Immigration Stories
Throughout history stories have been used to illuminate, to educate, to recount, to challenge and to engage. Every individual’s life experience is unique and dynamic, particularly for those of us who have journeyed far from our homes to establish new lives in foreign countries.
Australia’s migrant history has enabled us to develop into the strong nation we are today. Personal stories and anecdotes are an important opportunity to enrich the public record and to embellish our history. Immigration Place Australia encourages the collection of immigrant stories. By giving a voice to our immigrants, we hope to record significant experiences with increased depth and nuance. We envision an opportunity to connect generations and to build community via a comprehensive record of the distinctive immigration footprint of Australia.
IPA’s mission is to continue to collect stories until completion of the construction of Immigration Place in Canberra. At that time, subject to the agreement of the National Archives of Australia those stories will be transferred to their website – Destination Australia.
We encourage you to record your stories or those of your ancestors.
All Stories
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On Christmas Eve, 1958, my Mum Nara De Santis embarked from Naples to Australia with Nonna Ermelinda and Mum’s three brothers and three sisters. They departed on the ship ‘The Flaminia’. Leaving behind her Grandparents and …
Nara De Santis (m.Cannito), Italy - Cosenza, 1959
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My Dad Luca Cannito arrived here on 31st May, 1962 as a 19 year old young man. He travelled on the ship ‘Roma’. On arrival at Port Melbourne he was greeted with open arms by friends from his home town of Bari. Salvatore and Lucia were like …
Luca Cannito, Italy - Bari, 31/05/62
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I travelled to Australia with my parents and two younger brothers. I was 12 at the time. Our father had worked in the shipyards of the Clyde river in Glasgow but he saw little future for us 3 boys in that part of the world. As it transpired he was correct.…
John McCully, Scotland, 1952
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My name, when I came to Australia, was Maria Isabel Tornero, but from the time I was born everyone called me Maribel. I came to Australia with my parents Luis and Cecilia (nee Blanco) Tornero in December 1962. We came by plane from Madrid, Spain. I didn’t…
Maria Isabel Marimon (nee Tornero), Spain, 1962
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We left our farm Holland for a better life in Australia.
My parents travelled with their 10 children, 2 – 16 years, on a plane. I was the second youngest and was 6 years old.
It was very warm in March; we had summer dresses on. Mine had a little pocket…
Bernadette Harkins (nee Kerkvliet), Holland, 1960
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Friedrich Hoffmann was known as Wilhelm Hoffmann, born about 1824 born in Bornst, Prussia and was a farmer. He married Anna Eleanore Wittchen and together with their three children (Ernestine, Carl Heinrich and Maria Wilhelmine) left their homeland…
Friedrich Hoffmann, Prussia, 1864
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It was on 26th January 1788, that my great, great, great, great grandfather, Henry Cabell, became the first migrant (or convict) to step foot on Australian soil.
In 1783, 19 year old Henry Cabell, from Mendham, Suffolk, England, was sentenced to …
Henry Cabell, England, 1788
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My parents Marjorie and John Forsyth departed their homeland and all of their relatives to create a better life for their three children (Paul, Christine & David and later Mark born in Australia). Convinced they would never be able to afford…
Marjorie & John Forsyth, England, 1962
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Accommodation/housing was difficult to find in our home town of Kapfenberg, Austria & the opportunity of living in Australia for a 5 year period seemed a wonderful adventure.
Having struggled with emotional farewells to family/friends …
Rudolf, Hermine & Erika ILLKO, Austria, 1956
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My father and mother chose to migrate to Australia as a direct result of WWII. My father was a career army officer with the Polish Army and a qualified Civil Engineer with the rank of Captain prior to the invasion of Poland in 1939 by hostile German forces.…
Tadeusz Jan Goralski, Poland, 1949
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Life in Italy was limited and work was scarce. He had two sisters already living in Australia and borrowed the money from his father to create a new life around his hopes and dreams.
He borrowed the money for his journey from his impoverished but extremely…
Nicola Sciarra, Italy, 1962
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Efthymios Psilos, arrived in Australia in 1953 aboard the passenger liner Anna Salen. Accompanying him was his wife Evangelia and their two children, Zacharias aged nine months and his daughter Sotiria aged 3 years.
