Indigenous Australians have lived in the southern regions of Australia for over 45,000 years ago.
European interest in the region began in the 17th century. The Dutch explored the southern coastline in 1627. In 1801/2 the French ship Geographe and the English ship Investigator, crossed each other’s paths at Encounter Bay. In 1829, Charles Sturt charted the interior of the continent from New South Wales, through Victoria, traveling along the Murray River, then south along the Darling River, down to Lake Alexandrina, where the river meets the sea[1].
European settlement of South Australia differs from other colonies in that the first communities were not established as penal colonies. Instead, South Australia was developed as a commercial concern and was settled under an explicit act of the British Parliament, the South Australia Act 1834.
The South Australian Company, was set up to sell land and attract migrants under a scheme devised by Edward Gibbon Wakefield. Wakefield suggested that instead of granting free land to settlers, as had happened in other colonies, this new colony should use the principle of "the universal sale of land instead of land grants, and the exclusive employment of the purchasers' moneys to promote emigration"[1]
The borders of South Australia were adjusted several times. For the first decade of its existence, it was surrounded by NSW on all three land sides. Several errors were made during various surveys, but in time the borders were adjusted so that today South Australia shares a border with every Australian state, and the Northern Territory.
Most of South Australia's land mass is desert, with the population concentrated closer to the coast. The capital of South Australia is Adelaide.
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Indigenous History in South AustraliaIndigenous History in South Australia
Indigenous Australians represent the oldest living culture on earth. In South Australia, archaeological evidence indicates Aboriginal peoples have lived in the southern parts of Australia for at least 45,000 years.
As in the other states, there are several distinct Aboriginal language groups in South Australia, including:
- the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains,
- the Ngarrindjeri people of the lower Murray River, eastern Fleurieu Peninsula, and the Coorong,
- the Narungga of the Yorke Peninsular,
- the Adnyamathanha, a more contemporary grouping of distinct traditional groups from the northern Flinders Ranges, that includes the Guyani, Jadliaura, Pilatapa and sometimes the Barngarla peoples, the Pitjantjatjara of the Central Australian desert,
- the Yankunytjatjara whose lands cover the areas of the Musgrave Ranges, and Everard Ranges, and
- the Kokatha peoples whose traditional lands extend over some 140,000 km2 (54,000 sq mi) and comprise some of the harshest and dryest land on the Australian continent. This includes Tarcoola, Kingoonyah, Pimba and the McDouall Peak, as well as modern townships of Roxby Downs and Woomera, the site of British nuclear testing in the 1950s and 60s.
Many people from the stolen generation came from South Australia. In 1909, the Protector of Aborigines in South Australia, William Garnet South, reportedly "lobbied for the power to remove Aboriginal children without a court hearing because the courts sometimes refused to accept that the children were neglected or destitute". South argued that "all children of mixed descent should be treated as neglected"[2]. His lobbying reportedly played a part in the enactment of the Aborigines Act 1911. This designated his position as the legal guardian of every Aboriginal child in South Australia, not only the so-called "half-castes".
Researching Indigenous Family HistoryResearching Indigenous Family History
Since Aboriginal culture was largely an oral tradition there are no records equivalent to European vital record registration available for aboriginal family history. However, cultural practices and traditions in many regions have been reclaimed by the community, despite the dispossession caused by colonisation.
Colonial and Post Colonial records relevant to family history research are held by a variety of institutions including:
- IATSIS - host a range of resources to assist people with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander family history research in the South Australia.
- National Archives of Australia (NAA) in Adelaide and Canberra, hold several records and resources including the Bringing Them Home Name Index a searchable list of names and places created from NAA files about First Australians.
- The National Library of Australia (NLA) which holds a large range of books, manuscripts, newspapers, photographs and oral histories. Some material is easily accessible online via Trove. Material such as Oral Histories need to be accessed in the library. NLA has a comprehensive Family History Research Guide and if you need assistance you can contact the library via their Ask A Librarian.
- The Australian War Memorial holds information related to the military service of Indigenous Australians -
- The State Library of South Australia has a page deidicated to Aboriginal Family History.
- The South Australian Museum has an Aboriginal family history unit , established in 1988, tasked with making the South Australian Museum's archival material available to Aboriginal family history researchers.
