Australia’s National Monument to Migration is one of the museum’s most important and visible tributes to our migration heritage.
The Museum collects and treasures the stories of migrants on the monument as these collectively reflect an important pillar of our national story and identity.
Got a question about the National Monument?
Our most commonly asked questions are answered below.
If you can’t find an answer to your question, please contact us so we can help with your query.
Registrations
Donors who contribute $500 or more to the National Monument/Migration Heritage Fund, can register an inscription of 43 characters (one line) to be included on the museum's National Monument. The listing must be the name or names of family members who were born overseas and settled in Australia. Your donation is tax-deductible.
Each line of 43 characters is known as a registration. The line of text provided by the donor is engraved into a beautiful bronze panel that will be joined to existing National Monument panels.
When enough registrations have been received to fill a new panel (approx. 300 names), the panel is engraved and an unveiling ceremony held. Donors, their family and friends are all welcome to attend the ceremony.
Donors are also given access to an optional online profile on the National Monument website, where family information, documents and images can be stored, shared and added to.
The National Monument records names of individual/s only.
Inscriptions can be up to 43 characters in length. Spaces, punctuation and brackets count as a character. Below are some tips for preparing your inscription copy.
Please note: each inscription purchased equals one online entry
All additional information submitted such as date of arrival and images can be viewed via the online entry.
Yes. You can list as many names as you like on a line providing they fit within the 43 character limit. Please note donations of $500 are acknowledged for their support and provide one line of an inscription which equals one online registration.
No. Each line is engraved into the bronze panel and cannot be altered once produced. Please ensure the information you provide is exactly the way you intend it to appear on the monument.
Yes: you can register a family member or another person who was born a citizen of another country and made Australia home. You need to provide a permission letter signed by the person you nominate showing that they consent to their details being on both the monument and online. Listings cannot occur without this consent letter being provided.
Once we have received 300 registrations a panel is produced and a National Monument unveiling ceremony is held at the museum. Ceremonies usually occur around April/May and September/October.
The time at which your name will be inscribed on the National Monument will depend upon time of registration. For example, if you register close to a ceremony date and are placed on a new panel that is yet to be filled, your registration will appear on the National Monument at the following ceremony. Email invitations are forwarded to eligible registrants around 6 weeks prior to the event.
Names are listed on the National Monument in the order that they have been registered and not alphabetically. This way a family or group of people who have registered at the same time can appear together on the National Monument.
All registrations are submitted online, so you will need to complete the listings at the same time.
If you don't have access to a computer or the internet, we suggest working with a family member or friend to help you. The museum also has volunteers who are available by appointment to assist you if you need help.
You can pay online securely using all major credit cards. We also accept cheques, money order and credit card (Visa, Mastercard, American Express). Please contact the National Monument team if you want to pay another way.
You can register to the National Monument without official documents. If you are registering another person you will need to get their consent through our permission form (available at the time of registration). For the online profile you'll be required to provide the town and country of birth, date of arrival to Australia and vessel name (if arriving by ship). You can also add a biography, photographs, videos and audio recordings.
The bronze panels record the names of those who travelled from all over the world to make Australia home. More detailed information such as date of arrival in Australia and country of birth are featured on the online National Monument.
The unveiling ceremony for our next panel in on 11 May (registrations closed) and we are now accepting registrations for the following ceremony in November.
Yes. Immigration by ship is one of the most significant events in the maritime history of Australia. However, in the 1960's air travel started replacing long sea journeys and today air travel is the main method of arrival to this country. The National Monument tells the stories of those who travelled from all over the world to make Australia home, whether by air or sea travel.
Yes, you can register yourself as long as you were born in another country and made Australia your home, whatever the circumstances of your arrival.
Yes, you can register a friend, work colleague, boss or employee, as long as they were born a citizen of another country and made Australia home.
You need to provide a permission letter signed by the person you nominate showing that they consent to their details being on both the monument and online. Listings cannot occur without this consent letter being provided.
Yes. You can list your family members together on the National Monument, as long as the listing fits into within 43 characters.
You can search the online National Monument where all names engraved in bronze are recorded, together with a personal account of their journey.
You will be provided with the location details including the panel number, column and line number.
Names of migrants are not automatically recorded on the National Monument. They or their relatives and friends need to make a donation to the Migration Heritage Fund to then be acknowledged for their support and provided with registration access.
If you have completed a permission letter (in order to get the consent of a friend or family member you want to include on the National Monument) you will need to email this back to us.
