Just a brief note to let you all know that our Kintalk blog has now merged with sister blog Heritage et AL. If you subscribe to Kintalk, then I encourage you to change your subscription over to Heritage et AL to be sure of being kept up to date with all the family history happenings, and to learn more about our heritage collections and heritage news.

Kintalk first went live in July 2008, originally edited and authored by Karen Kalopulu and the family history team; and was carried on in her name after she passed away in 2009.

Popular and information rich posts from Kintalk have been migrated over to Heritage et AL, so you will find them there instead.

Heritage et AL was launched in May 2012 . . .  "Four research centres and the Sir George Grey Special Collections and a whole heap of incredible heritage library collections, arranged around two harbours and many volcanoes! Plus cool links and heritage news stories. Stay tuned .."

Now both blogs will be together on the Heritage et AL blogspot - so don't forget to subscribe to keep up to date!

Happy hunting . . . 


Seonaid

In amongst our computers and film cabinets, we have six
8-drawer cabinets full of CD-ROMs containing a mixture
of databases and pdfs of books.

They are hidden treasures, used mainly by the experienced researcher who realises that not everything is online as yet and that family history societies and self-published authors still use CD-ROM technology, as its relatively cheap and easy to make their projects available.

Although all CDs are listed on the library catalogue, we also have a handy index to assist customers  with seeing what is in this unique collection.

The first couple of pages list the newly received CDs which amongst others, include various Berkshire and Oxford parish registers, and a 200 disk set of Stonepics Newfoundland cemetery images and transcriptions - this collection is so large, its in its own black binder and is on top of the CD-ROM cabinets!

If you want to view what we have available in our CD-ROM collection, just click the link here to open the pdf document.



Hope to see you soon . . .

Happy hunting!

Seonaid

At a recent talk here at Auckland Libraries, many of us came away buzzing over ideas on preserving ‘our’ story. What can we do right now, to get those interesting things about ourselves organised for posterity?
Our speaker, Jan Gow, discussed a computer programme called Treepad, that has a free edition, but also a  paid edition with useful add-ons such as the ability to save images. But as she said, there are other options, too. For the paper-addicted among us, the stationery sections at book stores are our happy place, from basic binders to the joy of the beautifully-covered journal. One could purchase a different journal for each decade (perhaps colour coded?), and add to it over time. If spread-sheets are so your thing, you could come up with something practical there. And you could always make up an e-book, which I’ll address in a later post. Publishing an e-book can cost you virtually nothing, and you can easily get print copies for little cost, as well. The message is that there are plenty of ways that suit you of getting your story down for that life-long work-in-progress.
A number of practical ideas came out of this.
Take copies of your photos and find out the story behind the image. Write down what you remember about it. Many of our parents, or even us, have slides (remember those?)  One could project slides and simply photograph them from the big screen, but there are devices to copy slides you could look in to. It could be something worthwhile for a family history group to invest in for members to borrow.
Identify significant occasions. Some ideas are transportation (your car-owning history over the decades is a great one!), games, pets, holidays, schools, careers, special events, and of course food. You could scan recipes from Grandma’s old recipe book to add to your collection. That gorgeous prize-winning shortbread...! You could organise your story according to these categories, or by the decades.
Remember to catalogue precious items. What is the story behind that china teacup, or painting, or your grandmother’s ornament? Photograph the item, and add the image to your work in progress with details of the story behind it. Scanning letters, cards and newspaper clippings is a good idea, too. This could be a great thing to do to get the kids (and let's face it, adults!) off social media for a spell, too.
One thing that appealed to me was to make a day of combining oral history with cataloguing. A family member recently suffered a stroke, which brings home abruptly how sad the loss of one's memory can be. When I visit next, I plan to spend time going through those tea cups, ornaments, paper items, and inherited furniture that none of the family really knows anything about, photographing them and jotting down the story behind them. Recording the conversations on my phone will help. Not only will it, I hope, be a form of therapy for them, but also fun, and for our family, a record of our own family history.
For more ideas, have a look through our catalogue here. I've used the reference 1 GEN  DOC. There is inspiration aplenty, such as the books  Keeping Family Treasures and Keeping Chronicles: Preserving History Through Memorabilia.
 Joanne - Central Research

We’re at that time of year when the children have returned to school and no doubt have been subjected by their teachers to write a story about what they did on their holidays, just as we were at their age.

This got me thinking about the type of holidays I had as a child and how we should write/share these memories with the younger generation.  Yes, they may think how old fashioned we were and roll their eyes at yet another story but if we write the memories down they will be there for the future when they appreciate what we have to share.  Here are some of my memories to give you some ideas.

