No:
55 |
September 2010
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News
September
Seminars
4: Genealogy on the Web Hub
Library 12:30 to 2:30pm
11: Climbing the genealogy barriers State Library
for the Flinders University 9:00am to 4:00pm
October Seminars
10: Identifying and dating 19th century
photos WEA Centre Adelaide
7:00 to 10:00pm
18: Using South Australian resources in family history
Payneham Library 6:30 to 9:30pm
22: Introduction to FH research (over 7 weeks with
sessions of 1.5 hrs each) WEA Centre Adelaide 8:00 to 9:30pm
28: Tracing your Scottish ancestors Mt Barker Community
Library 1:30 to 4:30pm
See the seminar program
for more details and bookings.
2011 Australian Census
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released an Information Paper
outlining the Proposed 2011 Census. The primary purpose of this paper
is to signal the start of a consultation process on the 2011 Census
and to invite comments from Census data users. They welcome comments
and feedback.
Adoptions
in South Australia
Adoption,
in the legal sense of the term, is a relatively modern development,
having been introduced into South Australia in 1925 in the form of
the Adoption of Children Act. The model for this Act in South Australia
and elsewhere in the then British Empire owes its origins to the 1895
New Zealand Act.
Technically, the process of adoption allows natural parents to surrender
all their legal rights and responsibilities over a child to other
persons to the extent that the child, as far as the law is concerned,
is considered to have been the natural issue of the adoptive parents.
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In
this issue:
News
September
seminars
October seminars
2011 Australian Census
Feature article
Adoptions
in South Australia
|
Graham Jaunay
Adelaide
Proformat
Glandore SA 5037
Australia
Tel: +61 8 8371 4465
proformat@jaunay.com
Breaking news:
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Adelaide Proformat uses
The
Genealogist - for UK census, BMD indexes and more online simply because it contains quality data checked by experts.
Proformat News acknowledges the support by
AWE
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All
similar activities prior to the introduction of the legislation should
be termed fostering rather than adoption. As far as the law is concerned
all previous arrangements of fostering never broke the original rights
of the natural parents and should be considered as merely private
arrangements. Although prior to 1925 there was the opportunity for
the State to legally remove children from the custody of their parents
due to neglect or the potential for neglect to occur as would be the
case if parents fell on hard times or became involved in illegal behaviour.
Initially it was considered that adoption was private and confidential
and neither party knew of each other and a new birth certificate was
created in the names of the adoptive parents. Legislation was introduced
in 1989 that changed the rules regarding adoptive children accessing
information about their natural parents. Adopted people, birth parents,
adoptive parents and certain relatives are legally entitled to get
adoption information once the adopted person turns 18 years of age.
If you were involved in a South Australian adoption, you can apply
for or restrict your adoption information. You can place a five year
restriction or veto, on identifying information being given to other
involved parties if your adoption took place before 17 August 1989.
A significant number of children found themselves in institutions
in the period between being removed from their parents and being adopted.
These facilities also looked after children who were Wards of the
State who were not adopted for a range of reasons. Details about these
facilities can be found in Finding
Your Own Way, a guide to tracing family and existing records
of South Australian children's homes and institutions up to December
2004.
State boundaries are no barriers to the adoption process, although
the matter is a state government responsibility, under the umbrella
of the federal Family Law Act 1975. There is no central register of
adoptions. All states/territories have legislation that grants certain
information rights to adopted people and to their adoptive and birth
families.
Key legislation involved is:
Australian Capital Territory - Adoption
Act 1993
New South Wales - Adoption
Act 2000
Northern Territory - Adoption
of Children Act
Queensland - Adoption
of Children Act 1964
South Australia - Adoption
Act 1988
Tasmania - Adoption
Act 1988
Victoria - Adoption
Act 1984
Western Australia - Adoption
Act 1994
Effectively if you come across an adopted person in your family history
research, the only person who can access that information is the person
themselves, or their parents, both natural and adoptive.
When it comes to pre-1925 material, the situation differs as effectively
the process is one of fostering.
When the SA Genealogy & Heraldry Society was given the
opportunity to film all the District Duplicate certificates in the
early 1990s, the filming of birth certificates included a few of children,
that, after the implementation of the 1925 Act, were adopted. When
this was later realised, officers from the BDM Registry physically
removed these from the collection. Thus the original birth certificate
of any child adopted under the Act is unavailable to the general public
and the provisions are that it will never be available.
The State Childrens Council was established in 1886 to manage
the boarding-out of children as fostering was termed in the
establishing Act and this also embraced the management of the government
institutions for children, the reformatories and industrial schools.
At this time the so-called Magill Industrial School accommodated
children waiting for a foster placement and those in state-sponsored
apprenticeships. Delinquent girls were also housed in the same establishment
while delinquent boys were on the hulk, Fitzjames, anchored
off Largs Bay.
Advertiser 12 Feb 1902 p7d
The boarding-out system had a number of aspects with respect
to children taken into State care:
handing over children to respectable families with no
children as their wards.
boarding-out of children under 13 to approved homes at a weekly
subsidy.
organising children into apprenticeships.
managing the employment of children over the age of 13.
overseeing the behaviour and circumstances of those children returned
to their own homes.
The records generated by these activities are in the custody of State
records of South Australia and are held in the following series:
GRG 27 State Childrens Department
GRG 28 Destitute Persons Department
GRG 29 Social Welfare Department
The reader should read Newsletter 37 whose subject is Orphans
in South Australia to get a balanced picture and also a full
list of records available in the above three series. |
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