The Colonial Record Records of Colonial Australia

Pricing

Discovery is free. Pay for the corrected notice.

Search, browse and confirm that a reference exists for free. Pay only when you want the corrected notice, the original scan, and the tools around it.

Make discovery free. Charge for depth, convenience, certainty and scale.

One notice, once — no account needed

Single unlock A$2

One corrected notice, scan and citation — when you’ve found exactly what you need. Guest checkout: pay by card and we email you a permanent link to your unlocked notice.

Corrected text · cropped & clean page scan · original OCR · citation · your A$2 is credited toward any subscription started within 7 days.

Find a notice to unlock

Free membership — opening special

Free member $0

While the Record is in its opening season, a free account includes 3 notice unlocks and 5 document lodgements every month, plus saved research files.

Opening special — join now and keep these monthly allowances. No card required.

Create a free account

Subscriptions — for ongoing research

Hobby

Normal family-history use, at a comfortable monthly allowance.

A$15 / mo
  • 30 notice unlocks / month
  • Saved folders, notes & tags
  • New-record alerts for names & places
  • Advanced filters
  • Researcher only bulk export & projects

Or A$120 / year. Additional notices A$1 each.

For serious work

Researcher

Heavy users, authors and local historians running sustained projects.

A$39 / mo
  • 150 notice unlocks / month
  • Bulk unlock & CSV export
  • Saved projects, notes & tags
  • Related-record discovery
  • Priority processing & corrections

Or A$350 / year. Additional notices A$1 each.

Institution

Libraries, societies, councils and schools — access for many users.

from A$750 / yr
  • Multiple users / seats
  • Public-access terminal option
  • Higher unlock & export limits
  • Custom onboarding & reporting
  • Commissioned research reports

Historical society from A$750 · Library from A$1,500 · Custom from A$2,500 / year.

Contact us

Founding membership

Lock in Hobby annual at A$120 / year

While supporting the work of correcting and expanding the archive. Founding members keep this rate as the corpus grows.

Become a founding member

What's free and what's paid

Free — that a reference exists, its date, type and source citation
Paid — the full corrected notice transcription
Free — extracted names, places and a one-line preview
Paid — the cropped notice scan, clean page view and download
Free — confidence rating and “we found the exact spot”
Paid — downloads, saved folders, citation export, alerts

We help locate, correct, classify and cite records that are difficult to find through ordinary OCR search. The original gazettes remain a public archive.

Questions

Do I need an account?

Not for a single unlock — pay by card as a guest and we email you a permanent link to everything you’ve unlocked. Subscriptions use that same email as a passwordless account (we sign you in with a magic link). Your A$2 single unlock is credited toward any subscription started within 7 days. And while our opening special lasts, a free account includes 3 unlocks and 5 document lodgements a month.

Do I pay before I know a record is relevant?

No. You can see the notice type, date, place, extracted names and a one-line preview — and confirm we’ve located the exact region of the page — entirely free. You only pay to read and download the corrected notice.

What if I unlock the wrong record?

Email the Office within 7 days and we’ll refund it or re-credit the unlock — one email, no forms, no questions. Subscriptions cancel any time; your access runs to the end of the period already paid.

Aren’t these records public?

Mostly, yes. Government gazettes and many colonial records are public archives. What you’re paying for is the corrected transcription, the structured indexing, and the tools that make a specific record findable and citable — work ordinary scanned-PDF search can’t do.

How certain are the matches?

Every record carries confidence ratings scored by extraction type, and cautious language for uncertain matches. Historical matches should always be verified against the original notice — which we show you.

Can institutions get access for members?

Yes — libraries, historical societies and universities can arrange seat-based or IP-based access, plus commissioned research. See For institutions.