Biographical

Biographical index (Battye) [microform].
[Perth : State Library Service of Western Australia, 1985] [929.3941 BIO]

The Biographical Index is an index which contains information on Western Australians. People are considered Western Australian by origin and residence, birth and education, residence in the state during time of contribution, by virtue of retirement or of last years of life, or any combination of these criteria. Included in the index are obituaries, biographical features or notes, career or work details and awards. Dates of birth and death are included where known. The index includes any Western Australian about whom information has been found, but does not include birth, death and marriage notices. It is not comprehensive, containing few references for the period 1890-1950. A number of collective biographical monographs have also been indexed. The index was closed in May 1984 and copied onto microfiche. All indexing of biographical articles after May 1984 can be found in the online catalogue.

Western Australian Biographical Index (WABI)
As a prelude to the publication of The Dictionary of Western Australians 1829-1914 , the editor, Rica Erickson, and her team entered the research from which the Dictionary was compiled (both from the team and contributions from the public) onto cards. This index is now housed in the Battye Library and should still be consulted as it contains additional information and corrections received after publication of the Dictionary.

The index is filed alphabetically by surname. Information given on each person varies, but it may include date of arrival, ship arrived upon, age, date of marriage, wife's name and age and often her parent's names, children of the marriage and their dates of birth, when and who they married and their children's names, dates of death, land holdings, where living, occupation etc.

Other WABI card indexes indicate sources of additional information. They include: people listed in Almanacks, employers of ticket of leave men, references to convict records, passenger arrivals and departures listed in newspapers 1869-1888, policemen in Western Australia, Church of England Baptisms, burials and marriages 1850-1868, people listed in the York Census 1859, biographical research data (sources in Battye Library and other institutions), Eastern Goldfields Cemetery records and lists of contributors to WABI with addresses. Most of these have been microfilmed. The WABI is digitally available on Family History WA - WA Biographical Index WABI. The WABI dataset is available on the dataWA website.