The records of 1777 Italian migrants who settled in Queensland in the mid-1950s have been placed online by the National Archives of Australia’s Brisbane office.

‘They include the personal documents of Italians who travelled to Australia on the ships Aurelia, Toscana and Flaminia under the Italian-Australian Migration Agreement of 29 March 1951,’ said David Swift, Queensland Director of the National Archives.

‘This means they or their descendants can go online and download their entire immigration files for personal or family history purposes.’

The records cover the period from 1955 to 1957, when many Italian migrants began working in the cane fields in Northern Queensland.

‘The families and descendants of these migrants continue to enrich the multicultural communities in areas such as Cairns, Townsville, Ingham, Mareeba, Aitkenvale, Ayr and Home Hill,’ said Mr Swift.

The records include applications for assisted passage, photographs of the applicants, signed migration undertakings and proof of identity documents in Italian.

See the series of personal documents of Italian migrants entering Queensland. Follow the link and use the button at the bottom of the page to 'Find items in this series'.

To promote the records of Italian migration held by the National Archives, the Brisbane Office is holding a free public seminar 'A long way from Rome' from 9 to 10am on Saturday 17 and Wednesday 21 November 2007. The seminar will feature these and other records held by the National Archives including prisoner-of-war identification documents, naturalisation records, alien registration forms, internee records and investigation files. See the Brisbane events page for details.