New Zealand Historic BDMs are searchable online.

• Births that occurred at least 100 years ago
• Stillbirths that occurred at least 50 years ago
• Marriages and eventually Civil Unions that occurred 80 years ago
• Deaths that occurred at least 50 years ago or the deceased's date of birth was at least 80 years ago

• Vol 1 BDMs from the New Zealander 1845 -1866
• Vol 2 Thames Newspapers 1869-1909
• Vol 3 NZ Herald 1863 -1880
• Vol 4 Daily Southern Cross 1843 -1876
• Vol 5 Index of names of soldiers who died in WWI and whose pictures were published in the Auckland Weekly News.

FindMyPast UK has published the prisoner of war records for both the First and Second World Wars!

Details in brief:

Prisoners of War 1914-1918
The records of 7,703 British Army Officers who were prisoners of war between 1914 and 1918

Most records will tell you the first and last names, rank, service, section, of your ancestors, and the date they went missing and date they were returned.

• Prisoners of War 1939-1945 – British Navy & Air Force Officers: 19,229 records
• Prisoners of War 1939-1945 – Officers of Empire serving in British Army: 39,808 records
• Prisoners of War 1939-1945 – British Army held in German territories: 107,000 records

Most records will advise you the name, rank, regiment, army number, camp number, Prisoner of War number of your ancestor - and the camp type, camp location and extra notes, where applicable.

For more info, see their blog - or try searching for yourself online!

You can use FindMyPast UK FREE throughout all 55 libraries in the Auckland region.

Happy hunting

Seonaid

Social media is a great way to keep up to date with what is happening in the world of family history. People that have heard me talk, know that I encourage people to make good use of social media tools, such as Facebook, Twitter, and blogging.

All are good ways of sharing information. Blogging in particular is fabulous way of sharing your research stories. Its also invaluable for learning from people who have more experience than you - or who have different experiences to you.

Often people share interesting websites, web pages and blogs via Twitter or Facebook, so I always keep a look out for any links that are posted to add to my own knowledge.

A couple of my Twitter pals were having a conversation the other day, that I took interest in. They were discussing an article in the US Family Tree magazine, which listed the 40 top international genealogy blogs.

I'm always interested in adding to my blog reading list, so I clicked the link that they were discussing to see what blogs of interest I could pick up.

I was thrilled to see Kintalk blog was listed as the New Zealand representative!

This was the second month that Kintalk had been listed in a magazine:- Australian/New Zealand magazine Inside History, had rated Kintalk a mention in their May issue.

People find such blogs via Google (or another search engine) or because they've noticed it on the a website such as our library website. Or they hear about it by word of mouth or "on the grapevine."

Twitter is the modern day version of "the grapevine". You chat with others via 140 character quick burst, post interesting links to share.

So have a look at both lists 40 top international genealogy blogs as posted by US Family Tree magazine, and the top 50 genealogy blogs as posted by Inside History magazine, and see what other blogs you can learn from. You'll see we are in really good company!

Take a note too, of the lefthand side of our page, at the "Blogs We Like" links and see what blogs we like to read on a regular basis in our Research Centre.

Don't forget you can follow Kintalk on Facebook by searching for the Auckland Research Centre, or clicking the Facebook button on the page - and/or you can follow @Kintalk on Twitter.

Happy blogging/reading!

Seonaid