Ancestry adds Australian BMD Indexes

This is a huge new collection of Australia BMD Indexes. Birth indexes run to 1922, marriage indexes to 1949 and death indexes to 1985.

According to Ancestry's help information the year civil registration took effect varied by colony or territory as follows:

Tasmania — 1838
Western Australia — 1841
South Australia — 1842
Victoria — 1853
New South Wales — 1856
Queensland — 1856 (before 1856, see NSW)
Northern Territory — 1870 (1856–1863, see NSW; 1863–1870 see SA)

This database includes indexes that may go back even further, based on records collected from churches, for the following colonies:

New South Wales — 1788
Tasmania — 1803
Queensland — 1829
Victoria — 1836

Ancestry has not yet added information on the number of records in these indexes. For surname Smith, usually a bit over 1% of the records, there are more than 81,000 births, 116,000 marriage partners, and 97,000 deaths indexed.

UPDATE
Ancestry now include these records in the Card Catalog, 4,478,912 births; 4,891,890 marriages; 5,618,797 deaths.