VPRS 17879 Index to Parents of Wards

Full description

This series was created to index the records pertaining to wards by reference to their parents. Judging from the content of the majority of entries in these volumes, it appears that its function was primarily to find the relevant ward history in VPRS 4527, ward registers.

As children were identified by the wardship number, the indexes can also be used to locate files relating to many of these children that are extant within VPRS 10071. (For some children. however, these registration numbers would have changed and so the file will exist with a different file number. Refer to the description for VPRS 10071).

The entry for each ward in these indexes records the names of both parents, the ward registration number of each child and an identifier that identifies the volume in VPRS 4527. This was the volume number used by the creating departments to identify each volume. This should not be confused for the unit number allocated by PROV.

It appears this series was used to identify parents for every ward up to the end of June 1961. However, between July 1961 and 1966 it appears these indexes identifies the parents only for those wards managed by the Family Welfare Division of the Social Welfare Branch. This Division only handled wards who were aged up to 14 years of age.

No further indexes of this type were created after the Department ceased creating new volumes in VPRS 4527 during 1966.