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Western Australia Civil Register Team

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Western Australia Civil Register Team


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Western Australia Civil Register Team

Welcome to the Western Australia Civil Register Team page. This team is a part of the Western Australia Team, and are working on systematically linking WA BDM records to WikiTree profiles.

The civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths in Western Australia was established in 1841 by the 9th act of parliament, in An Act to provide for the Registration of Births, Deaths, and Marriages, in the Colony of Western Australia.

Citation format

Entries in the BMD register should be cited in wiki pages following the formats shown on the Sources and Citations - Western Australia page.

Guidelines

Don't create a profile based on nothing but the index entry. Do create a profile if you can do any of the following in addition to an index entry:

  • Connect the profile to at least one other profile, or
  • Add information to the profile that would plausibly enable connecting it to family members down the track, or
  • You can say something interesting about the person.

Team Members

Links/Resources

  • Western Australia, Births, Deaths and Marriages index online search tool
  • Tool for tracking which profiles have references to the BMD index: WA BMD
Data scrapes
Births: births.csv births_old.csv
Marriages: marriages.csv marriages_old.csv
Deaths: deaths.csv deaths_old.csv

Mark's Spreadsheets

These include registered births and all identified unregistered births (about 1 in 7 of the total) by year. They are more working spreadsheets and I don't generally keep a year updated after I have moved past it. As at 2 March 2024 I am working on 1860.

Statistics

These two G2G posts show demographic analysis of the 1829-1859 population which is 90% complete.

These are the latest posts on completeness statistics

Methodology for Completeness Calculation

Resources

Collaboration on Western Australia Civil Register Team

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  • Private Messages: Send a private message to the Profile Manager. (Best when privacy is an issue.)
  • Public Comments: Login to post. (Best for messages specifically directed to those editing this profile. Limit 20 per day.)

Memories of Western Australia Civil Register Team

Photos of Western Australia Civil Register Team: 1



Comments on Western Australia Civil Register Team: 12


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Troy Phillips
I just had a thought that maybe there should be a category for unregistered births (sub-divided in decade/period if there are heaps etc)

posted by Troy Phillips

Kylie Haese
Yeah that sounds great because I often wonder that. How likely it is that a birth may have not been registered. I think it would be useful!

posted by Kylie Haese

Mark Dorney
I'm nearly finished with 1862 births and 1 in 8 are unregistered, or to put it another way, for every seven registered births there is one unregistered birth. Usually, there is a baptismal record, but that's probably mainly because if there is no baptismal record available, it's pretty hard to identify an unregistered birth. The true unregistered count will be higher, and that's even just for colonists. Obviously most Aboriginal births in the period are unregistered.

posted by Mark Dorney

Sam Wilson
What do you all think of the source format as I've just added to Egerton-Warburton-65? It comes from this. The crux of it is to have some code or standard form that can be searched for in order to know if a WT profile references the BMD index, and currently it's looking for "WABMD-birth-1881/21623". Is that good? Or is it a bit strange to have an invented code like that?

posted by Sam Wilson

Kylie Haese
I like it but I think it would be better if there was also a link to this page https://wabmd.nfshost.com/birth/1881/21623#gsc.tab=0

posted by Kylie Haese

Sam Wilson
I totally agree, but I also don't want to make it seem like that site is official in any way. Perhaps we should ask for an external link template, that way the URL can easily be changed or removed at a later date if needed?

posted by Sam Wilson

Mark Dorney
Sorry missed this. Looks good to me, although Kylie’s comment makes sense too.

posted by Mark Dorney

Sam Wilson
The proposed guideline above looks good, thanks Mark. We don't want to create thousands of unconnected profiles that can never have anything said about them other than what's in the index entry. I think a requirement of two sources (the index plus one other) would be fine.

posted by Sam Wilson

Mark Dorney
I think we need to be more proscriptive. Two sources could be the index and the burial or baptism record on family search, and you’d still potentially have an unconnected profile about which nothing can be said.

Perhaps a two source requirement, but excluding “birth plus baptism “ and “death plus burial”. Although sometimes you get an infant death that can be linked to a birth, but there’s no handle on the parents beyond names. That for me would also be a no for creating a profile.

posted by Mark Dorney

Sam Wilson
Yes that sounds sensible: two sources but the 2nd non-BMD one has to be something other than government/church. This is just for unconnected ones though — if they're connected, then just the BMD is okay?

posted by Sam Wilson

Mark Dorney
That's certainly my point of view.

And to be clear I see unconnected as fine too, as long as there's additional information. For example, I've entered many deaths of Ticket of Leave men who are unconnected, but there's information about them that could plausibly connect them later. And I feel a death making it into the newspaper is usually interesting enough to add, even if the profile is unconnected.

posted by Mark Dorney

Sam Wilson
Ah good point. Yeah, I'm keen to include as many as possible.

posted by Sam Wilson