South Australia Land and Property

Searching Family History by Land Title
The information available within the register book maintained by the Registrar-General contains a wealth of information on South Australia's history.

Most of this historical information is accessible only in manual, hard copy form at the Customer Service Centre, Ground Floor, 101 Grenfell Street, Adelaide.

By accessing the historical information of the register book customers can research the history of a particular piece of land or even find out about land owned by their ancestors. In fact, genealogists often access the register book for this purpose.

Online Resources

 * 1835-1841 South Australia Landowners 1835-1841 at FindMyPast - index ($)
 * South Australia Government Gazettes 1867-1884, images, ($).
 * South Australia Rate Books at FindMyPast - index & images ($)

Land Titles Office
The information maintained by the Land Titles Office contains a wealth of information for family historians.

By accessing the historical information of the register book, people can research the history of a particular piece of land owned by their ancestors. You can even find death details of land owners. .

Under the Real Property Act 1886, the Registrar General maintains a register book of records in relation to land under the Torrens System. The Register Book is a public record that includes Certificates of Title and all instruments registered under the Real Property Act. Most of the register book has been computerised with 95% of the title register converted to electronic format. Not all historical information is available by a computerised search. To access historical information you will need to visit the Records Service Centre on the ground floor of the Lands Titles Office at 101 Grenfell Street to access the register which is free although printouts attract a fee.

If you are conducting a search for family history and you do not have the address you will need:


 * the full name of the ancestor
 * the timeframe in which they would have registered a land dealing such as when they bought or sold a property.

With this information you can then search the microfilm index of Real Property Act documents, dating back to 1858, to find the title reference number. Once you have the title reference number, you can view the title and trawl through documents of the Real Property Act until you find the information you require. This may require referring back to documents called NUA meaning Not Under the Act and these are documents that were registered before to the Real Property Act (aka Torrens Title System) was introduced in 1858. To view these documents you need to visit the Old System Section at Building 4A, 300 Richmond Road, Netley SA 5037 (formerly 39 Carrington Street Adelaide).

Some Real Property Act documents may not be available on site and need to be ordered from the storage facility. This could take one to two days.

Access to current records is available online via Property Assist. The system integrates land information from all State Government agencies to provide you with current information from various online databases. All you need to use the system is a:
 * suitably configured browser
 * current credit card