Local and family history

Find out about the local and family history resources you can access online, at home or in our library branches.

Are you curious about the history of your family or where you live?

From politicians to publicans, sportspeople to shopkeepers, we bring history to life at Darebin Libraries.

Find out more about the people, places, and events of the City of Darebin's past through our very own local history resources "Darebin Heritage" and "Darebin Archives".

If you're interested in finding out more about your family history, access Find My Past and Ancestry.com for free on our library computers.

Darebin heritage website

Browse our local history website, with over 1000 articles on Darebin's history added so far.

Explore our collection of photographs, historical newspapers, oral histories and even fun local history activities for children.

Darebin archives

Search the catalogue of historical items held by Darebin Libraries.

There are over 3,000 items already added to our catalogue and it is continually growing thanks to the work of our local history librarians.

WikiNorthia

WikiNorthia is a community website designed to create a snapshot of past and present life in the Northern suburbs of Melbourne.

This project documents the rich cultural histories and diverse community stories from across five municipalities: Darebin, Moreland, Whittlesea, Nillumbik, and Banyule.

Ancestry.com library edition

Ancestry Library Edition provides instant access to hundreds of years of history in billions of historical documents and millions of historical photos from all over the world.

Use our library computers to search through census, birth, marriage, death records and much more to find your ancestors and discover your family history.

Findmy.past

Use a library computer to trace your ancestry and build a family tree with Findmypast.

Search through a comprehensive collection of family history resources. These include census data, birth records, military records, births, deaths and migration records from the UK, Australasia and Ireland.

British newspaper archive

Search through over 200 years of British Newspapers (local and national) to find your ancestors.

Click on the register button and enter your details and you will have free access within Darebin Libraries.