A day at the beach involved taking some old bath towels (we didn’t have beach towels until later), perhaps a picnic lunch (remember the sand in your sandwiches?), some sunscreen that probably did no good at all - the preferred brand being Coppertone and the toys of the day.  By toys I mean polysterene kickboards and later a longer “surfboard”, perhaps plastic flippers and goggles, frisbee, metal bucket and spade later made of plastic and maybe a ball – some kids had inflatable beach balls.


Our beach-wear would usually be cotton tops and shorts with bare feet or jandals perhaps sandals for the adults.  Swimming togs/costume in the late 1950s-1960s may have been something of cotton and later thickish bri-nylon (probably not too far removed from the knitted costumes of the 1920s for thickness); which by the 1970s became skimpy bikinis or budgie smugglers for men.  I remember having to wear a sunhat and women usually also wore a rubber swimming cap into the water to keep their hair dry.  These were rather tight and it often hurt when you tried to get your hair forced under this ugly headpiece – some had a lighter rubber cap similar to what professional swimmers use today.


Trips to the farm would involve old clothing and gumboots.  I remember being taught to milk by hand but later a machine came into use.  Going around on the back of the tractor to feed hay to the cows; making mash to feed the hens and collecting the eggs and “helping” to bring the cows in for milking.  I say “helping” as I’m sure that when we were quite young we were more of a hindrance than a help.

Staying with relatives often involved a long car journey as cars travelled more slowly and roads were not what they are today; many being unsealed and windy.  You would fill the car up with comics and books – for a while there were small comics you could buy at the petrol station and it wouldn’t be a real trip unless you got caught with a farmer moving his flock of sheep or herd of cattle.  Then you would get stuck behind a caravan (they were towed by cars) that was either plodding down the road or being driven so fast that the caravan was swaying all over the road.


Auckland Libraries have a wide range of books full of illustrations of clothing, past-times, scenes (don’t forget that our surroundings have changed as well), household implements etc and of course, there is the internet as well – maybe there are clips of old favourite TV programmes just warn the children that there is nothing wrong with the computer, the world was black and white in the “olden days”.  Something fun you could try is putting together a zine (like a mini magazine of just a few pages) and perhaps the children could help you.

Marie

If you had an ancestor who was working on the land in the 1830s in England there is a chance that they were involved in the Swing Riots.  These started in the Elham Valley in Kent and quickly spread amongst the rural workers of the south and East Anglia.  The unrest was caused by a number of reasons – machinery taking jobs from men, farmers offering lower wages, payment of tithes to the Church of England whether or not you were a member.  Threatening letters were sent to those who were considered in a position to resolve the situation signed by “Captain Swing” who was fictitious.  If the warning was ignored it was followed by destruction of threshing machines, their engines, attacks on workhouses and tithe barns and later turned to burning hay ricks and other arsonist attacks.

If caught, the rioters faced imprisonment, transportation or execution.  Of the 2000 (approx.) rioters who were caught 252 were sentenced to death (only 19 were hanged), 644 imprisoned and 481 transported.


There is a brief article on-line about the riots at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_Riots
or http://www.historyhome.co.uk/peel/ruralife/swing.htm

In the 1990s Jill Chambers wrote a series of books about the Swing Riots looking at individual counties and how the riots effected the population of that particular county etc.  These books are well researched including information on all aspects of the “riots” for instance each person charged is listed with the charge, age, sentence and 1841 census transcription (if found).  Events in the county are diarised, trial transcripts, claims for rewards and so it goes on.

Auckland Libraries holds Jill’s books for Kent, Wiltshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Dorset, Gloucestershire and Hampshire as well as Michael Holland’s book Swing Unmasked: the agricultural riots of 1830 to 1832 and their wider implications which is available in print (reference copy and one borrowable copy) and CD.

You may find a family member who was involved in this important event in English history but even if they were not caught they may have participated and these books give you an insight into life for rural workers at a tumultuous time in history.

Marie
Central Research Centre

This was an interesting post from a few years back that we thought you'd enjoy again.

An interesting little read on our shelves is the book 'Til death us do part : causes of death 1300-1948.

As the author Janet Few says in the introduction, “One thing that all but our most recent ancestors have in common is that they are dead.”

