Old Colonists' Association Register manuscript images now online

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We're very excited to announce that the images from the Old Colonists' Association Register are now available for viewing online!

Previously people have found reference to this valuable resource when using our Digital Library (or Family History eResources) and searching Index Auckland.

They've then been able to get copies of the actual images by either coming to Sir George Grey Special Collections,
or by emailing requests through using our "Ask a Librarian" or "Email it 2 Me" services.

Now you can find the image online for yourself, save it or print it out.

For those who don't know:
The Old Colonists' Association developed out of the reunion gatherings of those settlers who were passengers aboard the first two immigrant ships into Auckland - the Duchess of Argyle and the Jane Gifford. Membership was confined to colonists of fifty years' standing and their descendants.

It lists 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. It covers the period from 10 October 1919 to 16 November 1934.

It has a list of 13 early vessels with their arrival dates pasted on the register's front endpaper, covering the period 1840-1842.

So now, if you get a reference for the Old Colonists Association Register (NZMS 493) in our Index Auckland, you can go to our Manuscripts Online and search for "NZMS 493" for yourself. Open "full record" and click on the Images & PDF tab, then select the page range that you wish to view.

Very exciting for those researching their early New Zealand settlers!

Happy hunting!
Seonaid

Guest post: Preparing for your visit to the Central Auckland Research Centre

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Guest contributor: Bridget Simpson

We welcome everyone to our Research Centre. Whether you are a member of our library or a non-member, a resident of Auckland, or a visitor.

We welcome all age groups, and really do enjoy it when we get a school visit.

If you are coming into our Research Centre to do your family history research, it does pay to come prepared.

Sometimes people, adults and schoolchildren, come in unprepared. They have surnames and anecdotal evidence but nothing concrete that we can usefully follow.

If you are coming in, it will make your visit far more satisfactory to do a little bit of preparation before hand. Start with yourself. Sit down with your parents and write down as much as they know (their parents’ names and dates of birth, and places they lived is a good start ).

If you have birth, death or marriage certificates for your ancestors, photocopy them and bring these copies along as well.

Filling in a genealogical tree sometimes makes all the difference to sorting out the different generations and families in your mind. And it’s helpful for us. You can find these free online. Start with what you know and we can then help point you in the various different directions to start filling in the rest.

A digital camera and a memory stick are optional, but very useful tools in our Centre. Sometimes we don’t allow photocopying for preservation reasons, so a digital camera is a good way of getting that vital copy for your records. Memory sticks are handy to save images to, then you have the file forever.

Before you come in, we recommend you read our information pageResearching Your Family History on our website.

Bridget Simpson

RootsTech Family History and Technology Conference in Salt Lake City

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February 2 to 4, Salt Lake City
RootsTech is only in its second year, but is on its way to becoming one of the largest and most influential genealogical conferences in the world! 

Its brief is to bring technologists together with genealogists, to stimulate cross-pollination of ideas for creative technological development.

The impact of family history and genealogical research on the world, has led to some stunning technological breakthroughs.

For example, the host, FamilySearch, has the largest and most successful digitisation project in the world. The high speed, high quality scanners that FamilySearch use to digitise the millions of microfilms in their Vault, were specifically developed for their use.

This year, the Conference will be exploring latest technologies using Cloud computing, mobile apps, social networking and geo-mapping.

Hosted by FamilySearch, sponsors this year, include some pretty big names: Microsoft, Oracle, brightsolid, vmware, Dell, ancestry.com, Association of Professional Genealogists, Archives.com, Federation of Genealogical Societies, NGS, Brigham Young University and IIMI.

We're 11,000 kilometres and a time zone ahead of Salt Lake City, but you can listen to some of the lectures via livestreaming - you can access the schedule from Randy Seaver's geneamusings blog:

A tip from Carole Riley, Australian genealogist and editor of Descent: the journal of the Society of Australian Genealogists:

If you enter the date and time into Google Calendar, and specify that its US Mountain Time, it will automatically convert it for you and put the NZ date and time in the Calendar! (no trying to work out time zones for yourself!)
 
Read more about what's on offer at RootsTech!

Some handouts will also be available for download so keep an eye on this website

Happy hunting
Seonaid

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