New records added to




If you have not looked at the website, findmypast recently, you may be unaware of their current scheme to add 100 record sets in 100 days.  This will cover parish registers,  military records, death and marriage notices from newspapers.  New record sets from around the world will be released weekly.

Image from www.findmypast.com.au website

To date, the following records have been added:

New York City marriage and death notices 1835-80
[USA] Civil War – soldiers, sailors, prisoners, medals of honour 1861-65
pre 1901 Irish census (some counties only)
Shropshire parish registers 1538-1900, Banns 1760-1900

Military
Malayan Emergency  - Commonwealth Deaths 1948-60
Welsh Guards 1914-18
Palestine Conflict British deaths 1945-48
Cyprus Emergency deaths 1955-60
Royal Artillery other ranks casualty cards 1939-47
Royal Artillery attestations 1883-1942
Australian Imperial Force – embarkation roll & nominal roll 1914-18
Royal Navy seamen & officers 1899-1919
Royal Marines 1899-1920
Royal Fusiliers – Stockbrokers Battalion 1914-18 & 23rd Battalion (1st Sportsman’s Battalion) 1914-18
South Down Battalions (11th, 12th & 13th Royal Sussex)
Salford Pals (15th, 16th, 19th & 20th Lancashire Fusiliers)
Liverpool Pals (17th, 18th, 19th & 20th King’s Liverpool Regt)
Glasgow Pals 1914-18
Edinburgh Pals 1914-18 (15th & 16th Royal Scots Regt)
1st Bradford Pals (16th West Yorkshire Regt)
Birmingham Employers’ Roll of Honour 1914-18
Birmingham Pals 1914-18

Sailors from the German naval ship Alexandrine which visited New Zealand in 1891. Sir George Grey Special Collections, 4-RIC176.

This looks as if it is going to be a very interesting and useful collection of records when the project is completed -- well worth checking on for new additions.

Next time you visit your local library, findmypast is accessible from the Family History eResources & databases in the  Digital Library.

Marie Hickey

www.nzmusicmonth.co.nz

May is New Zealand Music Month!


One of New Zealand's most prominent musical family's is the Eady family. Entrepreneurs, musicians, businessmen, instrument makers and supporters of the arts and culture - this year marks the 130th birthday of Lewis Eady Ltd.

Heritage Images contains a wide selection of over 100,000 digitised images from Sir George Grey Special Collections and includes photographs of shops run by Lewis R. Eady & Son Ltd. as well as their rival, brother and uncle - Arthur Eady Limited.

The future premises of Lewis R Eady & Son Ltd, 1927. Sir George Grey Special Collections, 4-454.

Arthur Eady Limited music store, 1938. Sir George Grey Special Collections, 4-2530

Subsequent generations of the Eady family have been involved in the music business since the brothers, Lewis R. and Arthur opened their respective shops.  Lewis's sons (Lewis "Alfred", Ernest, Cecil, Raymond and Sydney) worked for a time in the business and some of their children have also pursued careers related to music.

A keyword search of "Eady family" in the New Zealand Card Index returned several results including  the card below about Lewis Alfred Eady (1891-1965) which mentions that in 1926 ". . . the family presented a music section to the Public Library". 

New Zealand Card Index, NZCI000109317.

Another index entry is of Sydney's son Bruce, who manufactured and sold New Zealand's first guitar called The Jensen during the 1950's and 1960's. The index directs you to the information source, an article published in the July 1993 edition of North & South magazine.

New Zealand Card Index, NZCI000109308.

Another database to search is Index Auckland. This database focuses on history, art, theatre, film and music. Many of the reference sources are from Auckland area newspapers and journal articles. This database continues to have content added to it, so it is an ideal resource for contemporary artists.

Index Auckland has nine records for the Eady family. One of the records is an  article "Music in family" that highlights the family's history and their musical past, published in the Auckland Star on 24 November 1965.

Excerpt from article in the Auckland Star, 24 November 1965.

These Auckland eResources and databases are accessible to everyone through the Digital Library page of the Auckland Libraries website, click here to start searching for your musical ancestors!

Karen

May is New Zealand Music Month!


Accessible through Papers Past and the Digital Library early New Zealand newspapers are great for finding advertisements of musical engagements, performance reviews and are an excellent way of tracing the development of a musician's career.


Geraldine May (Ina) Bosworth (1894 -1975), a Chamber Music pioneer of New Zealand. Ina started her musical  training at an early age, initially instructed on violin by her father, a conductor of one of Auckland's first choirs, the Liedertafel. Here is a glimpse into Ina's impressive musical career as captured in the newspapers.

A review of her concert prior to departing overseas as reported in the Auckland Star, Friday 11 April 1913:

Auckland Star, Friday 11 April 1913

Ina spent 14 years in London studying violin and during that time she also "entertained troops on the battlefields of France, playing chamber music just behind the lines, and once, near Verdun, on a stage built of bully beef tins." - New Zealand Herald, 8 February 1975.

Upon returning to New Zealand her personal life was also captured in the newspapers, including her engagement to Arthur William McNeish, it was announced in the "Social Jottings" column.

Auckland Star on 14 November 1924.

After her marriage to Captain A.W. McNeish, she continued  her musical career giving concerts and broadcasts while raising their two children, Jill and James. Ina was also an advocate for establishing a professional orchestra for Auckland. By 1965 she had her own group - the Ina Bosworth Quartet, and had led six orchestras including the Mozart Players. 