This small but fulsome book discusses the many possibilities of our ancestor’s deaths. The cancers and heart disease that end our lives today were much more difficult to diagnose until the twentieth century and the lifestyles of our ancestors made them less prone to contacting them. Instead, they could look forward to famines, epidemics and infectious diseases.

http://www.traveldarkly.com/plague-pits-london/

Few describes the different kinds of plague that could be experienced and their symptoms’…hard dry boils, particularly in the groin or armpits and it normally took three days to die.’ A range of preventatives included what was known as a ‘tuzzy muzzy’ , a bunch of herbs to warn off the bad smells, and urinating on a mixture of yarrow, tansy and feverfew, and then drinking the strained liquid.

The Seventeenth century plague doctor www.medievalists.net

Work related diseases led to the demise of many of our ancestors. Tuberculosis, also referred to as consumption, phthisis, decline or the white plague, was a product of urban poverty, poor nutrition, and work conditions. It was very infectious, with late teenagers often the victims.

Occupations determined certain ailments in their workers. Examples are: knife grinder’s asthma, Mad hatters’ disease (mercury poisoning, which was often contracted by those working in the hat industry), and fossy jaw (caused from ingesting phosphorous; the disease of the match girls).

The names of these diseases are intriguing in themselves. Summer madness, also known as St Anthony’s fire, Sacred fire or Invisible fire, because the skin turned black as if burnt, was common in times of bad harvest when poorer quality crops were eaten.

The green disease, or chlorosis, also known as the virgin’s disease as it was prevalent in teenage girls, was blamed on tight corsets and studying too hard with matrimony frequently prescribed as a cure.

War was responsible for the deaths of many of our ancestors, with the armed forces far more likely to die of disease than in combat. In the Crimean War only one in six casualties died in battle.

www.medievalists.net

Being a wife was a dangerous profession with between five and ten percent of all mothers dying in childbirth until the mid-nineteenth century. The list of options was grim: childbed fever, blood loss, and toxemia. Abortions were illegal and therefore dangerous.

In the days before Health & Safety, our ancestors drowned in wells, were burnt by open fires, fell off horses and ladders and suffered frequent bouts of food poisoning caused by a lack of refrigeration and the foraging for food in woods and hedgerows.  Although our health is better and we are vaccinated against the very things that blighted our ancestor’s lives, we do manage to die in ways they could never imagine.

Bridget Simpson

Te Ao Hou/The New World, Maori Affairs Department, 1952-1975

Brad Argent (Ancestry) gave a talk in October at the Central Library on DNA.  The talk came after the Family History Expo in Auckland, and was focused on the science of identity. As Brad said, DNA testing is no longer "just" a tool to help you work out your family history. It is so much more than that and it brings with it potential issues.
He posed some thought-provoking questions:
Does the absence of something in you change who you are, and how you see yourself? For example, if you grew up in a Maori community, and saw yourself as Maori, then get a genetic result back that says you're not Maori... do you stop being Maori overnight? He talked about the memetic self  - that is, the part of you made up of those "things" passed down to you through your culture, your family, and the family stories.
What, he asked, happens when you've grown up hearing stories but learn you are not biologically connected to them? Do they just go away?
Likewise, if you learn you're adopted and want to find out who your parents are, does that then negate all the family stories your adoptive parents gave you, that you grew up with, that have shaped who you are?
Someone raised the point in the talk about the security of your DNA with the firms that test it. Brad asked the question: what is your responsibility with your DNA and the information contained in it, that could affect a whole lot of people?
I could go on and on, but take a listen (or a re-listen) to this fascinating talk yourself on YouTube.
The talk is captioned, and you can check out other speakers from the Auckland Libraries Lunchtime series on our website here.
DNA is an incredible new tool but also with an unknown future. Brad made the point that we no longer build up our identity over years and years of painstaking research, microfiche-by-microfiche, card-by-card, record-by-record. Now we spit in a tube, six or eight weeks later click on a button, and suddenly we are, potentially, someone else. A lot to think about in the amazing world of family history research.


Joanne - Central Research

Continuing our series on Family History - The Best of 2016. Here's Maata, our Maori Reference Librarian, with her "best of."
He manu hou ahau, he pi ka rere – I am a chick just learning to fly
The above Maori proverb describes my recent experience as a new staff member at Te Kohinga Rangahau o Tamaki Makaurau - Auckland Research Centre, aptly. Albeit perplexing at times, my seven months navigation of the research centre and its environs, the nearby stacks, the library basement and the Sir George Grey Special Collections has been very rewarding. Also discovering the depth and breadth of the cultural and historical material within the numerous collections held on the Heritage floor has been inspiring. As an unwitting fledgling, now airborne, I feel very honoured to be a kaitiaki/guardian of this extremely important environment that is rich with the cultural heritage of Aotearoa-New Zealand, the Pacific and Great Britain. I would like to share some of the highlights of this wonderful journey.
Hinemihi: Firstly, locating information about the Whare tipuna Hinemihi of Te Arawa was emotive but enormously worthwhile. This treasured Whare Tipuna was uprooted from Aotearoa/NZ and relocated to England by William Hillier, 4th Earl of Onslow, a colonial Governor of New Zealand during the late 1800s. He purchased the meeting house as fond memorabilia of Aotearoa, to take back to his family home in England. There are many books in Auckland Libraries on Hinemihi, along with a blog post from Heritage et Al.