Shortly after World War 2, the…
Efthymios Psilos, Greece, 1953
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Patrick McGuigan, my great great great grandfather (born 1807) came from Clonfeacle, County Tyrone, Ireland. Patrick married Jane Morrison of Benburb, County Tyrone, at the Roman Catholic Church in the Parish of Clonfeacle on the 24th April 1837.…
Patrick McGuigan, Ireland, 1842
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Augusto was conscripted into the Italian army as part of that country’s national service policy of the time. This was in 1937 and was supposed to last for no more than 2 years. Unfortunately the 2nd World War forced him to remain in the army working…
Augusto Silvestri, Italy, 1942
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David John Cook arrived in South Australia on the ‘Northern Monarch’ which docked in Port Adelaide on 12 June 1876. Known as Jack Cook, the red haired teenager from Yorkshire had been on board for just over 11 weeks on the journey from …
David Cook, England, 1876
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Henry Matthews was born in Zeal Monachorum, Devon, to William and Honor. The family were mainly agricultural labourers and very poor. Henry married Mary Ann Dart from the neighbouring town of Coldridge 25th May 1874. Mary Ann was the daughter of …
Henry Matthews, England, 1885
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My father; a ships engineer; arrived in British Ceylon in the middle of World War II after his ship was sunk in the Mediterranean by a German U Boat. Dad was scheduled to be sent to the UK to pick up another ship but swapped places with a married deck officer…
Grant Armstrong, British Ceylon, 1961
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Reason for leaving homeland – Leaving a struggling UK; no opportunity could be seen for my 3 childrens’ future, funds were limited, opportunities were less, spiritually devoid of direction, locked into an lifestyle of footy hooligans…
the Stantons Stanton, England, 1988
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Reason for leaving homeland – Married to an Australian but never at home as Jacobus was a deck officer in the Dutch Merchant Navy. He decided to try his luck in another career in Australia
About the Journey – An uneventfull 3 day flight …
Jacobus Piet Aaldert van den Berg, Netherlands, 1957
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I was 33 years old when I left England, and could see no good outlook for my future in the gray drab industrial town of Oldham were I lived. I wanted a new start and Australia offered me the space, reward for my labour, sunshine and the encouragement to …
Roy Buckley, England, 1973
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We wanted a big change in our lives & moving from the Canadian prairies to Tasmania was a major change in terms of climate, history, culture . . . everything except language.
I flew to Australia with my Scottish wife Brenda & 3 daughters, …
Allan Lake, Canada, 1985
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Reasons for leaving:
The atmosphere in South Africa was tense. Many people felt alienated in their own country after Nelson Mandela came into power and the many changes which eventuated as a result. We felt insecure about the future and the future…
Anelia Blackie, South Africa, 2000
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My Father, after leaving the army where he spent many years in Africa, Egypt, and middle-eastern countries found the weather in Scotland too cold – so for 10 Pounds came to Australia to the Newcastle coal mines.
The journey on the Ormonde was…
Walter Aldridge, Scotland, 1952
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My beautiful mother Maria (maiden name Soutloglou), married in St Nicholas Church in Plaka, Athens Greece in 1955 to Peter Papadopoulos of Sohoum, Russia of Greek origin, left her homeland immigrating to Australia in search for a better tomorrow.…
Maria Papadopoulos, Greece, 1956
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I am Lottie Moore, nee Renfrey, and I was born in 1920 in Lancashire, England.
My husband, Robert McKenzie Moore, son, David aged 6, mother, Elizabeth Renfrey, and I travelled by the ship Toscana from Genoa, Italy to Australia in 1949. After surviving…
Lottie Moore, England, 1949
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The Frizzell family left Scotland for a hoped-for better life in Australia, with more chance of employment, and more opportunities for their children. The father, Peter Frizzell, had a job with the Victorian Railways waiting for him.
They came …
Robert Frizzell, Scotland, 1950
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I believe the reason that my family left Egypt like a lot of others was when President Nassar came to power he wanted Europeans out of Egypt and since we were French/Maltese background that meant us. Until that time my parents had a wonderful life with…
Joseph Taylor, Port Said, Egypt, 1949
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