Engraving cannot occur until this letter is received by the our team.
Your donation is tax-deductible. You will receive a receipt via email that can be used for your next tax return. The Australian National Maritime Museum (ABN 35 023 590 988) is endorsed as a Deductible Gift Recipient. All gifts of $2 or more are tax-deductible.
Your generous gift will allow development and expansion of our migration programs to strengthen visitors' understanding of our rich migration history.
Here are some examples of inscriptions:
View our step-by-step guide to completing your registration here.
Online National Monument
For your privacy and data security you now need to login to view and access your profile. Once logged in, you'll be able to access more detailed information, including photographs, stories and add new information. You can add more information than before.
A new feature of the updated system is that people related to you ('family view') will be able to look at other registrants who are connected to you, if they have activated access.
The platform has been built so that only a basic set of information is shown to the general public. In order to view the full detail (such as images and story detail) only logged-in National Monument users can access this content.
You can now login to manage your listing. Once logged in you can edit all aspects of your profile, photos, story and details and provide access to your friends or family.
When logged in you'll also be able to see your Orders, Inscriptions and Registrations and share 'tokens' that allow family or friends to see their online profiles without having to log into the system.
Due to the upgrading of the online National Monument platform, existing users will need to authenticate their account for the first time if they want to access the new platform.
You will need an unique 8 character code (which is the first 8 characters of your original reference code), the surname of the registration purchaser, plus the date of birth of the registrant attached to their account. If you don't have your code or have a listing from before 2011 - please contact us and we can provide it.
To confirm your account for the first time, you'll need to enter an email address before being able to access the new platform.
Entries for multiple registrations can be shared with a user's family or friends. This allows a family member or a friend to view registrations that are linked to the main user’s account without them having to log in. The user makes a 'token' to grant access to other family members or friends under their account allowing them full view of a profile without having to log in. They can then send an email with this information to the chosen person will receive access to view their profile.
Sharing entries
You need to login to view and access your full profile (such as your images and story) and then you can give access to others you choose to share with such as family and friends.
These people do not need a login to view. Instead they can view a special link based on a token that is assigned by you. This is done via tokens which are assigned and create a special URL that can be shared. To do this when you login choose Tokens from the right hand menu.
This will take you to the Tokens page. Click generate token to create a special link for each registrant with a token appended to it that allows full view of a profile without having to log in. Then select the Share Registrants link and this will load a modal window where you can send an email to family or friends (who have an online entry).
Also the account user can also remove access by clicking on 'revoke token' in their profile. This will remove access to the special links and the family member or friend will no longer be able to see their full profile.
The friend or family member gets an email with this detail
On clicking on the links in the email they can view their full entries.
If you have forgotten your password you can reset it here
An email with a password recovery link will be sent to your e-mail address.
Please contact us if you have forgotten your email or username.
If you registered for the National Monument before 2011, we may not have a digital copy of your consent. You'll need to check a permission box on your profile page when going through the confirmation process.
Yes. During the registration phase you only need to provide the mandatory information about the person to be registered: full name, town and country of birth. Additional information and photos can be entered online after you receive confirmation of your registration.
You can search to locate the arrival details of a person. You can also use our research resources to learn more. The Vaughan Evans Library located in Wharf 7, may be able to assist you in sourcing additional information regarding immigration. They have two research guides that may be of help in your search for more information:
The library can be contacted at library@sea.museum if you need more assistance to locate that elusive passenger list.
Yes. Online listings can be grouped together using the 'related' function. In your account you can see which names are attached to you. Users can then edit them or select if they want them to be linked. If 'checking' an entry they will show together with other registrants in the 'related family' panel.
Yes. Do not check 'Make profile viewable to public' box if you wish to keep your entry hidden.
You can add up to 10 pictures to your registration that will appear with your online National Monument profile.
File type: JPEG or PNG
File size: maximum 2MB each
Image dimensions: square or landscape, minimum 500px wide
You can reorder the images by simply dragging them up and down - the first image will display as the default for your profile and will be shown in listings.
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If you'd rather not fill in the online form or need more time to complete, registrations can also be submitted via this downloadable form. Simply download, fill in and return to us by email and a member of the National Monument team will complete the process for you.
Learn More
Find out more about adding a name, changing an existing name or have your questions answered with our FAQs.
Read compelling personal migration stories, research your family history and find out more about Australia's migration heritage.
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