Welcome to the new Genealogical Society of Queensland blog. My name is Helen Smith and I will be guest blogging here once a month on records and items of genealogical interest.

Today we are talking on funeral director records which are an additional documentary source among the documents of death that can add to your research information.

The Genealogical Society of Queensland (GSQ) has had since 1992, a volunteer indexing project, indexing cemetery and funeral director records from around Queensland.

The amount of information can vary considerably depending on Funeral Director and time period but the minimum will be the name of the deceased, their age, the name and address of the person paying for the funeral (and usually their relationship to the deceased which can be of help for married daughter’s names) where the person died, where the viewing or wake was held, from where the funeral left and the details of the funeral such as coffin, wreaths and cost.

Many other details may include military service, membership of lodges, which papers the funeral notice was in, details of other family members (on one I accessed there is the usual address in America of the sister of the deceased. She was in Queensland at the time of the funeral information, I would not have known except for this record).

As the 1900s progressed there was more information recorded as I found for William Busby who died in 1928 and at this time there were two entries to a page with less recorded information.

The Alex Gow Funeral Directors’ indexes cover the time period from 2 Jan 1913 to 27 Aug 1975 and consist of 51,273 entries

The Cannon and Cripps Funeral Directors’ indexes cover the time period from July 1897 to 28 April 1967 and consist of 63,637 entries

The KM Smith Funeral Directors’ indexes cover the time period from 18 August 1841 to 30 December 1960, though there is one entry for 5 July 1961. There are sparse records between 1841 and 7 January 1877 when the records become more consistent. There are a total of 51,624 entries.

These are some of the other records held by GSQ:

Legrand Beaudesert, TT Cornes Mt Morgan
Lohrish (Beenleigh) Funeral Directors Records 1937-1968
Metropolitan FD Records 1943-1999
Mckenna & Tucker’s Undertakers Records 1930s to 1970s
Tucker & Nankivell Rockhampton Funeral Directors Records 1924-1989
Guardian/Metropolitan Funeral Directors Records 1938-1943

Did you know that as a financial member of GSQ you are able to log into MyGSQ and download the Library Catalogue and also search the Cemeteries and Funeral Directors Database? You can then visit GSQ and view the entry or our non-metropolitan members can request the research team for a copy as part of the five free hours of research provided to members living more than 100 km from the research centre.

GSQ has also published a number of indexes both in book and CD form that are in a range of libraries and Family History Societies around Australia, also a number of these indexes are available through Findmypast. Once you find the entries of interest you are then able to order the transcript using the research form found on this page or for more intense research service GSQ has a research team that can provide the service at an hourly rate.