NSW Land Registry Services and the NSW government have made a wealth of historical plan, title and map data freely available online.
Historical Land Records Viewer is an online tool that gives access to images of historical plans, titles, maps and indexes. Recent data updates have now made over over 2.5 million records viewable with the tool, which were previously unavailable online.
The image collection available via the viewer now includes:
- Charting Maps: Parish Maps, Town Maps, and other maps known as ‘Charting Maps’, recording subdivision and status changes to land parcels.
- Plan Lodgment Books: used between 1863 to 1995 to record details of plans lodged with the department.
- Old Form Torrens Registers: Torrens Titles from 1863 to 1961 available at NSW LRS, Queen Square | NSW State Library | State Records (Kingswood) public terminals – view only.
- Historical Parish Maps: cancelled editions of Crown Land Parish and Town Maps which show how subdivisions and other actions have altered land parcels over time.
- Old System Grant Index and Register 1792-1862: a chronological record of the surnames or company names of those who bought or received grants of land from the Crown, and the associated images.
- Old System Purchasers Index 1896-1985: a record of individuals purchasing an estate or interest in land.
- Old System Vendors Index 1825-1986: a record of individuals selling an estate or interest in land.
- Old System Deeds 1825-1992: images from the General Register of Deeds for all registered common law (known as Old System) land transactions.
Old Form Torrens Registers and Old System Deeds 1825-1992 are available to view online, but must be purchased if copeies are required. Other records viewable online are available via the NSW State Library, the State Records Authority, NSW Land Registry Services and the NSW LRS online portal.
You can access the Historical Land Records Viewer here.
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