Tasmanian mining records: historical tenements, TIGER and family names
How to combine daily current-tenement data, downloadable historical leases, reports back to the nineteenth century and family-history indexes.
Mineral Resources Tasmania publishes daily current tenement data and downloadable historical exploration-licence and mining-lease data. Its library and TIGER database provide government and company reports, maps and photographs; Libraries Tasmania provides the people-first route.
Use each system for the question it can answer.
A map, title summary, report, archive file and family recollection are different evidence classes. The sequence below preserves those differences so a lead does not become an unsupported fact.
- 01Current and historical spatial data
Mineral Resources Tasmania tenement data ↗
What it holds. Daily current tenements and downloadable historical exploration-licence and mining-lease datasets.
Boundary. Spatial history is not proof of employment, current legal rights, safety or access.
- 02Public technical library
Mineral Resources Tasmania Geoscience Library ↗
What it holds. Government publications from the 1880s, company reports, maps, photographs and online report discovery through TIGER.
Boundary. Some material is reference-only, appointment-based, not digitised or subject to reuse conditions.
- 03People and family records
Libraries Tasmania family history ↗
What it holds. Names Index, archives, family-history and employment/residence research pathways.
Boundary. A person in a mining town is not automatically an employee of a particular working.
From family note or map point to a cited record.
- 01Write the known facts. Exact source wording, name variants, place, date range, commodity or material, company and identifier.
- 02Locate, do not conclude. Use the spatial viewer to find the right district, layer and record ID. Save the layer name and access date.
- 03Open the underlying document. Follow title, report, plan or archive references. Record its creator, date, purpose and access conditions.
- 04Test aliases and chronology. Compare former company, mine, lease, field and locality names; do not merge nearby records by proximity alone.
- 05Separate present from past. Historical geology, production, ownership and sale events do not establish current status, value or rights.
- 06Add family context carefully. Label direct experience, family recollection and interpretation; document permission and the item’s provenance.
Geology is not a product sheet.
Historic lease geometry and report coverage can show where to research. They do not establish safe access, present title, remaining material, contamination, rehabilitation obligations or saleability.
Use the Tasmania register for our published mine and quarry records, then return to the issuing authority for current decisions.
The public system can show the file. Families often explain the place.
A worker’s name, district, directory entry, accident reference, company alias or labelled photograph can bridge the Names Index and a technical report.
Using these records for an old sale or a possible listing
Public title, project and company records can help identify an asset and its history. They do not prove that an asset was legally transferred, is currently for sale, has a valid mandate or can be valued from public data. Historical sale pages require an express completion disclosure or remain labelled as publisher-reported. Current owners can register an asset confidentially, but Mines & Quarries does not market, negotiate or transact while the licensed brokerage gate remains closed.