E Faahi Tapu he Vagahau Niue 2015 
Niue Language Week 2015

This week is Niue language week and Auckland Libraries has a series of events on regionwide.

Showing the King and Queen of Niue with the  New Zealand Premier, Richard Seddon and Mrs Seddon Auckland Weekly News, 5 October 1900 Heritage Images Online, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19001005-3-3

Here at Central Auckland Research Centre we're proud to be the caretakers of the microfilm copies of the Niue High Court Registrar records.

The original manuscripts were very badly damaged during Cyclone Heta in January 2004.

Fortunately, the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) had microfilmed the precious records in the 1990s or the majority would have been lost. They were kind enough to gift a set of films to the Niuean government and also to Auckland Library (as Auckland has the largest population of Niueans in the world).

Since then, we've had many Niueans in our Research Centre happily researching their family heritage.

Examples of the major records we hold here are:

Birth registration records for Niue 1900-1997 (3 NIU BDM)

• Microfilm of original manuscript in the custody of the Department of Justice, Tufukia Alofi, Niue.
• Birth records for Niue.

Birth indexes (3 NIU BDM)

• Microfilm of original manuscript in the custody of the Department of Justice, Tufukia Alofi, Niue.
• Includes names, birth dates, and names of parents.  Arranged alphabetically by given name and includes an index number that refers to the appropriate birth record.
• Villages: Alofi, Avatele, Fatiau, Hakupu, Hikutavake, Lakepa, Liku, Makefu, Mutalau, Namukulu, Tamakautonga, Toi, Tuapa, and Vaiea.

Death and still birth registration records 1899-1997 (3 NIU BDM)

• Microfilm of original manuscript in the custody of the Department of Justice, Tufukia Alofi, Niue.
• Death and still birth records for Niue.

Death indexes (3 NIU BDM)

• Microfilm of original manuscript in the custody of the Department of Justice, Tufukia Alofi, Niue.
• Includes names, birth dates, and names of parents of individuals who died or emigrated from Niue.  Arranged alphabetically by surname and includes an index number that refers to the appropriate death record.
• Villages: Alofi, Avatele, Fatiau, Hakupu, Hikutavake, Lakepa, Liku, Makefu, Mutalau, Namukulu, Tamakautonga, Toi, Tuapa, and Vaiea.

Marriage registrations  (3 NIU BDM)

• Microfilm of original manuscript in the custody of the Department of Justice, Tufukia Alofi, Niue.
• Marriage records for Niue.

Various genealogies (3 NIU FAM)

• Microfilm of original manuscript in the custody of the Department of Justice, Tufukia Alofi, Niue.
• Includes genealogies of persons in Niue.  These were created at the request of people interested in tracing their ancestry or by people seeking to establish claims to citizenship or land ownership through inheritance.  Records contain copies of letters of request and conclusions of research in the form of family trees.

Genealogies of Niue women  (3 NIU FAM)

• Microfilm of original manuscript in the custody of the Department of Justice, Tufukia Alofi, Niue.
• Maternal genealogies arranged by village for use in determining property rights some of which inherited through maternal lines of descent.
• Villages: Alofi, Avatele, Fatiau, Hakupu, Hikutavake, Lakepa, Liku, Makefu, Mutalau, Namukulu, Tamakautonga, Toi, Tuapa, and Vaiea.

Emigration from Niue (3 NIU IMM)

• Microfilm of original manuscript in the custody of the Department of Justice, Tufukia Alofi, Niue.
• Index of individuals who emigrated from Niue arranged by village.  Includes date of birth, name of parents, place of birth, date of emigration, place of emigration to, and if appropriate, date of return to Niue.
• Villages: Alofi, Avatele, Fatiau, Hakupu, Hikutavake, Lakepa, Liku, Makefu, Mutalau, Namukulu, Tamakautonga, Toi, Tuapa, and Vaiea.

European immigration to Niue (3 NIU IMM)

• Microfilm of original manuscript in the custody of the Department of Justice, Tufukia Alofi, Niue.
• Index of europeans who immigrated to Niue, or who took up residence there. Includes names of their parents, place and date of birth, date immigrated, and if appropriate, date departed Niue or date of death.

Friends of mine moved in to their new house recently, one of those established Ponsonby villas which has been done up with a garage put in. It has the same bones of its early 1900s self but with far less land than it would have originally been on.

It is in St Mary’s Road and it was an interesting exercise to explore the Auckland Council’s Archive to see if the property was on its City of Auckland’s 1908 map.

A simple google of Auckland Council Archives takes you straight to their home page and clicking on  Search the Archives takes you to the link to the map.

There are two different ways to search the City of Auckland’s 1908 map. One is by browsing; the other is by doing a keyword search. Using the keyword search we typed in St Mary's Road and up came the portion of the map with that particular street in it.

Once you have enlarged the map you will notice the blue pins.


My friend’s house on St Mary's Road has a blue pin, which we clicked on. This went straight to the 1908/1909 valuation record for the property.

The Auckland City Council Valuation Roll Database 1908-1909 contains partial transcriptions of entries from the validation rolls and gives the names, addresses, occupations, property and legal descriptions etc. It gives the properties original street number with annotations added later to depict changes to buildings, streets, street names, etc. up to at least 1918/1919 and even 1923 for some parts of the city and incorporated into the map. It also shows the subsequent numbering of a property.

You can also browse the map. Browsing is on the index sheet of the 1908 map. Each populated grid square represents a sheet of the map. Moving your mouse over the grid highlights a section of the map and clicking on it takes you straight into the map on the database. Aside from the location of a property the map highlights the location and position of streets, footpaths, tramways, post and telegraph fixtures etc throughout the city as it was in 1908.


The City of Auckland 1908 map, whether you have connections to that part of Auckland or not, is a wonderful resource to search just out of interest to see the Auckland of over 100 years ago.


Bridget

Colleen Fitzpatrick, forensic genealogist and author

On 20 April, 2015, we were extremely fortunate to have Colleen Fitzpatrick PhD, visiting forensic genealogist and author from the US, come and speak for us at Central Library.

Colleen is a nuclear physicist, who is a consultant in some high profile cases that involve using both genetic and forensic genealogy to solve a case. 

She has a really impressive CV.

Colleen is also the author of 

• Forensic genealogy, 
• DNA and genealogy and 
• The dead horse investigation: forensic analysis for everyone.

Colleen is a talented researcher and an excellent speaker with a wide choice of subjects to choose from and has a real talent for making the complicated and the technical both easily understood and entertaining.

Fortunately, her visit to us coincided with our "pilot" scheme and we were able to video her talks which you can find here on our website.

The presentations she gave us were:

CSI meets Roots
Forensic genealogy has established itself as the modern approach to family research. Reference materials such as photographs, databases, and DNA can provide much more information than you ever dreamed. But are you really using your genealogical materials to your best advantage? The goal of this talk is to spark your imagination to discover new ways of looking at your family mysteries.

Adoption searches
This talk will give you insight into adoption searches – how to use explicit and implicit information in conjunction with DNA to locate someone even if don’t know his or her name.
So make yourself a cup of tea, sit down for an hour or two and enjoy!

Happy watching

Seonaid