The births, deaths and marriage indexes have been obtained from each of the State’s registers and have been sorted in up to three different ways - by date, by name and by parents in the births and deaths indexes and by date, name and spouse’s surname in the case of marriages. Where the full details of events have been published (e.g. for New South Wales and Tasmania prior to 1856), these details have been included.

In my research, I found that the surname Fitzsimmons could be spelt several different ways for the same person, and so, for completeness, I have included all variations of that name. Some entries have been duplicated as the surname was spelt different ways in the indexes - in these cases both variants are included. Obvious mispellings in the originals have not been corrected, it is up to the reader to determine the correctness of the original. Spelling was not the forte of clerks, priests and ministers in the 19th century.

In each list, the first column contains a record number which, I must point out, is my own numbering system and has no relevance elsewhere. The numbering system is, however, internally consistent in that the same person, if in more than one table, will retain the same number.

In my work, I have made every effort to faithfully reproduce the index entries from microfiche or microfilm. Some of the original document entries were handwritten or had faded or had been damaged by water or had decayed through old age and poor storage. For this reason, errors in translation are inevitable. The error rate I believe is small. Where I could not determine the correct details in an entry, I have inserted a ‘?’. Sometimes this replaces a single character in a word, or denotes a best guess for a whole word when it follows the word.

While these indexes provide an excellent introduction to family history research, they should only be seen as the start of your research. Certificates or extracts of birth, death or marriage records can provide much more information as the introduction to each state will show. Details on how to obtain certificates and extracts can also be found in the state introductions. The full range of services offered by each Australian state plus fees for certificates can be found using the links to the homepages of all the states’ registries. Note that quoting the registration number will often mean lower fees when applying for certificates as no search is required by staff of the registry.

It should be stressed that all birth, death and marriage registry data is sensitive information and that full details in the form of certificates and extracts may not be made available to people outside the immediate family. This varies from state to state and I have attempted to summarise access requirements in the introduction to each state. Full details are in the state registries’ homepages. Data in the indexes in this page should not be used in any way that may embarrass others.

Finally I would like to thank all the people behind the scene who have worked on indexing old records making it easier for family researchers like myself, and also to my cousin Colin Fitzsimmons, and my late father, Jack Fitzsimmons, for helping to keep the interest alive.

I would appreciate feedback on this site, or details of family trees related to the Fitzsimmons family. Please e-mail to dave_fitzsimmons@hotmail.com.