Family! As ours grows with more additions to the newest generation I find myself wanting to learn more about past generations. It’ll be a while before the young ones show any interest in family history, but I’m having fun finding things out that one day I’ll be able to share.
One of the stories to tell is how long our family has been in New Zealand. The answer on one side of the family is easily established as my American husband remembers the exact date he arrived in 1965. On my side it’s more varied. My parents were born in New Zealand, as were three of my four grandparents. The fourth, my grandfather Jones, arrived in 1902. He was a teacher, an organist and a choirmaster. I have the farewell gift from his choir at St Bride’s Church, Liverpool, inscribed “with hearty good wishes for a prosperous sojourn in distant lands”. It’s a small cabinet called a Smoker’s Companion – room for several pipes and tobaccos. Not a 2017 gift!
I’m fortunate to know all my grandparents’ full names and their approximate birth year so finding their parents’ names was relatively easy using Births Deaths and Marriages Historical records online. http://www.bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz
This is free. You can search for Births that occurred at least 100 years ago. You need at least the family name and a date to search from. This gives you a list of results. Each is just one line with the name of the child and, if you’re lucky, the name of each parent. The index number for the entry includes the year of birth. With common names this may still have you guessing as to which one is ‘yours’. I know the names of some of my grandparents’ siblings so I look for them in the list and find ones with matching parent names. These are my great grandparents!
To get further back I need to know my great grandmother’s maiden name so I turn to the Marriages search for Marriages that happened more than 80 years ago. I have the Groom’s last name and both lots of first names. I need a date to search from. With an unusual name you can put in a distant date, but if I’m searching for a Jones marriage between William and Mary I will get a lot of results, so knowing it’s between when he arrived in NZ and my father’s birth in 1911 makes it easier.
Another way back is to go ‘forward’ through the Deaths search. Again, a family name and date to start the search will produce a list of matches. The deaths have to be either at least 50 years ago or of someone born more than 80 years ago. The results are a list of names with a year code. To get more useful information it is necessary to buy either a printout or a certificate. The printout is generally a scanned image of the record often with far more information than the certificate that has only the legally required registered information.
The full death information recorded in the 19th century included time in New Zealand – as many people had been born overseas. If you want to find out more without paying for the printout, armed with the year and the name you can move to the PapersPast where you can look for a death notice in the digitised 19th and 20th century newspapers. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers
Sometimes old death notices will mention either the number of years in New Zealand or say where they came from or contain hints. One Great Grandfather named his Christchurch house Ross Neath. He was a Scot from Ross. Marriage notices, too, may give some leads. My paternal great- grandmother, married in Christchurch in 1879, is described as “Jane Moore of Hobart Town, Tasmania”. Time to start exploring Australian records. Perhaps we have Convicts in our background. That should be of interest to the upcoming generation.
By Kaye Lally
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