VPRS 10261 Birth Information Forms (RETURNED TO AGENCY 2014)

Full description

This series consists of bound volumes and thermal bound folders containing birth information forms for the registration of births. The forms are required to be filled in for registration of births in accordance with the provisions of the Registration of Births, Deaths & Marriages Act 1959 (No.6564).

The Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages Act 1959 provided for the registration of births to be effected by post instead of personally by attendance before a Registrar. The system of registration was re-organised and centralised and a combined system of registration of births in the metropolitan and country areas started from 1 October 1960.

Since the central agency responsible for administering the Births, Deaths and Marriages Act 1959 is required to procure information of all the metropolitan and country births in the prescribed form, a separate sequence of birth information forms were created and registered with an annual single number by date of receipt which corresponds to the birth registration numbers entered in the relevant Birth Registers.

The records are statutory declarations by informants verifying the statements made. Information from these records is then transferred to the formal Birth Registers.

The P1 consignment consists of bound volumes containing birth information forms for the period Oct 1960 to 1984. Even though the forms are still being created and maintained separately from the corresponding Birth Registers, they are no longer bound in volumes. From 1984 they were kept in thermal bound folders.

These forms provide the following details:
- date of receipt
- registration number
- details about the child which include, date of birth, name, surname, sex, place of birth, living or stillborn
- details about parents (name, age, address, marriage details and occupation)
- names of witnesses.

Prior to 1971 particulars prescribed by the Schedule were supplied on three different types of forms which included:

- birth information forms in general (white) (Eighth Schedule)
- for illegitimate births (blue) (Tenth Schedule)
- late registration forms (pink) (Ninth Schedule)

The numbers of the volumes at the series level and the registration numbers at the contents level are the same as the corresponding Birth Register number and the birth registration numbers entered in the relevant Birth Registers created for registering the births in Victoria. (The corresponding Birth Registers are in the custody of Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages as at May 1990.)

This series can be accessed via the alphabetical name index created to provide access to the Birth Registers. The index from 1960 onwards is held by the Registry.

These records have been accorded a permanent status in accordance with the provisions of section 26 of the Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages Act 1959 (No.6564).