This week Auckland Libraries is celebrating Samoan Language Week starting today through to 1 June 2014. The nationwide theme is ‘Taofimau i au measina’ or ‘Hold fast to your cultural treasures’. We have found some Samoan family history treasure!

Many of you reading this will use the subscription database, Ancestry.com on a fairly regular basis but how many of you ever refer to the card catalogue?

There are probably quite a number of records “hidden” away treasures that we are unaware of, and an example of this is some select records of baptisms (1805-1910) and burials (1895-1970) for Samoa. To access these, click on “card catalog” which is in the lower left-hand side of the Ancestry.com Home Page.  Enter Samoa as a keyword and you will have a selection of record sets including these select baptism and burial records.

The entries on Ancestry are only transcripts but do give a (FamilySearch) film number and are included in the catalogue entries for films held at the Central Auckland Research Centre - the desk staff are always available if you require any assistance.

The Ancestry.com database it is accessible through Auckland Libraries Digital Library from within any of the 55 libraries for free.

Marie Hickey

It is always wonderful when a customer comes to the Central Auckland Research Centre with a family history query that results in the staff learning more about the materials held in our collections. Recently, we had a person researching soldiers with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force that served in the Pacific Islands. 

Beyond our expanding collection of Pacific Island family history materials, these additional resources were ‘discovered’ within the Research Centre that are noteworthy. 


Ref: AWNS-19431013-22-1, Soldiers of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in the Pacific, 1943, Sir George Grey Special Collections

The Pacific Island Monthly, which tends to be referred to as PIM, is held on microfilm in the Research Centre for the period 1936 to1942 but the real gem is the accompanying PIM Cumulative Index,1930-1945. It is in book format and provides coverage for the same dates. The contents are listed by names as well as subject and is divided into sections; a few to note are aircraft, ships, territories, biographical entries. Poems and short stories were even featured in many of the issues. Social events were frequently reported in PIM, and marriage announcements often included a portrait of the newlyweds.
The Pacific Islands Year Books (available for 1932 to 1959)  are a good source of general information about the island groups. The editions, which include a Who's Who section, contain biographical entries of individuals who have contributed to the Pacific communities.


Ref: Front cover of the first edition, 1932, Auckland Libraries.

 The Unofficial Histories of the Third Division, 2nd NZEF IP are the "series of  thirteen unofficial narratives detailing the activities of the units of the Third New Zealand Division and its base organisation during their service in the Pacific theatre of war from 1940. . . . until 1944, when the division was disbanded."  Some of the titles within the series are Pacific Pioneers, Pacific Service and Shovel, Sword and Scalpel. They contain fabulous content such as this entertaining entry from Pacific Kiwis, Chapter 9, written by Joe Grindlay, a regular contributor to the Koumac Kronicle, the battalion news sheet.  Joe’s civilian profession before and after the war was as a school teacher.

     As a Kiwi who has never visited the States
     I have often tried to visualise its scenes,
     And judging by the rations that we find upon our plates,
     The only crop they grow there must be beans.

     We have beans cooked with bacon, and have beans dished up with hash,
     How I often wish we had a change of greens,
     Or perhaps a large and tasty dish of sausages and mash
     As a change from endless dixies full of beans and beans and beans.

                                                                  ~ Pte. Douglas Joseph "Deejay" Grindlay
                                                 
If you are unable to come into the Central Auckland Research Centre, this series is also available for reading online through the New Zealand Electronic Text Collection (NZETC) along with many other war histories.  The appendix to the Pacific Kiwis includes the 30th Battalion Roll of soldiers who sailed on the Rangatira.

My colleague recommends a very useful feature when using the NZETC, which is the ability to do a name search in 'this document' or 'this corpus' for more precise search results.

Kind regards
Karen

O’Neill’s Point Cemetery, Bayswater, Auckland

From 1915, a number of recruits from the Pacific trained at Narrow Neck Camp in Devonport before being shipped to the battlefront. The Third Maori Contingent included 50 from the Cook Islands along with 153 Niueans, Tahitians, 15 Fijians, Gilbert and Ellis Islanders (now Kiribati) and Western Samoans. However, of the Niueans only 140 completed their training at Narrow Neck Camp and were sent to Egypt – 12 were discharged back to Niue due to illness and one, Private Vilipate, died at Narrow Neck Camp on 25 December 1915 and was buried in the O'Neill’s Point Cemetery. The Third Contingent sailed on 5 February 1916.

Showing exterior view of church at O'Neills Point Cemetery, surrounded by gravestones   Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 4-6273 Heritage Images

Two more Niuean soldiers and one Cook Island soldier were buried in that cemetery during the training of more Contingents in 1916. A returning Cook Island solider, Sergeant Beni Banaba was buried there as well in 1917, having served in Egypt and Palestine.

The influenza epidemic of late 1918 hit Narrow Neck Camp particularly hard, and at one stage in early October 1918 there were 226 cases of influenza at the Camp. Ultimately 21 either died in the Camp or in the nearby Barracks and all but one were buried in the O'Neill’s Point Cemetery, including three from Kiribati, one from Fiji and one from the Cook Islands.

In 1919, another Fijian soldier and two Cook Island soldiers were buried in O’Neill’s Point Cemetery, from Auckland Hospital. They were returning home in the troopships.

Visiting O'Neill’s Point Cemetery today, you can see the well-tended and orderly graves of Pasifika soldiers buried there, most with New Zealand Expeditionary or Defence Force emblems on their graves.

David Verran