'Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 4-RIC339' Showing the grave and tombstone of Samuel Browning at St Andrew's Church, Epsom. The inscription reads: Sacred to the memory of Samuel Browning who died 11th June 1888 aged 87

Do you have Huguenot ancestors? 

Yes? Then you will be interested to know that we added these new 
CD-ROMS to the family history collection this week. 

1 GEN REL HUG    Huguenot Families Numbers One to Twenty
4 ENG REL HUG   Consistory and Administrative Records c. 1560-1660
4 ENG REL HUG    Reg. of the French Church of Threadneedle St, London
4 ENG REL HUG    Reg. of the French Churches of La Patente & Saint Jean, Spitalfields
4 ENG REL HUG    Reg. of the French Churches of the Cities of London &  Westminster & of Spitalfields

4 ENG REL HUG    Reg. of the Walloon & Huguenot Churches of Canterbury, Bristol, Plymouth, Southampton & Stonehouse
4 ENG REL HUG    Reg. of the Walloon & Huguenot Churches of Norwich, Colchester, Thorney & Thorpe-le-Soken
4 IRL REL HUG      Reg. of the French Churches in Dublin & Portarlington, Ireland
5 EUR REL HUG    Reg. of the French Churches of Guisnes, Cadzand, Dover & Le Mans
6 AAM REL HUG    Naturalizations of Foreign Protestants in the American Colonies

To find more resources in the family history collection, type the word 'Huguenot' in the subject search box of the Classic Catalogue and limit the search to 'Heritage & Research' in the drop down menu.

Good luck with your search!

The Family History Team

Heritage Images database  'Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 4-RIC282'

Showing the grave and tombstone of Edward Rickerby in Symonds Street Cemetery.

The tombstone reads:

In memory of Edward Rickerby who died at New Plymouth 23rd Jan 1897 aged 61 years.

Mark the perfect man and behold him upright, for the end of that man is peace

Heritage Images database 'Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 4-RIC278'

Looking from the church yard towards the apse of St John's Theological College Chapel, showing the grave and tombstone of Charles William Selwyn.

The inscription reads:

In memory of Charles William Selwyn, late Captain Royal Horse Guards and MP for Wisbech. Born 7th March 1858 died 1st March 1893.

'What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter'

The local church has been a feature of the New Zealand landscape for decades but that landscape is changing as dwindling congregations are forcing churches to reconsider the practicality of staying viable.

A church in point was the recent  sale of Castor Bay Presbyterian on Auckland’s North Shore .  The ageing membership combined with decreasing numbers meant the congregation had to make the decision that it could no longer stay open. 

The process of selling the church was in this case simplified by there being no graves on site, nor historical/heritage classifications on the buildings.

While the parish itself may no longer exist,  there are, fortunately for the family history researcher, memories that have been compiled by parishioners over the years. Castor Bay Presbyterian is one such church. 

In 1983 it published a brief history, “Fifty Years in Good Soil” which related the history of the church up until that point, while harking back to the 1930s when the Rev Morgan Richards, a retired Presbyterian minister began an unofficial ministry to the residents.

While your ancestors may have had no devout affiliation with a denomination that you are aware of, it is possible they may have had a connection to the local church, given it was such a social as well as spiritual focus of the time. So don’t discount church publications when you’re trying to track down family.

Do you have a Methodist tucked away in your family somewhere quietly frowning on the antics of their descendants?

If you do, have you checked the Wesleyan Methodist Roll? No? Then do we have a resource for you!

The roll has over 1 million names of people who donated a guinea (21 shillings or ₤1 1s) to the Wesleyan Methodist Million Guinea Fund (Jan 1899-Jun 1904).

Richard Ratcliffe has written an informative booklet to the The Wesleyan Methodist historic roll explaining the whys and wherefores etc which is on the shelves at Central Auckland Research Centre at 4 ENG REL MET.

We have a microfiche copy of the volumes which the donations were noted in on microfiche (4 ENG REL MET). Unfortunately, there is no name index; however, there is an index on the Methodist website which gives the Circuit/Mission, Church/Chapel, vol/district, page and fiche number.

Richard’s booklet lists the 50 volumes and which Missions/Chapels are in that volume. By using this I know that Croydon is in volume 6 and the 3rd London District. I should then be able to find the fiche and page numbers by referring to the index on the Methodist website - vol 6 page 3 fiche 1-... (Croydon seems to be missing from this list).

The list gives a name, address or, in the case of donations made in memory of the deceased “In Memorium”

The Roll covers England, Wales, Scotland (not Ireland) and a variety of other countries.

By using this list I have been able to make an educated guess as to which of three families were the initial followers of this faith.


Marie Hickey



Image from StonePics website



The Central Auckland Research Centre has a brand new collection of 60 CD-Roms from StonePics who have been photographing cemeteries and headstones of The Czech Republic since 2003. This collection, Cemeteries of the Czech Republic contains over 81,000 names on a searchable database, many also important to German genealogy research.

Three CD-Roms contain records from Prague’s Vysehrad National Cemetery which was established in the 15th century next to the Church of Saints Peter and Paul. Many famous Czechs have been laid to rest there including Antonin Dvorak, Bedrich Smetana, Jan Neruda and Karel and Jozef Čapek.

A further 57 CD-Roms record headstones from Prague’s Olsanske Cemetery. This large complex of cemeteries includes Jewish and Orthodox cemeteries and graves of soldiers killed in both WWI and WWII. Olsanske Cemetery covers fifty hectares and according to some estimates, two million people have been buried there.

This is an amazing welcome addition to our family history collection.


LR