Share your story, read about other migrants’ memories and explore our photos – to see if you recognise someone you know. Between 1946 and 1999 government photographers snapped 22,000 images of people arriving and living in Australia. You can view them online in the National Archives’ collection.
Explore the collection
Pages
Video portraits
Browse videos- Series: Dutch Australia Shared Cultural Heritage
Cees, Ina and Erwin Huig, Dutch migrants to Australia - Series: Dutch Australia Shared Cultural Heritage
Gerard and Marretje van Wezel, Dutch migrants to Australia - Series: Dutch Australia Shared Cultural Heritage
Sherry Wright, Dutch migrant to Australia - Series: Dutch Australia Shared Cultural Heritage
Petronella Wensing, Dutch migrant to Australia - Series: Dutch Australia Shared Cultural Heritage
Stephanie Brantz, Dutch migrant heritage - Series: A Ticket to Paradise? Exhibition
Vera Marek - Series: A Ticket to Paradise? Exhibition
Seraphin Nyirenda - Series: A Ticket to Paradise? Exhibition
Maria-Lourdes (Noonee) Doronila - Series: A Ticket to Paradise? Exhibition
Lam Tac Tam
Personal stories
Add Your Own Story
AustraliaAs I reflect on Mum and Dad's life, I think of my own life and how I am who I am because of these
HungaryIn exchange for assisted passage to Australia, Laszlo was required to fulfil a two-year work cont
NetherlandsThis is writtrn in memory of my father and mother.In the year 1945 we had been through a war and
GermanyThey sailed on 9.12.54 on the SS Skaubryn and Christmas was celebrated on the Red Sea.
United KingdomTom & Millie Wilkinson, with their young family - Gordon and Rosemary - arrived in Melbourne,
NetherlandsMigrants who had won beauty pageant titles were the perfect models for promotional photographs ta
GermanyThe migrant ship MS Nelly carried the first German migrants under the bilateral assisted
LuxembourgThe main kitchen was huge, next to the kitchen, in a shed was a giant steam producing machine, th
AustraliaDad would always try and do something special with us on the weekends.
VietnamIn April 1975, a large scale evacuation of children took place in Vietnam, sending thousands of c
IndonesiaBas Wie was an orphan who had survived the Japanese occupation of Timor during World War II.
VietnamOperation Babylift was the name given to the mass evacuation of children from South Vietnam to nu
Bosnia and HerzegovinaGot Queensland Migrant Service Award by the Queensland Government for voluntary work .
ItalyWhen they first arrived in Melbourne, Mum and her family lived in North Essendon for a short time
ItalyDad met us at the wharf in Sydney and took us to our new home on a market-garden farm in St Ives.
MaltaMy husband and I had never travelled overseas before we migrated to Australia.
Czech RepublicVoitre Marek, an artist now with works at the Art Gallery of South Australia and the National Gal
AustraliaMum and Dad have achieved so much in their lives, but nothing bought them as much joy as their am
NetherlandsFifty years after their arrival, the Wolwinkels held a family reunion in Gumbuya Park, Victoria,
