Adoption and State Ward records

Below are links for finding information on accessing adoption records for each Australian state and territory. This will include contact information of the relevant government agency or private organisation.

See also the Family History kit giving the major addresses of Indigenous family history organisations for each state.

General Australian sites :

Australian Adoption Links (Adoptee Searcher's Handbook)

Australian Capital Territory

ACT Adoption and Information Service

New South Wales

Were you adopted? -  NSW Dept. of Community Services 
Adoption Information - NSW Registry of  Births, Deaths and Marriages
Connecting kin : guide to records : a guide to help people separated from the families search for their records. Listing of records: NSW Government welfare agencies; Non-Government agencies; Public hospitals; NSW Government non-welfare agencies. This publication is in print form and should be available in many libraries. Please note: this guide may take a long time to download
Adoption search and reunion - Post Adoption Resource Centre

Northern Territory

NT Adoption Information 

Queensland

Adoption Information - Queensland 
Jigsaw Queensland (Queensland Post Adoption Resource Centre)

South Australia

Adoption and Family Information Service of South Australia

Tasmania

Adoption and Information Service (Dept. of Health and Human Services)
Adoption Information (Dept. of Justice)
Origins Tasmania

Victoria

VANISH: Victorian Adoption Network
Public Records Office - Adoption Records

Western Australia

Information About Adoption - WA Dept for Child Protection
Signposts - contains information and contact details for more than 200 facilities that provided some sort of residential, out-of-home care in Western Australia from 1920, sometimes even earlier.

State Wards

Care Leavers Australia Network (CLAN) is a support and advocacy group for people brought up in care away from their family as state wards or Home children raised in Children's homes, orphanages or other institutions, or in foster care.