Western Australian Genealogical Society Inc.

The group helps members with research interest in South Australia to overcome the phobia most people have about it!  There is a great wealth of other source material available to family historians.   Our group hopes to bring these to the attention of researchers.   We also hope to foster contacts with the South Australian Genealogy and Heraldry Society and to broaden our knowledge of South Australian history and geography to enable us to better understand our heritage.

Newsletter:

Subscriptions $10.00 for four issues. Contributions welcomed from anyone.
Subs need to be sent to This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it , c/o SA Group, cheques are to be made payable to WAGS Inc. Contributions are welcome - contact the editor Richard Watts via This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .

Convenor:            Ian Simon     

Email:                     Convenor - South Australian SIG 

Meetings

Meetings are held quarterly in the Library at May St, Bayswater from 2:00 to 5:00 pm on designated Sundays - usually the third Sunday of March, June, September and November.  Every meeting has a focus topic and sometimes a member or speaker will provide background information.  There is always a problem solving session, so please feel free to bring along your queries and we'll try to provide some light at the end of the tunnel!

Next Meetings   

Sunday 15th August at 2 pm in Unit 4.  Topic - Transport in Adelaide and the state..

Sunday 21st November at 2 pm in Units 5 and 6.  Problem solving using library resources. 

For our 2010 meetings have a look at:

 WAGS Event Calendar

Anyone with South Australian ancestors must not go past the three following reference "bibles".  With them, researching in SA can be a joy.  All three are available in either WAGS or the State Reference Library.

South Australian History Sources   by Andrew Guy Peake.
The third edition of this invaluable work (2007) contains a wealth of information and guidelines, contact addresses and information sources. Copies can be purchased from the WAGS Bookshop and are in the library for reference.

Relations in Records   A guide to family history sources in the official records of South Australia, ie material generated by state government departments.  Armed with this handbook you can then quote reference numbers of various records and then contact State Records to ask for a quote for the records to be searched, which will be greatly reduced given your ability to pinpoint exact records of interest.  State Records also has an excellent website at:   http://www.archives.sa.gov.au/

Kith and Kin  A guide to family history holdings of the State Library of South Australia, including the Mortlock Library of South Australiana.

Western Australian News 

Both the WAGS Library and State Library of WA hold all available birth (1842 to 1927), death (1942 to 1972) and marriage (1842 to 1937) indexes on fiche and digital format. State Library also have indexes in book format.

South Australian News

Online newspapers for South Australia have been added to significantly.  To search  specific newspapers go to

http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/home

and select South Australia.

The SA Register is available for the period 1839 to 1846; while the Advertiser (or its precursors) is available from 1858 to 1883, 1888 to 1924 and 1931 to 1941, 1946, 1947 and 1949. Some issues are incomplete.

These are some useful links to help you with your research.

Click on "read more" to see links for cemeteries, shipping, property information, place names and contact addresses.