We have Fijian birth, death and marriage records on microfilm on permanent loan from the LDS in the Central Auckland Research Centre. They are divided into the categories General, Fijian, Indian and European and are helpfully indexed.

This is an example of an index, taken from Fiji births, general index 1876-1960.

A birth record may give you date, name, sex, parent’s names and ages, whether married, previous children, profession and parents’ birth place, with signature or their ‘mark’. This example is from Births general 1883-1891.


This example is from Births general 1911 in Fiji (although the child was born in 1888 the birth wasn't registered until later, along with two of his other siblings).

Found a NZ doctor lurking in the family tree? There are a couple of very useful research sources that you should know about.

The Central Auckland Research Centre in Auckland Central Library holds a biographical dictionary by Rex Earl Wright-St Clair: Medical practitioners in New Zealand, from 1840 to 1930.  As the quote from the work's preface states: "In this work are listed alphabetically all medical practitioners known to have been in New Zealand between 1 January 1840 and 31 December 1930, whether registered here or not, providing at least one forename is known".

Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries AWNS--19080806-16-4

Entries vary in size but typically contain details of education, career and death. In many cases they refer to an obituary in a medical journal.

Which leads us to the second source: the New Zealand Medical Association runs a helpful website offering the NZ Medical Journal online.

It includes an index of obituaries appearing in the NZ Medical Journal 1887-2013 and archived issues of the journal itself from 1999. For an obituary earlier than 1999, the website gives contact details for the NZ Medical Association and states that one-off requests are supplied without charge.

Janelle

Auckland Libraries’ has a fabulous new on-line magazine collection, Zinio, for those of us who just love our magazines. The mags are free to read on your laptop, tablet, phone or PC, there’s no waiting list, and while some of us might be just desperate to get our hands on the latest Runner’s World, Yoga for Beginners or Train like an Olympian (or – let’s be real here – Best Cookies Ever, Christmas Baking, and Woman’s Day Comfort Foods), there are a couple of publications that the family history enthusiast might like to take a look at.

First up is the very stylish Australian magazine, Inside History. As the blurb says, “Inside History is for people passionate about Australian and New Zealand genealogy, history and heritage.” It’s published every two months, with “insightful, interesting and practical features… packed with advice, articles and expert tips on genealogy, and stories on our varied history.”


The second magazine you can borrow from Zinio is the UK magazine, Your Family Tree (not to be confused with Family Tree) with “… practical advice, written by experts, on all areas of family history research.”  Their aim is to make family history accessible to all.

You can read both of these on iPad, Blackberry, iPhone, Android, Win 8, PC/MAC and some back issues are available. You’ll need to be a library member to create accounts but then you’ll be away.

Here’s the link to Zinio – or if you prefer, the URL is:

http://www.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/EN/collections/eMagazines/ziniogettingstarted/Pages/ziniogettingstarted.aspx

… which is worth a browse just to see what else you can read – especially in the Food and Cooking section!

Joanne Graves
Central Auckland Research Centre

The Auckland Weekly News was filled not only with news and advertisements, but with an excellent assortment of photographs, and a service it offered during the war years was to publish a passport sized photograph of your wounded or killed family member. These photographs have all been indexed in to one easy-to-use volume, although its worth noting it does not included those photographs published in the Weekly News supplement.

Book Review: 
Granny was a Brothel Keeper 50 Family History Traps by Kate Broad and Toni Neobard

Available at Auckland Libraries

This title has been added to our collection of family history aid books.  It is very cleanly presented and easy to read sprinkled frequently with humorous cartoons and  quips as well as anecdotes from the authors.  It could be of use to the beginner as well as the more experienced family historian as the authors mention many of the traps it is so easy to fall into.

It is also quick to point out that our relatives and ancestors may not have been as upright as we would like to think they were or have been portrayed as such to us by their children/grandchildren.

The short stories used to illustrate different traps are all true; some are bizarre – like the exploding wheelchair - but all have a touch of humour like the gentleman guilty of bigamy, he married five women in nine months, two within a matter of weeks of each other.  One wonders how long he was able to get away with it.

From page 97.

A companion volume is forecast for publication next year and is sure to be as interesting as this volume.

Books such as this are located in the 1 GEN AID section of the Research Centre.