European Settlement in South AustraliaEuropean Settlement in South Australia
The South Australia/ Australian Company, was a commercial entity formed in 1935 specifically to establish a new, free colony on the southern coast of Australia. The board of the company, headed by George Fife Angas, and comprised of wealthy British merchants, persuaded the British Parliament to pass the South Australia Act 1834, which set out the rules for land purchases[1].
The Act defined the province of South Australia as being:
...that part of Australia which lies between the meridians of the one hundred and thirty-second and one hundred and forty-first degrees of east longitude, and between the southern ocean and the twenty-six degrees of south latitude, together with all and every the islands adjacent thereto, and the bays and gulphs.[3]
The South Australian Company sold land to attract migrants to South Australia. Between February and July 1836 nine ships left Britain bound for the newly created province. The ships were the Cygnet, Africaine, Tam O'Shanter, Rapid, HMS Buffalo (carrying future Governor Hindmarsh), John Pirie, Emma, Lady Mary Pelham and Duke of York. Initially the ships took supplies and settlers to Kangaroo Island, but that was never intended as the final destination. Colonel William Light, who had been appointed Surveyor General, was tasked with finding a suitable location for the new colony.
He was required to find a site with a harbour, arable land, fresh water, ready internal and external communications, building materials and drainage. Light rejected potential locations for the new main settlement, including Kangaroo Island, Port Lincoln and Encounter Bay. Light decided that the Adelaide plains were the best location for settlement. [1]
The first Governor, John Hindmarsh, declared the state established in 1836. The capital city, Adelaide, is named in honour of Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, the wife of King William IV.
The South Australia Act 1834 divided administrative control of the new colony between the Colonial Office, managed by the Governor, and the Board of Colonisation Commissioners, with an appointed Resident Commissioner. Tensions between the two offices began to create problems.
The survey and sale of land, as well as migration arrangements and funding, were responsibilities of the Resident Commissioner, so that the British Government could not interfere with the business affairs or freedom of religion of the settlers. Relations between Hindmarsh and the Resident Commissioner quickly broke down.[1]
By 1840, a combination of land speculation, economic recession and administrative mismanagement, caused a crisis. With the colony on the brink of bankruptcy, in 1841 London took over responsibility to ensure the colony did not fail entirely. The South Australia Act 1842 gave the British Government full control of South Australia as a Crown Colony.
Understand Migration to South AustralianUnderstand Migration to South Australian
European migration to South Australia was a deliberate exercise in social engineering.
South Australia was distinctive in being the first attempt to employ the Wakefieldian system, synchronising the sale of land with a subsidised inflow of labour. ... Designed to contrast with the population policies adopted in the other Australian colonies, the plan carefully calibrated the composition of the population, especially with regard to family structure, age and sex balance.[4]
Besides selling land, the South Australia Company helped workers come to the fledgling colony to work. These assisted migrants came mostly from southern England - London, Middlesex, Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Surrey, as well as Lancashire, and were mainly agricultural labourers and domestic servants. When gold was discovered in Victoria in 1851, thousands of these migrants bolted to the goldfields, creating a severe labor shortage in South Australia.
The State Library of South Australia holds the original business records of the South Australian Company in their collection.
German MigrationGerman Migration
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By 1861, 83 per cent of South Australia’s immigrants had come from the British Isles, but another significant group of early settlers to South Australia were the Germans. About 40 German tradesmen arrived between 1836 and 1837 in the employ of the South Australian Company[4]. Between 1838 to 1840 the South Australia Company funded the passage of a further 486 Lutherans from Brandenburg, under the guidance of Pastor Ludwig August Christian Kavel, who were escaping religious persecution in their homeland. They also imported pure merinos from Saxony in Germany. The first wool auctions were held in Adleaide in 1840[5].
...Germans came to South Australia initially from the Prussian provinces of Brandenburg, Silesia and Posen, and later from other states such as Hanover, Mecklenburg and Saxony. They were mostly farmers and tradespeople. After the revolution of 1848, a number of middle-class urban Germans came to South Australia from the city of Berlin and various Prussian provinces[6]. ... Throughout the 1840s and 1850s approximately 12 German settlements were established in the Barossa Valley. These townships included Langmeil, Lyndoch, Greenock, Nuriootpa, Seppeltsfield and Light’s Pass. [7]
ViticultureViticulture
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Viticulture was one of the earliest industries established in South Australia.
