Historical South Australian Births
1836 to 1854
24,200 registered and unregistered South Australian births up to 1854 including those before civil registration (mid-1842)
Searching the births
Enter the child's, father's, or mother's surname into its box. The other surnames, all given names, and birth date are optional.
If used, the date must be formatted as yyyy-mm-dd for the exact date (eg 1839-03-27), yyyy-mm for the month, yyyy for the year only, or mm-dd for the birthday with unknown year.
Note that the exact and sounds like searches only apply to the child's surname. All other fields are always searched by the contains method.
If you do not get the expected results, read the more detailed help article on advanced searching of our databases.
Notes
The place is usually the residence, which may not be the birth place. If the place is not recorded, the registration district is abbreviated within brackets to give an indication of location.
Most of the birth records prior to civil registration are from church baptism registers. If there is no birth date, the baptism date is used and indicated by (bap), but it may be long after the birth. Where there is a baptism date, the place is where baptised or the residence, which may not be the birth place. The mother's maiden name and any former married names are usually added.
If the birth you require is not in this database, check for other SA birth resources.
Sources
The major sources of these records were the (Holy) Trinity and other church baptism registers and the South Australian Births Registrations 1842 to 1906, SAGHS, 1997. Newspapers of the day were also used.
Acknowledgment
Grateful thanks to the contributor of new and revised birth data from other sources.