Land Musters, Stock Returns and Lists Van Diemen's Land 1803-1822
Local History Reference Biography Archival Studies Genealogy Australian Colonial History
Land Musters, Stock Returns and Lists: Van Diemen’s Land 1803-1822 is the hard-to-find Tasmanian reference that family historians and heritage collectors have on permanent “want” lists. Compiled by respected archivist Irene Schaffer, this 1991 first-edition hardcover reproduces every extant colonial tally of people, livestock and landholdings for the island’s first two decades of European settlement—years for which almost no other nominal records survive. If your ancestor arrived as a convict, soldier, free settler or sealer, this book is the most reliable shortcut to discovering where they lived, what they owned, and how they fitted into the early colonial economy.
Unlike later Government Gazettes, these early musters were handwritten, frequently amended on the spot, and never reprinted—until Schaffer transcribed and cross-referenced them against shipping indents, pay lists and deed registers. The result is a 254-page illustrated roadmap that lets you trace a surname from ship’s arrival to land grant, stock brand or convict appointment. Hundreds of small biographies appear in the margins, turning dry ledgers into real stories: a woman who brought two spinning wheels and no sheep; a marine who swapped his rum ration for 30 acres on the Derwent; a child listed only as “servant to Mr. K.” now identified as the future founder of a Tasmanian political dynasty.
Serious collectors value the edition’s large-format hardcover and protected dust jacket for its durability on the reference shelf, while local and family historians prize the book because it delivers documentation that even the Tasmanian Archives’ online portals still lack. Copies in clean, smoke-free condition—like this one—rarely surface outside estate dispersals or institutional de-accessions. If you need primary-source evidence for a heritage property claim, a convict descendant application, or simply want the satisfaction of holding the same pages consulted by professional Tasmanian genealogists, this copy is ready to ship and free of prior owner marks.
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