Vines were planted by the South Australian Company during 1837 in Adelaide’s West Parklands, with the first private vineyards planted during 1837–38 by John Barton Hack and George Stevenson at North Adelaide. Hack’s vineyard was moved during 1839 to his property at Echunga in the Adelaide Hills where he produced the regions first wine in 1843. German settlers also planted wine-grapes at Hahndorf and Lobethal in the Adelaide Hills and in the Barossa Valley.[8]
Today, South Australian wines from the Barossa and Clair Valleys are some of the best in the world.
MiningMining
Mining is major industry that has attracted migrants to South Australia. Copper was discovered near Kapunda in 1842 and Burra in 1845, attracting Germans from the Harz mining region[7].
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The ‘Monster Mine’ at Burra, for a time the richest copper mine in the world, was the first metalliferous mineral mine in Australia to pay dividends. ... Mining attracted Cornish, Welsh and German miners. Cornish practices and equipment were widely adopted. ...Beginning in 1906 at Mount Painter in the Flinders Ranges, South Australia developed a uranium industry; from 1954 until 1961 Radium Hill (south-west of Broken Hill) supplied uranium for the American, British and Australian governments.[9]
Several cities in South Australia have developed to support the mining and industrial sector. Whyalla, originally known as Hummock's Hill and located on the western side of the Spencer Gulf, is home to a large steelworks and ship building industry. Whyalla, Port Pirie, and Port Augusta, which are both on the eastern side of the Spencer Gulf, are known collectively as the "Iron Triangle"[10].
Defence and Space TechnologiesDefence and Space Technologies
Another industry that continues to be critical to South Australia is defence and technology. Up until the early 20th century, Britain supplied Australia with weaponry and defence technology. Domestic weapons manufacturing began in Victoria and NSW not long before WWI. By the 1920s manufacturers needed somewhere to test their munitions to prove they worked.
The seabed off Port Wakefield was selected because the low tide left a large flat expanse of bare sand exposed, so artillery shells and other projectiles could be fired into water at high tide and then recovered undamaged for inspection when the tide went out. The Port Wakefield Proof Range opened in 1929 as South Australia’s first defence science institution. It is still in operation as the Proof and Experimental Establishment.[11]
WWII cemented the need for Australia to develop it's own defence manufacturing industry. After the British Forces were routed by Germany in France, Britain notified Australia they could no longer be relied on for further supplies of any aircraft, materials or equipment of any kind
On 11 June 1940, only a week after the evacuation ended, the Commonwealth government created a new Department of Munitions to oversee increased defence production. ... By November 1940 the largest explosives factory in Australia was under construction in farmland at Salisbury, north of Adelaide. Other munitions factories went up on greenfields sites at Finsbury (now Woodville North) and Hendon, and the South Australian Railways workshops at Islington and civilian plants such as General Motors-Holden, Perry Engineering and Kelvinator were re-tooled for military production.[11]
In 1946 the Anglo-Australian Joint Project was set up to test a new generation of weapons: long-range missiles and nuclear warheads. The town of Woomera was built in the desert, northwest of Port Augusta. Initially the tests at Woomera were British/Australian joint ventures, but in time the European Launcher Development Organisation also used the range. NASA, the American National Aeronautics and Space Administration, built the Island Lagoon and Nurrungar satellite tracking stations.
Over 30 years, Woomera tested a wide variety of satellite launchers and military missiles, including the Skylark, Black Knight, Black Arrow, Blue Streak and Europa programs and the pilotless Jindivik target aircraft. ... The vast outback expanse of the Woomera Prohibited Area was also used to test several British nuclear weapons. In 1953 two atomic bombs were exploded in the Totem tests at Emu, west of Coober Pedy. Three years later the tests moved further south to Maralinga, where four more weapons were exploded in Operation Buffalo in 1956 and three in Operation Antler in 1957. Testing of nuclear weapon components continued until 1963, and has left a legacy of radioactive contamination in the Maralinga area. ... Missile testing at Woomera had wound down by the 1980s, and the town was opened to the public in 1982. The American tracking stations at Island Lagoon and Nurrungar closed in 1972 and 1999, respectively[11].
