After World War II, Australia took advantage of the instability and insecurity in Europe and some Asian countries to encourage refugees and displaced persons to migrate to Australia. Populating Australia was seen as a way of ensuring our safety and guaranteeing our future. It was argued that increasing our population would make Australia a less likely target for invasion.
Many intending migrants applied for assisted passage to Australia. These applications and the associated documents are known as 'Migrant selection documents'. The Archives in Canberra has large holdings of these documents.
Similar records for assisted migrants who arrived in Australia before World War II may be held by the State Government archives for the state of arrival. See Fact Sheet 2 – Addresses of other archival institutions for contact addresses.
Personal information on individual migrants found in migrant selection documents usually consists of name, nationality, date and place of birth, spouse (if any), names of children (if any), and trade/ occupation/ training summary. Many include passport sized photographs. On some documents, names of next-of-kin or parents are included. Other information is limited to travel, accommodation and medical details.
| Description and arrangement of records | Date | Series no. |
|---|---|---|
British migrants' selection documents – Commonwealth nominees
| 1950–73 | |
Non-British European migrant selection documents
| 1951–65 | |
British migrant selection documents – professionals (Form ES35A)
| 1963–65 | |
General assisted passage scheme, migrant selection documents
| 1964–65 | |
Non-British European migrant selection documents – assisted passage scheme
| 1966–73
| |
General assisted passage scheme, special passage assistance program and Netherlands Australia migration agreement documents
| 1966–67 | |
General assisted passage scheme, special passage assistance program and Netherlands Australia migration agreement documents
| 1968–73 | |
Returning Australian scheme
| 1968–ongoing | |
Second assistance scheme
| 1968–71 |
In 1947 Australia agreed to include in its migration program people living in camps in Germany who had been brought from their occupied homelands in eastern and central Europe during World War II to work in German industry, or who had fled their homes in the face of occupation, and after the war were unable or unwilling to return. Between 1947 and 1953 Australia received over 170,000 migrants from this source under the ‘Displaced Persons’ program.
The migrant selection documents for those who arrived as displaced persons are listed at item level on the RecordSearch database, which is available in all reading rooms and on our website. They are arranged in nominal roll order for each voyage or airflight to Australia. The RecordSearch item entry includes the full name and date of birth of each person. Where a number of people listed on a nominal roll have been identified as a family group a single RecordSearch entry has been made that lists the names and birth dates of each person in the group. Searches for items on RecordSearch using the names of migrants should identify the records sought. Remember to use variations in the spelling of names if the expected result is not returned.
The records for each voyage or airflight have been arranged into separate series. Consult the information in the series registration for records you are interested in to find the name of the ship, dates of the voyage and related information.
Collections of migrant selection documents are also held by the Archives in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth (see Fact Sheet 185 – Migrant selection documents held in Perth) and Adelaide.
Case files for unassisted migrants since 1945 may be located in the main Department of Immigration correspondence series and the migration case files series of various overseas posts (such as Rome, Athens or Bonn). Identify these series on RecordSearch by conducting keyword searches using 'migrant' or 'migration', or by searching for series created by the relevant post.
Comments or other feedback can be sent to archives@naa.gov.au
updated April 2003