I am so sorry that I have no posted at all for 2 whole weeks. But I do have some exciting news to announce.
Genealogists thrive on attending conferences and seminars (or webinars for those that are online). Many Genealogists also often cannot afford to attend any of the big conferences that happen once a year and most of them are held in the USA. And thanks to the current pandemic, it is no longer safe to actually get together in person any more. So I am very pleased to announce that one of the biggest genealogy conferences in the world, ROOTSTECH, has announced that the 2021 conference will be totally online, totally virtual and totally FREE!!!! To be held in February 2021. Here is the link!! https://www.rootstech.org/?lang=eng All you have to do is to register and you can attend as many online classes that you can get to over 3 days in February 2021. The website also says that classes will be available for free for attendees for up to 12 months after the conference has ended. I have of course already registered!! I have never been to any Rootstech conference, although I have seen many videos on youtube, for some of the classes and other interviews and activities that happened after Rootstech ended. So if you are feeling inclined, and you dont want to miss out, I highly sugget that you register for ROOTSTECH 2021 and get in to win!! Here is the link again... https://www.rootstech.org/?lang=eng
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I had to do some searching but there are actually quite a few NZ sources available online.
For the record, I am NOT affiliated with any of these and I will not be earning any commission or money. I am simply posting these pages for your information. Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers This is the NZ Newspapers Database. Run by the NZ National Library so yes, this is another Government held database. his holds many NZ newspapers up until the 1950s. And yes this is FREE. The search engine is not terribly accurate for names or phrases. You can choose which papers or regions to search, and if you dont want any advertisements, it is usually better to choose ARTICLE as the content type. For the dates, you have to use the sliders. The left slider starts at 1839 (I think) and the right slider ends at 1950. You use the left slider for the start date and the right slider for the end date of your search. Keep in mind that if you are looking for names, you will get every sports article with the surname, as well as every school prize giving lists and various other lists with the names in them. Keep in mind that many articles before WW2, used initials only (especially for the ladies) and not the first name. So I find that searching just a surname makes things easier. I usually just skim and look for the following words in the headings - Births, Deaths, Marriages, Memorials, and Obituaries. This way I am not looking at every single article. Archway Archives https://www.archway.archives.govt.nz/ The Archway is the main means of searching the NZ National Archives. The Archives tend to hold records such as divorce records, probate records, lots of military records (mostly for world war 1 at this time), land sales records, and various other records. Some of these records will have links that you can click and read online - such as military records - but most of these are not available online and you may need to request a copy from the office listed. Cemetery records - I find that cemetery records are very useful to obtaining details for both the person you are researching and often for their family members as well. I have added some cemetery databases that I use quite regularly. Auckland https://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/cemeteries/Pages/find-burial-cremation.aspx Wellington https://wellington.govt.nz/services/community-and-culture/cemeteries/search-cemetery-records Christchurch https://heritage.christchurchcitylibraries.com/Cemeteries/ Timaru https://www.timaru.govt.nz/services/community-and-culture/cemeteries/cemetery-search Dunedin https://www.dunedin.govt.nz/services/cemeteries/cemeteries-search Invercargill https://icc.govt.nz/cemeteries/cemetery-search/ NZ Presbyterian Church http://www.presbyterian.org.nz/archives/marriagesdatabase.htm Otago/Southland Marriages http://www.presbyterian.org.nz/archives/synodregionmarriages.htm The NZ Presbyterian church database is very useful for marriages - especially in Otago and Southland since that is where many immigrants from Scotland settled. If you have "Black sheep" in your family, they may have been mentioned in a police gazette. These are held by the National Archives and can now be accessed on the below link. NZ Police Gazettes https://natlib.govt.nz/blog/posts/black-sheep-in-the-family I think these are all the links I can find for now. I hope these are of help to you. Ciao Robynne As I said before, this blog will benefit mostly those who have family in NZ. But I do intend to expand this blog to also cover certain other countries. Why would I do that?
