The 2026 Census is happening on Tuesday, 11 August. – get excited! Photo: ABS.
I’ll admit I’ve never been excited about filling in the census.
Then I discovered a woman who treats census night like it’s a major event in her calendar, carefully keeping every form she’s ever completed because she knows one day they’ll become part of her family’s history.
She shared fond memories of working as a census collector, traipsing through the streets of the Illawarra to round up the paper forms … that someone else probably spent two minutes on.
Her love for census runs deep.
But I will admit, my own interest in the census is growing.
Census happens every five years, where the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) counts every person and household in Australia.
This year it will take place on Tuesday, 11 August.
As a novice family historian who spends hours pouring over library name indexes, ancestry sites and Trove newspaper articles, census records go a long way in helping piece together the darkest corners of your family history.
While the first countrywide-Commonwealth census was taken in 1911, NSW and Tasmania had a version called “musters”, which collected basic information about the household in the 1800s.
These muster records gave a pretty good snapshot of who was who in the household.
For example, a record for one of my ancestors in 1842 told me she was head of the household (her husband had died).
It gave me her address (now a carpark), that it was made of wood (probably burned down) and who she rented it from, that she lived with her two male children, two female children and unmarried sister and what their religions were.
For the national census though, the early census records were destroyed by the government to ensure privacy after the data was collected and used.
That’s a lot of information lost forever. Only tables of generic information survive.
According to the ABS, from the 2001 Census onwards, the census form has included an optional question asking whether you agree to have your personally identified information kept and securely held by the National Archives of Australia for 99 years.
It can’t be used for anything before then, not even legal cases.
From then, it will be made public for future generations.
While I’ll be long gone by the year 2100 to be able to access that information, at least my children and their children can take a peek at what life was like for me in 2001.
Unless you too have been taking copies of all your census records over time, in which case you’ve already got a treasure trove at your fingertips.
Even if you’re not interested in family history, the census is still important.
It helps inform planning for healthcare, transport, schools and infrastructure, meaning your documentation of how many kids you have may help introduce a new school, playgroup or even mental health services for young men in your area.
Besides, if you don’t answer them, you’ll be handed a fairly decent fine.
With some 66 questions to answer for each person in the household, it’s probably wise not to host a large dinner party or your birthday shindig that night. Save yourself the work.
Questions these days are answered online, unless you request a paper form and tend to centre around education, employment, living arrangements and languages spoken at home.
There’s a few new ones this time around too, including the gender and sexual orientation of those aged 16 and over.
But the one that interests me most is people now being able to report up to four ancestries to provide a greater picture of their family and cultural background.
In light of the records we’ve lost over time, I do wonder if there’s more to this.
So when your letter arrives in the post telling you about the 2026 Census night, remember that today’s routine paperwork could become tomorrow’s family treasure.
Learn more about the 2026 Census.
Original Article published by Kellie O’Brien on Region Illawarra.
