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
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AuthorMy name is Robynne and I love Genealogy. I would like to help you with your New Zealand Genealogy. ArchivesCategories |