Newspapers provide much more than the usual births, deaths and marriage notices, and the occasional obituary. They provide an insight into people's lives. Social history, local, national and political history - all of which add shape to the lives of your ancestors.

National Library is in the process of digitising New Zealand's heritage newspapers and has so far digitised more than two million pages, 70 publications across New Zealand, and covers the years between 1839 and 1945.

These digitised newspapers are being added to PapersPast.

People were pretty quick off the mark to discover in May, that the next batch of Auckland Star pages had been added to PapersPast. From 1870 to 1926 of the Auckland Star is now available online - more than 75 years worth, keyword searchable.

The Auckland Star is a joint project with Auckland Libraries and the National Library.

National Libraries say that PapersPast only covers a very small amount of New Zealand newspapers as yet, and that if you cannot find what you need online, you may find what you need in paper or microfilm formats at your library.

Access to heritage newspapers from round the world can be obtained by our Digital Library:-

• 19th Century US Newspapers;

• British Newspapers 1600-1900;
• Illustrated London News  
• Picture Post Historical Archive  
• The Guardian and The Observer (1791-2003) 
• The Irish Times (1859-2008)  
• The New York Times (1851-2007) 
• The Scotsman (1817-1950)  
• Times Digital Archive

And you can read more about our newspapers, both heritage and more recent.

Happy hunting

Seonaid
 

The Queen's Birthday weekend is upon us. In the UK, they are having a 4-day weekend to celebrate.
In recognition, The National Archives in England, have digitised about 60 Addresses to Queen Victoria for viewing in an online exhibition. It covers both jubilees in 1887 and 1897. The images are gorgeous, and you can also view a video clip telling you information about it.

Are you aware of our own Address to Queen Victoria?

In 1897, around 25,000 children in the Auckland education district signed a congratulatory address to Queen Victoria on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee, celebrating 60 years as Queen. The Auckland education district covered all public schools from Northland to Rotorua and Tauranga.

The information available includes the child’s name, which school they belonged to and a page number which refers to the signatures in the original manuscript held in the Sir George Grey Special Collections (NZMS 540).

Because of its fragile condition, the original manuscript has been copied onto microfiche. These are available in the Auckland Research Centre and the Sir George Grey Special Collections.

You can search our database looking to see if one of your ancestors, is one of the 25,000 children that signed this remarkable address!

Hope you have a happy and safe long weekend

Happy hunting

Seonaid

Queen's Birthday Weekend, Karen, Marie and myself are off to Taupo, to attend the New Zealand Society of Genealogists' 2012 Conference and AGM.

We're attending not only as members, but also to represent Auckland Libraries - with an exhibition/research table set up, and I will have the pleasure of speaking also.

We're all very excited that the keynote speaker for this conference is Dr Nick Barratt - formerly lead genealogist from the TV series Who Do You Think You Are? (both the UK and Australian series) and also the lead researcher and presenter of Hidden House Histories.

Historian, author, genealogist, and broadcaster, his presentations over the conference weekend will no doubt be well received.

Yesterday morning Dr Barratt was interviewed by Kathryn Ryan on the nine to noon programme on Radio New Zealand National.

He had a lot of really interesting stuff to say about ancestral tourism and personal heritage. I was particularly interested in his enthusiasm in getting children involved in personal heritage via the school curriculum - its a subject very close to my own heart.

Have a listen to his interview.