There have never been vast numbers of Americans who have settled in Australia of New Zealand. Notwithstanding, I can tell you they have come here in two main waves of visitors from America. Some have stayed on and contributed significantly to Australian culture and lifestyle. The first wave comprised some 20,000 who came to the Australian Gold rushes on the 1850s in Victoria and New South Wales. The second was some 800,000 US marines who came ashore here for recreational leave during World War Two. A book written in Australia about the latter invasion was called 'Oversexed, Overpaid and Over Here.'

Many countless thousands of family trees have been planted as a result and thousands of Aussie brides carried back off to America. As a professional genealogists, it has not been unusual for me to receive a letter in the familiar standard US schoolgirl hand of the era seeking connections of the Australian fathers of their children, some married and some not.

As a land proud of the detail in its early civil registration systems, Australians can often add much to new family history information to their files.

This list is a series of over 600 case studies, especially in the gold rush period. It been randomly compiled and covers all 'Americans' (including those from USA, Canada and South America), which I have discovered in Australia at any period in Australia and NZ, but mostly pre 1900. The list includes very few for New Zealand, examples being George BROADFOOT and Walter ANDREWS.

There were some 600 names in the list in May 1993. It was begun following an initial list I compiled for the National Genealogical Quarterly magazine in America in 1991. It has been constantly updated since that time. The article was: VINE HALL, Nick - 'Americans Down Under - Adventurers in Australian Goldfields of the 1850s` in National Genealogical Society journal Quarterly (National Genealogical Society, Arlington, Virginia, USA, vol 79, no 3, Sep 1991, pages 165-182).

This list started out as a list of persons known to be, or believed to be Americans in Australia during the gold rush of the 1850s. It has since been expanded to other periods and to include Canadians.

All salutations, such as 'Mr' and 'Capt' are shown in brackets.

Aliases and nicknames are shown in parenthesis.

References - page number formats (e.g.) 1/50 = source no 1, page 50 * = (after last personal name) known (or believed) to have had living descendants at the time of listing

Nick Vine Hall
September 2006