Marie

Stone’s New Zealand directories were compiled from a comprehensive house-to-house canvas of all streets in a district. They included the full name and occupation of the head of the household, as well as male lodgers aged over 18 years (21 years in some cases). However, spouses were excluded (unless he or she owned property on his or her own account), as were children over the age of 15 even if they were in the workforce, and generally people who rented property.

A typical entry in the Street and Country Directory reads as:

Abberley Road
Right side from St Albans lane
6– Rutherford, Mrs Amelia, ladies’ nurse

Stone’s historic books contain detailed sections such as the Alphabetical Directory and a Trades Directory. The Pastoral Directory includes the names and addresses of all holders of 1,000 or more sheep, for example:

Sounds County
1,198 Beauchamp, Mrs. H. Grove.

The Educational and Ecclesiastical Directory lists education boards, schools and colleges. A typical entry being:

Christchurch Girls High School
Opened 13th September 1877
Lady Principal – Miss M.V. Gibson

followed by a list of all of her assistants and subject mistresses, the school’s calendar terms and daily timetable.

All religious denominations, places of worship and ministers are likewise listed; along with many items of useful information such as how to register births, deaths and marriages - and dogs.

Stone’s Directories have a lot more to offer researchers than just their street, alphabetical and trade directories. As well as the information outlined above, there are maps, distances between towns and what rail passages were open for traffic.

Central Auckland Research Centre has a growing collection of Stones Directory’s. At present we offer fully searchable CD-Roms of the following:

Stone’s Otago and Southland Directories, 1884-1933

Stone’s Wellington, Hawkes Bay and Taranaki Directories, 1891-1900

Stone’s Canterbury, Nelson, Marlborough and Westland, 1902-1914

and Stone’s Nelson, Marlborough and Westland, 1899-1901

LR

Many of the customers coming to the Research Centres are aware that we hold copies of the New Zealand Herald, Auckland Star and London Times on microfilm but how many of you reading this know that we have Musical Times and Singing Class Circular (June 1844-1926) or the Weekly Graphic and Ladies Journal (31 May 1890-25 June 1913)?

We have reasonable sized runs for some of the titles held while others may only cover a few issues, months or years such as the Kawhia Settler and Raglan Advertiser (19 July 1902-18 June 1904) and The Mail (Thames) 26 March 1870.

The collection includes the following Māori titles:-

• Te Karere o nui tireni (Māori Messenger) Jan 1842-Mar 1844
• Te Karere Maori (Māori Messenger) English & Maori (two issues only)
• Te Manwhiri Tuarangi and Māori Intelligencer English & Māori (31 May 1860 only)

Many local newspaper titles are held at the Research Centres such as North Shore Times, North Harbour News, South Auckland Courier, Howick Times, Western Leader, West Weekly, East and Bays Courier and Central Leader to name a few and these are generally in “hard copy”.

Auckland Libraries, Sir George Grey Special Collections, 4-7356

All of the titles held at Auckland Libraries can be found on our catalogue but a member of staff can assist you if you are unable to locate a particular title.

We also have a number of indexes of birth, marriage and death notices for overseas newspapers on the shelves and there are also digitised versions of newspapers available through the Digital Library section of our website; most of which you can view from home (there are only a few titles which you cannot view from home if you are not a member of the Auckland Libraries).

Do have a look as you may be surprised as to what we have in the collections.

Marie

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

There are certain records such as UK census records that are frequently consulted for doing family history research. Unfortunately, no such records exist for New Zealand so we have to rely on other records to find information about households - two popular alternative sources are the Wise’s Directory and of course, the NZ Electoral Rolls.

One our customer’s who regularly searches Papers Past for historical information about Auckland
came across a news item in the 9 February 1883 edition of the New Zealand Herald reporting on a City Council meeting which offers insight as how these records were introduced into the library's collection.

Check back later this week for a new blog post from Janelle with some tips and tricks on the NZ electoral rolls.

Karen

While I was recently indexing some of my own copies of the now defunct Ancestors magazine, I was
struck by the wide array of subjects covered in the articles.  This is one of the reasons I had taken
out a subscription albeit a little late as publication ceased shortly afterwards. We do have the complete run of this publication in our collection at the Central Auckland Research Centre.

Ancestors, September 2005 issue.

The records covered by the magazine were, in the main, held by The National Archives (formerly Public Record Office), Kew, England.

