Theatrical Genealogy

 So you have a relative who was in the Australian theatre? 

Here are some places to find them.

This site:

There are two places to look for theatrical ancestors on this site.

1. An 18000 name list of people who performed in the Australian Theatre. This is a pdf file which I store on googledrive. 

2. Indexed Theatre Programmes- A project to index the hundreds of theatre programmes I own. Names of performers are indexed and you can search for them using the search tool on the site. I have recently added about 20 Tivoli programmes from the 1920s. 

Photographs

On the home page you can find a link to my photograph/postcard collection

Other Sites;

Trove newspapers. - Australian searchable newspaper database

State Library of Victoria- Australiana database ( has Theatre Magazine indexed)

Austage- Performing artists database.

SOME NOTES;

For vaudeville performers. For many years,  The Referee newspaper in Sydney had a couple of regular pages on theatrical doings.. The Referee is now indexed by Trove.

From 1913-1921, there was a magazine called Australian Variety. This is not indexed, but is available on microfilm from the State Libraries.

For legitimate theatre- Theatre Magazine, which has been indexed by the State Library of Victoria is a good resource. Use the Australiana search.

General Research/notes

Austage is a very large database which is growing all the time. It has indexed thousands of programmes from Australian productions. It is limited as it is a volunteer project and relies on access to programmes.

For international research, both Variety and Billboard magazine are available through the internet archive for free.

The British newspaper archive is pay walled after a few free searches, but worth a shot.

General Genealogical sites.

General genealogical sources are also useful. Each Australian state has its own Births deaths and marriages facility which is searchable on line. It costs to obtain the certificates.

Each state also has its own archives. These can provide information about divorces, properties and wills.

The National Archives of Australia has full downloadable war records. Often these will have genealogical information and also information about theatrical occupations. 

 Many local libraries have access to Ancestry library edition. This is a very valuable resource and is free at these libraries. Ancestry is good for shipping/census/family records and sometimes has photos. 

Family search. org can also provide valuable information. They have quite extensive shipping records and provide free online searches.

Don't forget to check New Zealand records. The National Library of New Zealand is a great resource, as is Papers Past NZ which is the New Zealand version of Trove.