Mrs McNeish (on the left) at a rehearsal with the Mozart Players, 1965.

Auckland Star, 21 June 1965.

According to her obituary published in the New Zealand Herald on 8 February 1975 she celebrated her 80th birthday [in 1974] by "driving to Hamilton and performing a Bach unaccompanied sonata."

Ina embodied the spirit of a true musician throughout her life.

Death notice & obituary from the New Zealand Herald, 8 February 1975.

For more about the Bosworth-McNeish family, her son James McNeish has recently published Touchstones:  Memories of People and Place, borrowable copies are available from the library. There is a lovely photograph of his mother in her youth on page 184.

If you would like to listen to live music for free, there is a Thursday Lunchtime Concert Series at the Central Library during autumn. "This year’s concerts will bring together solo instrumentalists and vocalists, chamber ensembles and choirs from around the Auckland region, as well as showcasing the brilliant musical talent from the University of Auckland School of Music and selected secondary schools."

For more information on who is performing, click here.

Karen 

In case you haven't heard the big NEWS, the New Zealand Herald has been digitized up to 31 December 1945 and is now accessible through Papers Past!  The Auckland Libraries homepage currently has a direct link to the database or alternatively, Papers Past can also be found under "P" in the A-Z listing of eResources in the Digital Library.

There has never been a better time to delve into your family history research and see what newsy items about your ancestors were published in the New Zealand Herald. Best of all, the contents can be downloaded, printed or saved in a pdf format for your records. If you would like some user friendly tips on getting the most out of searching on Papers Past, check out our research guides by clicking here.

While browsing through the pages you will also discover quirky, interesting articles and bits of gossip that will undoubtedly provide you with endless hours of distraction.

New Zealand Herald, 4 March 1939

New Zealand Herald, 22 March 1941

New Zealand Herald, 13 January 1927

Papers Past now has 83 titles and over 3 million pages of digitised content available. Besides the Herald and Auckland Star, the following list of historical newspapers on Papers Past also have Auckland content:

Happy searching!

Karen

As students and teachers are all now back in the classroom it reminded me of the many resources we have in our family history collection relating to education. There are numerous school lists and registers of graduates and students for various schools around New Zealand as well as special publications focusing on jubilees and centenary celebrations.

Karioi School, c.1908 from Heritage Images

To browse our holdings search using the Auckland Libraries classic catalogue  by selecting Call Number in the drop down list and typing 2 NZL SCH into the text box. Alternatively, you may want to do a Keyword search with the name of the school.

Open-air classroom, c.1939 from Heritage Images

If you happen to have a teacher in your family and are interested in their career details, the CD-ROM 'New Zealand Teachers Examinations and Licenses 1880-1920'  includes '... the name of those who have passed the teachers examinations and the area they are from ... and who are licensed to teach, the area of their teaching engagement and their rank in the teaching profession.'  This information is also available from the New Zealand Gazette -- there is a dedicated computer in the Research Centre for accessing these records.

Nelson (Boys) College, building completed in 1859, from Heritage Images.

The Heritage images and photography eResources page lists all of the photography related databases such as Footprints, Heritage Images and Local History Online to search for visual treasures of school buildings, pupils and teachers.

Karen

If you would like to search the 1841-1911 UK Census records they are easy to access for free at any of the Auckland Libraries through the Ancestry and FindMyPast databases in the Digital Library.

For some useful hints on using census records you may want to check out a new book in our family history collection by  Emma Jolly, 'Tracing your Ancestors Using the Census: A Guide for Family Historians', which is packed with advice on how to explore and get the most from these records.

Karen

NZ electoral rolls – tips and tricks!

So, why are electoral rolls such a big deal for NZ family history, anyway? The answer is that we don’t have the personal information from the NZ census of past decades such as exists for England and some other countries. So electoral rolls are one of the sources that we use as a substitute. Through them, we can find the living place and (often) occupation of ancestors who qualified to vote. However, that’s also where things get a little complicated, because the rules about who could vote have evolved over the decades since the 19th Century and the changes affect which ancestors appear on rolls and which do not.

To help with this problem, the Auckland Libraries website has a NZ Voting Rights Timeline of important dates when rule changes were made about the eligibility to vote. Some like 1879 (male franchise) and 1893 (women’s franchise) have a very big impact. Others (like changes over time about the age at which people could vote) are more subtle, but still important.

Lady voters going up to polling-booth, election day, Auckland, 1899. Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 7-A12353

The NZ Electoral Commission’s website also has a section called The History of the Vote which I recommend  to researchers wanting more historical background. It offers some interesting snippets of social history – such as an account of drunkenness and corruption in Auckland elections of the 1850s, including tampering with the electoral rolls!

NZ electoral rolls 1853 to 1981 are now digitized and available through Ancestry.com. This database may be accessed through the Auckland Libraries website on library premises for free. (It is not available through the website from home computers.)  NOTE: scroll to the bottom of the page of the NZ electoral roll database and you will find a detailed list of the election years covered. Those (few) without an asterisk beside the year are not yet searchable by voter name, but only browsable.


New Zealand Electoral Roll for Geraldine District, 1876.

For the years after 1981, come into the Auckland Research Centre on level 2 of the Auckland Libraries building in Lorne Street, in central Auckland. We hold a full set either on microfiche or hard copy that continues to the current – 2013 year.

Janelle