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.

The complexity involved in searching the register book for historical information varies according to the land and its history (for example, if the land has been subject to numerous sub-divisions, etc.).

The first step in the process of searching the manual register is to obtain the title reference number. You can obtain this from address details or a plan parcel reference (eg. sections in hundreds or allotments in Government Towns) or by locating the property on the Property Location Browser.

If you are conducting a search for family history purposes and you don't have the address you will need:

• the full name of the ancestor
• the timeframe in which they would have registered a land dealing with the Lands Titles Office (eg when they bought a property or when they sold a property).

With this information you can then search the microfilm index or database 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 refer back to documents of the Real Property Act until you find the information you require. This may require referring back to documents referred to N.U.A - meaning Not Under the Act - these documents were registered prior to the Real Property Act. To view these documents you need to visit the Old System Section at 39 Carrington Street.

Some Real Property Act documents may not be available at the Customer Service Centre. In this case they need to be ordered from the Largs Bay storage facility. This could take 24 - 48 hours.

Further information can be accessed by visiting the Customer Service Centre on the Ground Floor, 101 Grenfell Street, Adelaide.

Related Information:
Searching Facilities