Births, Marriages & Deaths

Civil Registration

Government recording of births, marriages and deaths in Australia is done at state or territory level. In South Australia this official recording, known as civil registration, began on 1 July 1842.
Some of our indexes include dates earlier than 1842 and this is because the information has been gathered from other sources such as church records.

Online indexes

Genealogy SA
Use this website to find births, marriages and deaths in South Australia for the following dates:

Transcriptions of entries can be ordered from the South Australian Genealogy & Heraldry Society by clicking on the More Info link from your results list.

Indexes

We hold the following indexes to births, marriages and deaths for South Australia in the Genealogy Centre on the 1st floor:

Ordering Certificates

South Australian Office of Consumer and Business Affairs
Certificates should be ordered from the South Australian Office of Consumer and Business Affairs. See their website for details of costs and how to apply.

What information will I find?

Australian birth, marriage and death certificates can contain lots of useful information for the family historian. Death certificates, in particular, can be very informative and often include the names of children and the length of time spent in Australia. For a detailed breakdown of information recorded on Australian certificates, see our guide:
Information found on certificates for Australian States, New Zealand and the British Isles

Other Sources

Other useful sources of information include indexes to newspaper notices, church records and entries in government gazettes. To find these try searching our online catalogue using these keywords + south australia:

• birth announcements
• church records
• death notices
• marriage records
• matrimonial advertisements
• obituaries
• registers of births
• wedding anniversaries

Related Pages

See these pages for other information related to South Australian births, marriages and deaths:

• Cemeteries
• Newspapers