This index will be of particular interest to local and family historians researching gold and other mineral lease records during the period 1874-1953. There are over 53,000 entries in this index.

The indexes themselves contain the names of the original leaseholder, together with any other names mentioned, the location of the lease, surveyors and dates.

Often there is a hand-drawn map of the lease, drawn by the government surveyor.  
Leases vary in the amount of information on them. In most cases it depends on the wealth of the mine.
If the mine was wealthy it continued on with the leases changing hands many times during the life of the mine and these names would be listed on the lease.
There was one lease with 25 names including all of their occupations showing people from the baker to the solicitor.

The Index covers all NSW mining districts (combining the 14 individual indexes). These records are compiled by Kaye Vernon and Billie Jacobsen, in conjunction with State Records NSW.