The strange history and problematic future of the Australian census |
| |
Authors: | Terence H Hull |
| |
Institution: | (1) The Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute, The Australian National University, 0200 Canberra, ACT, Australia |
| |
Abstract: | When looking back into the first century of Australian history following white settlement we often rely on the records of
musters, listings and censuses to provide information on individuals and communities. The first census of New South Wales
in 1828 was little more than a directory of names of settlers and settlements, but both professional historians and genealogists
regard it as invaluable. As the scientific principles of censuses were developed over the course of the nineteenth century
the information collected became ever more important for social scientists and economists. In the twentieth century, professional
historians in the UK and USA opened wholly new perspectives on society by looking to the census for records of common families
who were not recorded in the newspapers or diaries of the time, and the community structures in which they lived. Unfortunately
such innovations have not been possible in Australia. The individual records of most colonial and all Commonwealth censuses
are not to be found in the libraries or archives. The destruction of original census records in Australia has been the result
of misadventure and government policies reflecting great fear about the impact of popular privacy concerns on public compliance
with the census operations. This paper explores the history behind the anomalous practice of destroying census records in
Australia, and poses questions about the role of the census in the writing of histories of Australian people and Australian
communities. |
| |
Keywords: | census Australia administration government genealogy family history |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|