Did you know that competition between doctors was so fierce at one time that soliciting for patients sometimes resulted in a duel?  This and other fascinating facts about the medical profession are found in an article - Health of the Nation which was featured the November 2004 issue.  There are several articles about how the Derbyshire village of Eyam dealt with the bubonic plague which arrived in the village in the form of infected fleas in a parcel of cloth from London.  A short article in the September 2005 issue describes the type of clothing to be worn when travelling by train; aimed at first time travellers by this mode of transport that included the suggestion to wear light coloured clothing and patent boots instead of ordinary ones.

Of course, there are many articles about all branches of the military and their records, those who
emigrated or were transported, Friendly societies, Freemasonry, and tips on preserving records and recorded media as well as the occasional article featuring a particular person.

If you have never delved into this magazine do have a look particularly if you have UK connections as there should be something of interest to you.

Marie Hickey

Are you like me and have links to Oxfordshire?  Have you had a look at the libraries catalogue to see what resources we have for this county?  If not, you may be pleasantly surprised!

Apart from the usual suspects of parish register transcripts (whole county), monumental inscriptions, wills and census, what else do we have?

Kirtlington Park, Oxfordshire Sir George Grey Special  Collections, Auckland Libraries AWNS-19390104-40-1

Among the collection we have the following and there is something for everyone:

Alumni Oxonienses (Oxford University)
Banbury constables 1775-1925
Bastardy papers
Boat People of the Oxford Canal
Coroners Inquests 1820-37
Constabulary recruitment register 1857-1904 (includes some photographs)
Freemen of the City of Oxford 1663-1997
militia rolls
Oxford City Police Court minute book 1837-42
indexes to Poor Relief (Henley-on-Thames)
Probate records
Quarter Sessions 1687-1830
Victoria County history (these include information about flora, fauna, history, manors, occupations, churches etc)

"The People of …" series include transcriptions of many different records eg settlement records, early censuses, list of the poor, confirmations, poll books, etc.

All of the above are on the shelves/CD drawers in the Central Auckland Research Centre but there are other titles available throughout the library system such as Lark Rise to Candleford (good for getting a “feel” for life in rural Oxfordshire) and if you don’t feel like reading the book it is available on DVD.

Just a word of warning, some parishes which were in the ancient county of Oxfordshire are now in Berkshire – check Phillimore’s Atlas and Index of Parish Registers for pre-1974 boundaries.

Marie Hickey

Susan Soyinka has written a remarkable book on her search for the survivors of her mother’s family who fled Nazi Germany. A Silence that Speaks: A Family story through and beyond the Holocaust describes her 18-year search for those members of her mother’s extended family who were now scattered around the world.


Ref: Refugees flee as war between Germany and Czechoslovakia appears to be inevitable, 1938, Sir George Grey Special Collections

For someone who is searching for their ancestors, dispersed through war and tragedy, particularly with Czech Jewish ancestry,  Susan’s book is a goldmine with its sources of information and step by step descriptions of her search.

When she gives you her sources, Susan will say how this information was useful to her and with whom she spoke. For example: Czech District and Regional Archives. Research was carried out for me in the Uherske Hradiste and Vsetin District Archives, and in the Moravian Regional Archives in Brno by Martin Kocarik and his wife Sarka Kocarikova. Martin and Sarka work for a private company whose details are available at the Czech Family Tree.

One of Susan’s appendices is a Note on Czech Jewish genealogy, where she explains the network of archives the Czech Republic holds and the different Jewish records held. She has helpfully included a table showing the names of towns and cities in the Czech Republic, with their spelling now, and then, and the German form used during the Habsburg Empire.

Following her own search, the chapter in her book The Nazi machine in Austria contains different sub chapters with one headed Forms and standard letters used during Aryanisation, which explains, as an example, what a Request for approval of sale was. She also lists the Offices, departments and organisations involved in or dealing with Jewish matters, such as,  ‘the Office for the calculation of surcharges, who were charged with the task of working out the fee for the “dejewification” process’.

This book is a family history and a biography,  giving an insight into the workings of the Nazi regime in Austria which may help other historians struggling to piece together their own Jewish story.

For more helpful information on finding your Jewish ancestors, search the Auckland Libraries catalogue by the call number 1 GEN REL JEW for more resources held in the family history collection.

Regards

Bridget