Most of us in Australia use Ancestry to build our family tree. There are limitations with the records available online and limitations with record sets that can’t be released until a time period has past. The limitations with this is that the records have a release date, so births, marriages and deaths are available only after a time period has past, depending on the state. This is designed to protect the living.
One of the best set of records to trace a person are the electoral rolls but they are not all online. Ancestry does not hold every year and they end at 1980 so if you are looking for someone born after 1922 and still alive after 1992 then electoral rolls are the answer.
The rolls can help you find past and current generations. There are many reasons why you may need or want to look for the living when building a family tree. An obvious one is looking for an unknown parent or grandparent with the use of DNA plus genealogy. There are other reasons, such as looking for a long lost living relative , returning a discovered heirloom or finding someone who may know stories about the family.
Where do you find them? Most state libraries have the Commonwealth electoral rolls available deep into the 2000’s and I have spent hours at the library searching electorates year after year to trace a family. It is very satisfying when you find a child appear in the household after they turn 18 then follow them until a partner and their children appear.
But don’t forget the State electoral rolls. The Queensland electoral rolls are a goldmine of information. They have notations that show where a person moved and name changes after marriage so if you lose someone on the Commonwealth rolls check out the state rolls.
Trace Genealogy 