could point you to Great-Grandma’s name. Also check related collections at Ancestry.com.au, including public member photos.

Tip 4: Research the church. While a marriage license should point you to Great-Grandma’s maiden name, you may not luck into finding one (prior to Federation, individual States were often hit and miss with vital records). Church records and registers, however, may hold clues, including who married whom.

Tip 5: Note people nearby. Property records, marriage records, naturalization records and more, whether in Great-Grandma’s name or her husbands’, may have included witnesses from her side of the family. Also consider that Great-Grandpa may have done business with Great-Grandma’s kin.

Tip 6: Search the children. While birth records may also be hard to come by prior to the 20th century, children are great keepers of clues. Middle names may have come from Great-Grandma’s side of the family – one of them may even be her maiden name. Baptism records could include the name of a sponsor or godparent who was related to Great-Grandma.

Tip 7: Revisit the neighborhood. It may seem cliché, but Great-Grandma could have married the boy next door. Follow her husband back through the census. Is there a female nearby whose name and other details (birthplace, birth year, parents’ birthplaces) mirror the facts you know about Great-Grandma? Follow her forward to see if she married Great-Grandpa.

Tip 8: Dig around the family plot. Families often remained together even after death. Cemetery records may mention Great-Grandma’s side of the family, and cemetery plots may be very close to Great-Grandma’s family.

Tip 9: Move forward. Clues from Great-Grandma’s married census records may point you to her past. If another adult is living with the family, it could be an elderly parent who moved in or Great-Grandma’s younger sibling, who’s helping with the kids. Follow that person back through census records to see if he or she might be the clue you need to locate Great-Grandma’s maiden name.

Tip 10: Read the newspaper. Obituaries can hold valuable details, including the names of Great-Grandma’s male siblings or cousins, whose surnames mirror her maiden name. Also look for wedding and engagement announcements for Great-Grandpa. Do the same (plus birth announcements) for Great-Grandma’s children – if their grandparents are listed, you’ll have found Great-Grandma’s parents.

In support of Movember, our friends at Inside History magazine are asking people to share photos of their moustached ancestors to help raise funds for men’s health. For each “hairy mancestor” posted, Inside History will donate 50c to the Movember cause.

To share your photos of your hairy mancestors, simply “Like” the Inside History Movember Facebook page and post your photo. Include their name, story and the approximate date of the photo. For each hairy mancestor posted, Inside History will donate 50c to Movember. To increase the donation to $1, post a current pic of yourself (or partner, brother, father, son etc) sporting a similarly fabulous moustache alongside your ancestor’s photo so we can see the resemblance.

Everyone who uploads a photo of their ancestor will go into the draw to win one of two Ancestry.com.au World Heritage Memberships. So what are you waiting for? Upload your hairy mancestor today!

While geographically Australia and England are thousands of kilometres apart, as part of the Commonwealth and with over a third of Australians claiming British ancestry[iii], the ties of the Empire remain strong.

We recent carried out a survey of Australians’ attitudes towards England and the Royal Family which included more than 1000 Aussies[iv] and found that Australia appears to be evenly divided when it comes to whether the country should remain a constitutional monarchy.  Just over half (52%) want to stay under Britannia’s rule and 48% wish to become a Republic. Not surprisingly, the residents of the Australian Capital Territory were the strongest supporters of becoming a republic with 63% wanting to move on from the monarchy.

Prince William is the clear favourite to ascend to the throne with 81% preferring him over Prince Charles. Tasmania (90%) and South Australia (89%) are Wills’ biggest supporters, while Charles’ main cheerleaders are in the ACT (25% followed by Victoria (21%).

For British descendants in Australia, family history looks to run deep. Over 75% of Australians surveyed who claimed British ancestry were able to trace their history back at least 100 years. Many families immigrated to Australia with the promise of a better life and cheap passage, with 18%  indicating they or their family moved to Australia as part of the ‘ten pound pom’ scheme following the Second World War. The incentive program was designed to substantially increase the population of Australia and to supply workers for the country’s booming industries and attracted over one million migrants.[v]

Additional highlights from the national survey include:

-          Senior jubilee: Almost 40% of Australians surveyed planned on watching or celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. For those over 65 years of age, the number jumped to almost 60 %.

-          Party time: Of the respondents who are planning on celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, most (94%) intended to watch the event on television, 5% planned on celebrating in ‘traditional British fashion’ by drinking warm beer and eating fish and chips, and 3% proposed to mark the event by having high tea.

-          Doggone it: Over 60% of Australians strongly associate Corgis (dog breed) or the Union Jack with the Queen and England.

Brad Argent, Ancestry.com.au Content Director for Australia and New Zealand, comments: “The 236 million records from the UK freely accessible this weekend represent an unprecedented opportunity to find out just how British you really are.

It’s an excellent starting point for new family historians to learn about their past and should provide a wealth of information for more experienced researchers to build on their discoveries.”

To access the free collections, please visit www.ancestry.com.au.