VPRS 4979 Adoption Applications Register

This series consists of volumes maintained by the Department of Community Welfare Service to register applications received from persons wishing to adopt children.Volumes record basic information only, comprising the name of the applicants, the date of their application and the sex and age of the children they wish to adopt. A column headed remarks appears to have been used primarily to record movements of the applicants file. However, this entry can be annotated to indicate whether the application was subsequently withdrawn or cancelled and in some cases includes other annotations regarding the suitability of the applicants to adopt.These volumes do not record whether the applicants were successful in adopting children. It was not used to record the names of children who were adopted. Very rarely an entry may indicate the name of a child that the parents were presumably fostering at the time the application was made.