Koori Health Research Database

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Introduction

This database was built from the genealogies compiled over many years by Sandra Smith of the Bunjilaka Cultural Centre at Museum Victoria. The data was translated into relational database by Dr Joanne Evans and Gavan McCarthy of what is now the eScholarship Research Centre at the University of Melbourne.

The purpose was to make visible the hitherto ‘invisible’ Aboriginal Victorians who were denied recognition as Indigenous by the Half-Castes Act of 1886 and were denied equality of citizenship by the wider community. From these sources, Dr Len Smith was able to reconstitute the Aboriginal population that was not recorded in the Protection Board records and demonstrate how the Victorian Aboriginal community recovered to reach its current strength of over 30,000 people who identified in the last Commonwealth census.

This population study is providing the first strong historical data for the creation of the gap between Indigenous and non-indigenous health and wellbeing since colonisation. Comparative work with the Lying-In Hospital birth cohort on overall survival and on infant mortality to 1910 has been published. Len Smith, Rebecca Kippen, Ruth Morley and Janet McCalman are continuing the analysis, and Rebecca Kippen is engaged in comparative work with Dr Per Axelsson, of the Centre for Sami Studies, University of Umeå, Sweden. Dr Axelsson has been a visiting scholar at the Centre for Health & Society for 2011.

A second ARC grant in 2004 with Dr Richard Barwick and Gavan McCarthy additionally funded the indexing and archiving of the personal and research papers of the late Dr Diane Barwick for lodgement in the State Library of Victoria.

Shortname

KHRD

IDS compatible

Period

1855 - 1930

Territory

Australia

Contact information

Web Address

www.chs.unimbelb.edu.au

Location

School of Population Health, University of Melbourne and Demography Program, RSSS, Australian National University

Postal Address

Department of History & Philosophy of Science, University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia

Contact Persons

Dr Len Smith

Professor Janet McCalman

janetsm@unimelb.edu.au

Scope / Status

Original goal

1) To reconstitute the Aboriginal population of Victoria backwards from the genealogies of people who know themselves to be Aboriginal;
2) To find and study the ‘lost Aborigines’ of Victoria from whom the current population has descended;
3) To map demographically the impact of colonisation on the Aboriginal People of Victoria and to reconstruct their socio-medical history.

Sample definition

The purpose of the study is to reconstitute the Aboriginal population of Victoria, with the specific aim of finding and including the part-Aboriginal people who were expelled from the Mission Stations by the 1886 Half-castes Act, from whom the current Victorian Aboriginal (Koori) population has almost entirely descended. These people were to be forcibly assimilated, but continued to be discriminated against in all areas of life as ‘unofficial’ Aborigines. Those who remained ‘official Aborigines’ under the Act in time ‘died out’, which was the intention of colonial policy. The Aboriginal Protection Board’s role was to supervise and victual the last remnants of a ‘dying race’.

Geographic area under observation

Colony, later State of Victoria, Australia, settled by Europeans 1835. Most activity is in rural locations and inner Melbourne from the 1920s. There was considerable movement of people back and forwards with other colonies and states, especially over the Murray river and between Bass Strait islands and the coast.

Sources

From year	End year	Source	Explanation
1840	1855	Baptisms	These were occasionally used for births recorded in Van Diemen’s Land and Port Phillip before Vital Registration and are included in the Tasmanian and Victorian Pioneer Indexes.
1857	1920	Civil birth certificates	Civil registration began in 1855 in Victoria. These recorded parents’ place of birth, marriage and occupation, and usually included the biological white father, even if he was of high social standing and married to a white woman.
1855	1920	Civil marriage certificates	These were used for both the individuals’ parents and the individuals’ themselves. These record the occupation and address of the marrying couple, place of birth, age, parents’ names and occupation and previous marriages and offspring of the couple. Religion is recorded.
1857	1985	Civil death certificates	These record age, cause of death and up to four contributing medical conditions with duration; place of death; usual residence; current occupation; number of marriages with dates; number of offspring with the names and ages of those still living and those deceased.
		Civil population registers	Street directories.
		Census	The Police made very accurate censuses of Aboriginal people in Victoria, based on police districts, which are the best source for mapping dispossession and population decline.
		Nominative lists	Male and female prisoner lists; includes biometrics, photos; Industrial School registers of children committed to the care of the state; Asylum registers; War service records for World Wars I and II; biometrics, photos, character; Police Gazette reports of released prisoners and trials; biometrics, photos, clothing descriptions.
		Aboriginal Protection Board records and Mission Station records	Detailed records of Aboriginal people within their jurisdiction.
		Victorian Inquests and criminal trial briefs	Depositions, evidence, autopsy reports
		Charity Organisation Society records	Social work case records of individuals and families, often with multiple observations over time; includes record of income, housing, illness, crime, family problems, plus physical descriptions of individuals.
		Immigration and Convict records for white relatives	Convict records include biometrics.

Observations

Units of observation

Unit of observation	Explanation	Number
Individuals	1855-1985
Married couples	Partial; 1840 – 1985
Families	1840 – 1985
Households	1840 – 1985

Are there any related observations that are not included in the database?

This database is genealogically-derived, and includes tagged individuals who were not Aboriginal but who married Aboriginal people; Aboriginal people from outside Victoria are also tagged.

How do the units of observation enter observation?

The dataset was based on the genealogies constructed by various anthropologists and officials. They include the work of Norman Tindale and Dianne Barwick, amplified by archival records of C19th anthropologists, mission station superintendents and recent employees of Museum Victoria. These were corrected and extended by oral evidence from Aboriginal people which has since been confirmed with record linkage in the BDM registrations.

How do the units of observation leave observation?

When their death certificate is traced or we acknowledge failure in tracing them. Victorian Death certificates are indexed on CD ROM, with parents’ names (when known by those present at the recording of the death), up to 1985. Some nonagenarians born after 1890 will be censored.

Dates estimated

Yes.

Are some entry or exit dates unknown?

Yes.

Can observations be linked to geographic locations?

Yes

Are the dates and locations of movements within the observation area recorded?

Partly

Are all individuals who lived in the households of sample members recorded?

Variables

Events

Type	Dated	Explanation
Birth	Yes
Marriage	Yes
Death	Yes
Migration	Yes	The ship and passenger lists of both unassisted and assisted immigrants.
Transportation	Yes	For those with convict parents or grandparents.

Coding / Reference systems

Occupational titles: UK SES historically specified to account for casual and regular employment and labour market change over time.

Locations (including geo-referenced systems): A GIS mapping of population movement is under construction using the Police censusus.

Aboriginal language group and ‘Country’.

Kinship relations

Recording

In Births, Marriages and Deaths, parents’ names are given, with occupations in B and M. In Births, Marriages, parents’ names and occupations. In Deaths, parents’ names (if known), marriages, age of marriage, status of spouse, ages and first names of children, number of children deceased, if multiple marriages—in which marriage children were born. This information is supplied by witnesses to the registration of the death, so that those who die disconnected from kin leave no kinship record.

Depth of information

Three generations from the individual’s BDM, but more has been reconstituted genealogically by further linkage.

Publications

Publications - N/A

European Historical Population Samples Network

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