Hinemihi meeting house at Te Wairoa. Original photographic prints and postcards from file print collection, Box 8. Ref: PAColl-6075-19. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/22821942

Piuipiu:  I also responded to an international enquiry from Utah regarding the current status of the Piupiu in Aotearoa. The art of piupiu making is thriving in Aotearoa and is being upheld by custodians such as Hetet whanau, Christina Wirihana and many others. Traditional and contemporary piupiu making techniques are currently used, and a number of Maori Art and Craft training providers throughout Aotearoa provide piupiu making as a part of their curriculum. Furthermore, piupiu are worn at the official Matatini Kapa Haka Festival which is a major New Zealand event 

'Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 471-9724'

Heritage Images.

NZ Card Index

'Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 4-400

Was 2016 a breakthrough year for you in your research? Did you uncover something of huge interest? We here at Central Research have come up with our own personal family history highlights, and over the next few weeks, we'll be sharing some of them with you.

First up, is Maureen:
Early in 2016 I predicted that Irish genealogy was a case of ‘watch this space’.  And so it proved in September when many of the records that had been promised in the preceding years became available free to the internet – civil registration and land records among them. Now is the time to explore these records, particularly the images of the birth, death and marriage records, which were previously available at a cost of €4 each.  Supplemented by the increasing records available in subscription databases, there has never been a better time to crack some of those brick walls.  For more information please check out the following websites and blogs:

It's almost Christmas, and as many of us wind down for a few days, we trust that this year has been a most interesting time for you in your family history endeavours ... maybe some of those impenetrable brick walls were finally smashed to pieces... maybe a new lead opened up... maybe it was just pure frustration and you really do need a break before you head back into the agony and the ecstasy that is family history research.
May you all have a lovely time this Christmas season.
Merry Christmas from the Kintalk team.

For more olde Christmas card goodness, here's a link to the Christmas Card exhibition  online. Enjoy.

August is New Zealand Family History Month!

It is an opportunity for us all to celebrate and commemorate our ancestors. To focus on learning and perhaps contributing to the knowledge that helps us to find out more about our personal heritage.

Libraries, archives, museums, heritage/historical societies and genealogy/family history societies around New Zealand are holding tours, events, lectures and workshops.

Auckland Libraries is no exception. Throughout August, there is a programme of events held at about 20 different Auckland Libraries' venues, From family history storytimes for children, to beginners' classes for new researchers, through to advanced classes for those who may have been researching family and/or local history most of their lives.

As well as the different events held in libraries throughout the Auckland region, there is also the Auckland Family History Expo, that Auckland Libraries and the Genealogical Computing Group of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists have organised for the weekend of Friday, 12 August to Sunday, 14 August.

After the Expo, we have another exciting event at Central Library, on Monday, 15 August. Another opportunity to hear our Expo keynote speakers, Dick Eastman and Shauna Hicks, speak on additional topics. Dick on "Genealogy searches on Google" and Shauna on "Skeletons in the Family: Looking at asylum and prison records."

Some researchers may also be interested in events and tutorials our friends at the NZ Society of Genealogists are holding during Family History Months.

August will be a fun-filled, information packed month for keen researchers!

Happy hunting

Seonaid

As part of Auckland Libraries’ Family History Lunchtime Series I was able to hear Lyn Whelan speaking on ‘Stories on Stone'. This talk on monumental inscriptions provided a wealth of information about the purposes of the inscriptions, what can be found, and tips for using these in our family history research.



Reynolds Family grave, photographed by James D. Richardson Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 4-RIC284

Monumental inscriptions have the ability to tell as more about the lives of those they memorialise. For family historians the information to be found can range from names, relatives and dates, to unique historical events and clues to the history of the community. Clues are important; they may not provide us any answers but they can point us in the right direction, towards our next step or to new information on family we already knew about.

Inspired by Lyn’s talk I spent time looking into monumental inscriptions of my own family.