Scientists and engineers from all over the world came to work at these facilities, often bringing their wives and children with them.
Continuing this tradition of innovation, today South Australia is home to SASIC - South Australian Space Industry Centre. Created by the South Australian Government to be the home to the Australian Space Agency, SASIC brings together over 100 space-related organisations to advance Australias participation in advanced technologies.
Major Sources for South Australian Family History ResearchMajor Sources for South Australian Family History Research
Genealogy SAGenealogy SA
Genealogy SA is a great starting point for ancestor searches related to South Australia. They hold extensive databases and indexes, All of these indexes can be searched from a single Database Search Page, including:
- Births, marriages & deaths,
- Newspaper Notices,
- Cemeteries Burial Records,
- Church Records,
- School, hospital and asylum Admission Records,
- and many more.
Note: While it is free to search the indexes, payment may be required in some cases to access complete records.
Several of these collections are also available on MyHeritage:
- South Australia Death and Funeral Notices - Funeral and death notice records published by The Advertiser newspaper based in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia, from 1971 onwards.
- South Australia Burials - burial records from Yorke Peninsula, South Australia, from 1846 onwards.
- South Australia Passenger Lists, 1836 - 1961 - passenger arrival indexes. Passenger arrival records are also available via the National Archives of Australia Passenger Arrival recordsearch. Simply "Adelaide" as the port of arrival.
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Libraries & ArchivesLibraries & Archives
The State Library of South Australia has a dedicated family history page with links to records in their collection and external sites.
Their collection includes records related to:
- Religious institutions:
The State Library of South Australia holds many church records, including baptism, marriage and burial registers; as well as photographs, administrative records, correspondence, and Sunday School records. Our most extensive records relate to the Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian churches.[12]
They also hold records from the Adelaide Hebrew Congregation.
Almanacs and Directories - Almanacs and commercial directories issues by the Post Office may help you identify businesses or the addresses of individuals in a given place and time.
The State Library of South Australia holds a digitised collection of directories and almanacs from 1864-1873, but each issue must be searched individually. When searching historic directories it's important to remember that initials of first names, rather than full names, were often used in listings, and street numbers may have changed so the historic street number of a specific location may not the same as the contemporary street number.
The state archive, State Records of South Australia, has a series of comprehensive research guides with links to guides to their holdings including:
- Estates - which includes historic probate files and powers of attorney
- Police, Courts and Gaols - which includes information about court cases, divorce papers and goal records
- Health and Welfare - which includes records about Children in State Based Care, destitution and welfare services and records related to patients, nurses and other hospital staff in South Australia.
Note: most of these indexes are contained in PDF documents.
Access RestrictionsAccess Restrictions
Different access restriction periods apply to certain records:
- Records with Low level details, such as those found in school admission registers, are open after 30 years
- Records with Moderate level details, such as financial, health or conduct details, are open after 60 years
- Records with Sensitive personal information which may affect later generations, such as records of children in state care or mental health cases, are only open after 100 years.
If you are a direct descendant of an individual or engaged in academic research you may be able to apply for special access before the embrago period expires. Apply to the relevant institution.
See alsoSee also
Explore more about South Australia family history recordsExplore more about South Australia family history records
- Using South Australia Land Records - Legacy Family Tree Webinars
- Genealogy a la carte – Using Australian historical maps in your research - Legacy Family Tree Webinars
- Willkommen in Australien! Researching German-Australian families - Legacy Family Tree Webinars
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Wikipedia - History of South Australia
- ↑ Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission: Bringing them Home: Part 2: 8 South Australia
- ↑ Documenting Democracy - South Australia Act 1934
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 SA History Hub - Migration
- ↑ South Australia History Hub - Wool
- ↑ SA History Hub- German's in South Australia
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 LibGuides: South Australia History - South Australia company
- ↑ SA History Hub - Viticulture
- ↑ South Australian History Hub - Mines and Mining
- ↑ Wikipedia-Whyalla
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 SA History Hub - defence science & industry
- ↑ SLSA Guides-church records