Summary heading

 [Copies of Immigration Nominal Rolls for Voyages and Flights]

Function and purpose

 This series contains immigration nominal rolls for flights and voyages to Australia for the period 1951 to 1973.  National Archives of Australia rearranged the nominal rolls into a series when nominal rolls were separated from the migrant selection documents. This occurred as part of a repackaging project and in order to identify individuals on specific flights and voyages.

An immigration nominal roll lists passengers travelling to Australia under particular immigration schemes.  Multiple copies of these nominal rolls were sent from the Australian migration offices in Europe to the migrant reception centres in Australia, together with migrant selection documents and medical reports.

Typically, nominee details on the rolls include surname, given name, citizenship, religion, marital status, gender, date of birth or age, country of birth, occupation, the date and place of issue and sometimes additional information such as the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) status of the nominee.  For nominees who were not government assisted but were sponsored by an individual or organisation, the name of the sponsor may be included, such as the World Council of Churches (WCC) Revolving Fund or a private sponsor.

The cover sheet for a nominal roll generally provides the departure date and port for the flight or voyage, and statistical data for nominees by age and gender, the numbers who contributed to the fares, and sometimes statistics on age of the nominees.

Using the series

 Unlike a passenger list that notes all the persons that travelled on the voyage or flight, a nominal roll is a list of persons designated for travel under a specific migration scheme.  This may also account for any discrepancies in the actual travel dates and names as shown on a ship’s manifesto.

Sometimes, names were removed and the migrants may have travelled on a later ship or aircraft. This occurred for personal reasons or when migration paperwork remained outstanding.  Migrants from the Nominal Roll Reserves List then filled the seats and berths on aircraft or ship. In these instances, the names on the nominal roll may not occur in the alphabetical listing but may appear towards the end of the roll. 

Each nominal roll is alphabetical, however, the alphabetical sequence may recommence with each particular migration scheme. Migrants from several schemes travelled on the same voyage. For example the alphabetical listing for migrants proceeding under the NAMA Agreement on the SS Zuiderkruis from Amsterdam on 19 January1956 commenced with ‘A’ for each of the various schemes that came under this Agreement. Sometimes, names within the schemes were in alphabetical order by category of migrant, for example family groups or male workers.

When searching by name it is worth checking under different spelling conventions used for the names as a name spelt traditionally on the nominal roll may have been recorded on other documents as an Anglicised version, example Giovanni and John.

Many nominees on specific schemes travelled on charter flights.  Sometimes, nominal rolls were titled by the charter flight name for example PROFLIGHT or MIQAN and at other times they were titled by name of the airline company, for example KLM or Qantas. 

In the case of a single voyage, there are separate nominal rolls for each set of passengers that came aboard at various ports en route to Australia.  For example, there will be a separate nominal roll for migrants who started the voyage in Bremerhaven (Germany) and another nominal roll dated two days later for those who came aboard in Naples (Italy). 

When consulting nominal rolls it is worth remembering that the port of disembarkation in Australia was not always the final destination of a particular migrant.  Within Australia, migrants continued the journey by other means, including railway or internal flights. 

Many non-British migrants proceeded to take up Australian citizenship and therefore their naturalisation and citizenship records may also be available. When searching for these records by name it is worth noting that migrants were often given the option of changing their names at naturalisation and many may have chosen to do so.

Physical characteristics

 The records in this series vary in their physical condition from those that are pristine and stapled together to some that are incomplete, torn or consist of stray pages.  The lists were generated in a number of offices and over a period of twenty years. This accounts for the variety in the quality and type of paper used including thermal paper, tissue paper, carbon-copies and photocopies.

Typically, a nominal roll consists of foolscap sheets or forms in landscape format.  Nominal rolls were used as working documents and as such many are annotated in ink or pencil as amendments were made to details, for example any changes to a nominee’s occupation or a correction to the spelling of a name or to add or remove a name.

System of arrangement and control

 As the original order of the records was destroyed the NAA has imposed a single number control system and arranged the records chronologically by year, then alphabetically by airline or ship within the year.  When there are multiple flights or voyages for the same airline or ship, they are arranged by date within the alphabetical sequence.  For example:

• Groote Beer ex Amsterdam 7 January 1960
• Groote Beer ex Naples 9 January 1960
• Groote Beer ex Amsterdam 15 September 1960
• KLM ex Amsterdam 4 January 1960
• MIQAN ex Schiphol 4 January 1960

Relationships with other records

 These nominal rolls relate to migrant selection and accommodation documents from Bonegilla Migrant Reception Centre and Department of Labor and Immigration and Department of Immigration.

Finding aids

 All nominal rolls in this series have been entered on RecordSearch as at April 2006. 

Archives Factsheets provide information to all migration records, including naturalisation, citizenship, passenger lists and disembarkation cards.

Series history

 Between 2001 and 2005 the National Archives of Australia repackaged records received from Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla and the Department of Labor and Immigration and entered the data on RecordSearch. Nominal rolls in the records were separated during this process as an aid to identifying migrants on particular voyages and flights. In 2006, Archives rearranged the nominal rolls into a series in order to impose intellectual and physical control over them.

Custodial history

 The nominal rolls in this series were part of records recorded and transferred to National Archives of Australia by Bonegilla Migrant Reception Centre, the Department of Labor and Immigration and the subsequent Department of Immigration. They were transferred either directly from Bonegilla or via the Department’s Central Office.

When the Migrant Reception and Training Centre at Bonegilla closed in 1971 records were transferred directly to National Archives of Australia. However, some documents, including the migrants’ selection documents continued to be held in regional offices of the Department of Immigration and were forwarded from time to time to the NAA or to the Department’s central office.  With the closure of Bonegilla, the Department of Labor and Immigration was designated as the recording agency and the transferring agency.  The Department of Immigration had reorganised its system for the selection documents in August 1973. From time to time the Department of Immigration forwarded records to NAA.  In all there are twenty series listed on RecordSearch as being recorded by the Bonegilla Migrant Reception Centre.

Disposal history

 These records are to be retained permanently by National Archives under RDA 902/11.