I mentioned previously, that NZ is a young country - less than 200 years old. Many families in NZ have ancestors who came to NZ from other countries. The countries I plan to focus on will mostly be British Commonwealth English speaking countries. In other words - Australia, UK, Ireland and Canada. The only reason I am NOT doing the USA is because there is already tons of information, records, sources, and books available about USA genealogy. But there is not a lot of information on those British Commonwealth countries I have mentioned. So I am trying to fill in the gap. For my own family tree, my ancestors all came from UK and Ireland. Pretty much nowhere else. I am just your typical boring WASP - White Anglo Saxon Protestant. Australia is included because so many Kiwis emigrated to NZ via Australia. And also because there are thousands of New Zealanders currently living in Australia, who may be interested in knowing their family history. I include Canada simply because that is where I currently live. Yes, I have left NZ and am now residing in Canada. Why did I do that? Simple. For love. My husband is a Canadian. Ironically, I have 2 cousins who also emigrated from NZ and moved to Canada - and they did so because they also married Canadians. Ireland will be a hard country to research because so many original records were destroyed in the Easter Uprising in 1916. But many church parish records have now been found and digitized, and are available online. Some of the early census records I believe may be lost forever. Scotland will also be another country that is hard to find records for. Scotland has placed pretty much all of its BDM records behind a paywall, called Scotlands People Their Indexed records are free to access, but you have to pay for the primary records and details. England and Wales have placed pretty much all of their BDM details online and are easily accessible. You can still purchase the original records, but most of those details are already available online. And if you don't already know, the BEST places to access English and Welsh BDM records online as the following three websites. Family Search Admittedly this IS an American website, based in Utah and run by the Mormon church, but it is one of the biggest databases online, for BDM records and best of all, it is FREE!!! Some records are not available online. You still have to go and see them at your local Mormon Church library. But most records can be accessed through Family Search. You can also search for BDM records from pretty much anywhere in the world on Family Search - including of course the USA. FreeBMD This is another excellent database for BDM records covering England and Wales, BUT it is restricted. It covers BDM records starting in 1837 - because that is the year Queen Victoria both ascended the throne of England, and also passed a law stating that all parish records would now be centralised and it is these centralised indexed records that are available. These records are pretty basic - names, dates, locations and the event type and that is all - but they are usually sufficient to find whomever you are looking for. FreeCEN As a partner to FreeBMD, there is also FreeCen. This website holds most of the census records for England and Wales, from 1841 to 1891 inclusive. Best of all, these census records also cover Scotland and Ireland as well, but not all locations or census years in those 2 countries have been transcribed yet. Some census years in Ireland may never be available because those records were destroyed. Thank you for reading. Ciao Robynne People have many different reasons for doing or at least, starting their family tree.
Some of those reasons may include things like, wanting to know about your ancestors, wanting to know your family history, wanting to know your family origins and emigrations, perhaps wanting to find biological family if you or someone in the family is adopted, wanting to find out if any of the family stories are true or not, etc etc. There are many reasons. One thing to know before you start is that Genealogy can be quite expensive. It costs money to purchase birth, marriage and death certificates, and any other records you might need. But you also don't have to purchase everything at once. It also costs money to join genealogical societies and family history groups. They can be excellent places to find records and sources. They are also good places to ask for help. And many of them have newsletters and journals, sometimes with interesting and informative articles. While there are many, many databases of indexed names, those indexed records do not always have all the details that can be found on the original record. Primary Records are the original sourced records. Birth, Marriage and Death records are Primary records. The original Census pages are also primary sources as well. Databases full of transcribed records and indexed records are called Secondary Records. Books full of Transcribed records are also considered Secondary records as well. As you create your family tree, you must always keep in mind, that every date and/or event, (as much as possible) requires a source or a record to back it up. One thing to keep in mind as you discover new ancestors and relatives, is that your ancestors do not belong to you exclusively, especially not your other relatives (siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins). They too have ancestors, and descendents, and they do not belong to you, because for the most part, they are not in your direct line of ancestry, but are merely related to your family. Genealogy is not meant to be hidden away in notebooks and on old computer