www.nzmusicmonth.co.nz

Mr Alfred Hill, composer. 1905. Sir George Grey Special Collections  AWNS-19050622-7-1

Music in Auckland Scrapbook, v.2, 1890-1930. Sir George Grey Special Collections.

Index Auckland, Record ID 69996.

Index Auckland, Record ID 69886.

Another excellent database that has material  from Special Collections is the Ephemera Index. For those of you not familiar with the word ephemera,  it is a term for printed material originally intended to have a limited life-span, such as programmes,  posters, tickets, flyers and cards - which are essentially the typical items that are associated with musical events.

Good luck with finding your family's musicians.

Karen

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

The Old Colonists Association Register is an original manuscript listed on Manuscripts Online, that is held within the Sir George Grey Specialist Collections on L2 of Central City Library.

The Old Colonists Association was originally developed out of reunion gatherings for early Auckland settlers who arrived on the Duchess of Argyle and the Jane Gifford, the first two immigrant ships into Auckland.

It was extended to include early colonists of fifty years' standing and their descendants.

Members were listed in the Register between 10 October 1919 to 16 November 1934, and includes a list of 13 early vessels with their arrival dates pasted on the register's front endpaper, which covers the period 1840-1842.

The register contains a list of members of the association, including information relating to joining date, badge number, address at time of joining, when and where born, date of arrival in New Zealand, name of ship, and some miscellaneous remarks.

The inclusions of gems such as where and when born is pure gold, for those wanting to trace their ancestors back to their country of origin. And the date of arrival and ship's name answers the inevitable family history question "when did my ancestor arrive in New Zealand" for many researchers.

The Old Colonists Association Register is often cited as a source in our databases "Index Auckland" and "Auckland Area Passenger Vessels".

Searching for "Dora Close" in Index Auckland brings up six records. The top record is her entry in the Old Colonists' Association Register. You can open the actual image of the page by "Clicking here to view".

In this image of the Old Colonists Association Register, you can see where Dora Close was born, amongst other wonderful pieces of information.

Conducting a successful search for a name - Dora Close in this instance - in Index Auckland gives you not only an abstract of the record, but also allows you to click and open the actual image of the page, which you are free to download and use as part of your personal research. 

Happy hunting

Seonaid

Early this year we blogged about how the Old Colonists Association Register images had been digitised and were now available for viewing online by searching our Manuscripts Online database.

We've now made the images even easier to find by adding them to the entries in Index Auckland. So now, if you find mention of someone in Index Auckland, who belonged to the Old Colonists Association, the image will also be attached there as well!

We have other blogs that tell you more about Index Auckland and our related database the New Zealand Card Index.

Happy hunting

Seonaid

In our Digital Library, Index Auckland is a rich resource of history, art, theatre, film and music references sourced from Auckland area newspapers and journal articles.

 
The music references provide a comprehensive overview of the musical history of New Zealand and include:

• music in Auckland scrapbooks from 1890 to 1930
• New Zealand music scrapbooks from 1960 to 1995
• music programme collection
• various journal articles, performance reviews, and newspaper clippings from the New Zealand music vertical file. The local history, biography and family history references include:
• Auckland scrapbooks 1923 to 1994
• New Zealand scrapbooks 1916 to 1975
• obituary scrapbooks 1933 to 1941 and 1949 to 1979
• pioneer women's roll of honour, Auckland province
• Maori electoral rolls for the North Island, 1919
• Auckland city area suburban newspapers, particularly from 1996.