Guide to Ancestry Library Edition
Ancestry Library Edition is a huge subscription database, similar to the popular Ancestry.com, which you can use to trace your ancestors. It consists of thousands of smaller databases, some of which are listed below. It is available on all computer workstations within the State Library building. Please note that you will not be able to access it from home.
Access Ancestry Library Edition
Popular databases available on Ancestry Library Edition include:
- Australian convict index 1788-1868
- Australian electoral rolls 1901-1980
- New South Wales, Australia, Assisted Immigrant Passenger Lists, 1828-1896
- New South Wales, Australia, Unassisted Immigrant Passenger Lists, 1826-1922
- UK census records 1841-1901 (England, Wales, Scotland, Channel Islands & Isle of Man – not Ireland)
- Pallot’s Marriage Index 1780-1837
- US census records 1790-1930
- British Army World War I pension records, 1914-1920 (WO 364)
- British Army World War I medal rolls index cards, 1914-1920
- British phone books 1880-1984
- UK Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960
- UK birth, marriage and death indexes 1837-2005 (not complete but worth searching) *
* Remember that Ancestry is providing access to the indexes not to the original certificates. These will have to be ordered from the relevant registry office.
What else can I find?
Other types of records available include: parish records, wills, immigration records, directories, land records, court records, newspapers, gazetteers, maps and photographs.
How do I search?
Searching from the home page means that you are searching across a huge range of worldwide records and may retrieve results which are not relevant.
Instead, we recommend searching within a specific database or range of databases. For example, try clicking on UK Census Collection at the bottom of the screen.
Or, to search by a particular location, click on the Search tab at the top of the screen then scroll down to Browse by Location and click on the country of interest.
If you are unsure of the range of databases available, selecting all databases, at the bottom of the home page, takes you to the Ancestry database catalogue where you can type keywords or browse the list of databases available. For example, type convict in the keyword search box to see a list of all the databases available with convict information.
Printing census pages from Ancestry
- Firstly, make sure that your photocopy card has been charged.
- Click on View Image (from list of results) or View original image (from original record).
- If a screen appears asking you to click here, click on the first click here in large, underlined, coloured print. If not, go straight to the next step.
- Click on the Print icon at the top right of the screen.
- Wait for the image to download.
- Click on the little arrow next to the print icon (5th icon to the right, at the top of the new screen).
- From the drop-down menu select Page Setup.
- Change the print orientation to Landscape.
- Change the margins to 0.5 for all, i.e. left, top, right and botton, then click OK.
- Go back to the print icon at the top of the page, click on the little arrow and select Print.
- Look under Page range and click on Pages: 1 and then click Print.
- Go to the print station and swipe your photocopy card to access the print list.
NB: The image will take several minutes to download to the printer.
Saving census page images from Ancestry
- Click on View Image (from list of results) or View original image (from original record).
- If a screen appears asking you to click here, click on the first click here in large, underlined, coloured print. If not, go straight to the next step.
- Insert thumb drive.
- Click on the Save icon at the top right of the screen.
- Wait for the image to download.
- Right click and select Save Picture As.
- Select Shortcut to Thumb Drive and click Save. N.B. See instructions below if this doesn't work.
- Remember to remove your thumb drive.
Troubleshooting
Some thumb drives will result in an error message 'The disk in drive E is not formatted. Do you want to format it now? Select No.
In this case, please follow the instructions below:
- Right click and select Save Picture As to save your image to the Desktop instead of using the Shortcut to Thumb Drive option.
- Minimise Ancestry and double click on the icon Shortcut to CD Drive. Click on Folders near the top of the screen.
- Double click on the correct drive.
- Drag the image from the Desktop to the screen for your thumb drive.
- Click on the minimised Ancestry button to return to your search.
- When you have finished all downloading, double click on the red cross icon to clear the desktop.
Emailing
Please note that you can only ever email a total of five records to any one email address.
Need to know more?
The official guide to Ancestry.com is a comprehensive guide to using this database.
Page last updated: Wednesday 18 January 2012