Using the Auckland Council page of cemetery databases as a starting point for those who I knew lived in Auckland proved fruitful, as did more specific searches for relatives where I knew the name of the cemetery.


Auckland Libraries has a wealth of information about cemeteries in Auckland, and further afield. Coming into one of our Research Centres opens the door to a wide range of resources and indexes of cemeteries, as well as the help of our knowledgeable staff when your search hits a wall.

My journey into discovering more about my relatives leads me to the next step of visiting their final resting places in Pukekohe. I am lucky enough to still live in Auckland where many of my relatives are buried. Those who would have to travel further afield may find that the wealth of headstone transcriptions and photos now online and in the library provide them with a similar experience. For everyone monumental inscriptions provide us with the ability to use the information we find as the next clues for discovering more about our families and the world they lived in.



The Close Family, photographed by James D. Richardson, 1890-1899 Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 4-RIC334

Monumental inscriptions for Symonds St Cemetery can be found in our Family History eResources and Databases.


Some photographs of headstones can be found in our Heritage Images database, and there are other photographs that haven't been digitised yet, that can be ordered from Sir George Grey Special Collections.



Central Auckland Research Centre has a large number of monumental inscription and tombstone transcription books available for a wide range of countries.

For those that missed out on Lyn’s talk, or who want to look further, can also find videos of a number of talks that took place during New Zealand Cemeteries' Heritage Week on our website.


Be sure to come along to the Family History Lunchtime Series for 2016 at Central City Library: more information about the talks and booking your place can be found at the link.


Happy researching

Laura

My grandfather joined the British navy in 1911.  I have his service record and these have now been digitised and are available on Ancestry under UK military Royal Navy registers of seamen;s services 1853-1928.  The service record shows all ships he served on and the dates from and to along with other details.

Over the years I have managed to get some photos of ships he served on but not all of them so I was pleased when the book British Warships 1860-1906 – a photographic record by Nicholas Dingle arrived in the Research Centre.  Chapter 1 is a brief history of the Royal Navy 1815-1860 and chapter 2 is where it all starts.  It is possible that not all Royal Navy ships are covered in the text but a good many are and to top it all off, there are photos of many of them.  Therefore, you may be able to find details such as tonnage, speed, number of guns, date built, names of sister ships etc.

If you have an ancestor or relative who served in the Royal navy before 1906 then this book is worth looking at.  As for me, I found photos of another three ships to add to my collection – may your search be as fruitful or even more successful than mine.

Marie Hickey

Anzac Day is just a week away and this year's Anzac Day is the centenary anniversary of when it was first observed in New Zealand.

The deadline for this blog challenge is Monday, 2 May; and we ask you to write about a person or a family that you have researched that were involved in war.

When you have published your blog, please include the name(s) and link in our comments section at the bottom of this post by Monday, May 2, and your entry will be collated with all the others and posted on a follow-up Kintalk blog on Monday, May 9.  If you don't have a blog, perhaps you could email it to kintalk@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz instead, and I will post it on the Kintalk blog for you.

Reviews and blog honour roll of previous blog challenges can be seen here:

2011 Trans-Tasman Anzac Day Blog Challenge
2012 Trans-Tasman Anzac Day Blog Challenge
2013 Trans-Tasman Anzac Day Blog Challenge
2014 Trans-Tasman Anzac Day Blog Challenge
2015 Trans-Tasman Anzac Day Blog Challenge - unfortunately the review for this year appears to be missing, but you can check out the links that other bloggers left in the comments of the original challenge blog and also here.

 To help you get started on some research:

• the Auckland War Memorial Museum;
• the Australian War Memorial site
• Archives New Zealand Archway - Discover World War One
• Discovering Anzacs - the joint initiative between the National Archives of Australia and Archives New Zealand
• the National Archives of Australia or look further by 
• using the resources listed on Cora Num’s website.
• National Archives of Australia Facebook page about their Shellshocked Exhibition and some of the personal stories that they have collected might also be of interest.

Helen Vail's blog 100 NZ WW1 Memorials 1914-2014 is a mine of information about WW1 memorials, and individuals that she has researched. Helen's goal is to personally visit and collate information from 100 New Zealand World War One Memorials throughout New Zealand by August 2014 to commemorate the 100 year Anniversary of the start of World War One and to honour those who paid the ultimate price.


Remember Ancestry, Findmypast and the Genealogist are all free to use with any of the 55 Auckland Libraries sites.

Happy blogging

Seonaid

Judy Russell, "The Legal Genealogist"

Paul Blake