hard drives. This is a family tree, and if you want to find other members of your family, then your tree needs to be freely or easily available to the world. Which means it needs to be out in the public eye - either in a book available at the library, or on the internet at the very least. The next question is to ask yourself, where will you store your family tree? You have a choice between the paid web sites and the free web sites, on the internet. The paid sites will put your tree behind a pay wall so that only other members of that same site can see your tree. The 3 biggest companies that use paywalls are Ancestry, My Heritage and Family Tree DNA. I do not know if 23 and Me allows Family trees to be uploaded or not. The free sites include Geni (owned by My Heritage but still free), Tribal Pages, Family Search, Rootsweb (owned by Ancestry but still free) and Wikitree. There may be other websites that I am not familiar with. Anyone should be able to access these websites and look at your family tree. I have my family tree online at 2 places. The first is My Heritage, and yes that is behind a paywall. The reason my tree is on My Heritage is because my family used their DNA kits to find unknown biological family members. The second place where my family tree is located is Wikitree. This is a free website, which makes it much easier for me to send links to anyone else who wants to have a look. Under privacy laws, most living people cannot be added to your family tree, unless you have their permission or unless they become a member of the website where your family tree is hosted, and add their own tree. Becasue of these privacy laws, most trees usually cannot show anyone more recent than your grandparents or your parents if they have passed. Digging up your family tree requires a lot of research, a lot of time, and sometimes a lot of money. It is not something that can be done in just a few days or a week. It is not unknown for people to spend many years following the research to find their ancestors, purchasing the records (sources) and learning so much more about themselves along the way. But it is also can be very rewarding when you finally break down a brick wall or find new and previously unknown family members. Those are the rewards and the reason why I keep doing this. Ciao Robynne There does not seem to be anything in way of a specialized blog about genealogy in New Zealand (now called NZ for short) so I thought I would start one up. Admittedly NZ is a fairly young country. It was only officially colonised by the British in 1840 - and at this time of writing - that was just 180 years ago.
My ancestors were all from the UK and Ireland. The first person that I know of, arrived in NZ in 1848. The last family arrived in NZ in 1905. My family also stayed mainly in Dunedin in the South Island, so most of my ancestry comes from that city. I myself was actually born and raised in the North Island. I went to primary school (elementary) there, but the family lated moved back to Dunedin in 1980 where I attended High school. Some years after I left school, I moved back up to Auckland, NZ, in the North Island, where I lived for a decade before getting married and moving to North America. NZ has some pretty strict laws about privacy and so it is not always possible to obtain up to date or recent details about family members. The basic rules are as follows. The BDM index database is run by the Dept of Internal Affairs - a Government dept. They also issue all the Birth, Marriage and Death certificates and maintain the database. I believe that they will also be managing the census records as well, when those become available. (BDM = Births Deaths Marriages) This is the website. https://www.bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/search There is no current access to the early NZ census records. They were taken for statistical purposes only and then the forms were destroyed. The government did not start keeping census records until the 1960s which means that family details will not be available until the 2060s. Census records will only be available 100 years after the census was taken. Birth records have been kept since 1840, but access to those records also have a 100 year lock on them. As of this year (2020), details for anyone born AFTER 1920, are not available on the Government BDM database. Marriage records have an 80 year lock, so any marriages that took place after 1940 are currently NOT available on the BDM Database. Deaths are available immediately IF the person who died was aged 80 or older at the time of their passing. If they died before their 80th birthday, then their record will only become public in the BDM database after the anniversary of what would have been their 80th birthday has passed. I will give some examples of this from my family. Keeping in mind that the BDM index database is updated once a month - usually at the begining of every month. My grandfather died when he was 95 years old. His death record would have been available in the BDM index database, the month after he died. My father died when he was 79 years old. His death record was not available until the following year when the anniversary of his 80th birthday had passed. I have lost 2 siblings. There are no records of them in any of the Database index records since neither of them have passed their 80th birthday anniversary as of todays date. If you have any questions about NZ Genealogy, feel free to leave me a comment or send me an email from the Contact page. Ciao Robynne |
AuthorMy name is Robynne and I love Genealogy. I would like to help you with your New Zealand Genealogy. ArchivesCategories |