This is the third year that Auckland Libraries have taken part in NZ Family History month. Each year has been more successful than the last, and this year is no exception.

We have some really fantastic events.

Family history month comprises of several components:

1. 31 July - NZ Family History Fair launch event -  "A morning with Richard III" in conjunction with the New Zealand Society of Genealogists, NZ Family History Fair, Ancestry 
2. 31 July - NZ Family History Month launch events:
   12 noon: The Royal New Zealand Fencible Corps with Alan La Roche
   2pm: Using DNA to solve genealogical puzzles with Helen Smith
   3.30pm: Writing family history for magazines and newspapers with Cassie Mercer (Inside History Magazine)
   Events on 31 July are a "taster" and a way of whetting the appetite for the NZ Family History Fair. Of course, we will see you at the Fair too! 
3. 5 Aug - Find your past: a day with Josh Taylor FindMyPast US - Full day event - 3 seminars and research assistance (additional seminars to what he is delivering at the NZ Family History Fair)
4. New Zealand Family History Month speaker series 2013.
   Specialist library staff speaking at Auckland Libraries around the region.
   71 events, 31 libraries and 3 research centres, 19 different topics, eight different speakers.
5. Family history lunchtime series:- weekly instead of fortnightly for the month of August.
   - 7 Aug: Family history sources at Archives New Zealand with Stephanie va Gaalen
   - 14 Aug: Filling the cradles: private residential maternity homes with Lisa Truttman
   - 21 Aug: By sea, by ship: celebrating 20 years of the Voyager Maritime Museum Library
   - 28 Aug 12noon: Introduction to the New Zealand Society of Genealogists with Christine Hurst
   - 28 Aug 1pm: Family archives - prepare and preserve with David Ashman
6. 30 Aug:- The Karen Kalopulu Family History Lock-In - closing Auckland Libraries' NZ Family History month programme

Access more details about all of the above from this page:
http://www.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/EN/Events/Events/Pages/familyhistorymonth2013.aspx

 Kind regards

SEONAID

The name Cyrus Haley won’t be familiar to many today, but back in the late 1800s, Cyrus Haley’s nefarious exploits were well documented in the print media, from his attempts at murder, his fondness for setting fires, right down to his death in 1875 while attempting to escape imprisonment.

So who was the man that caused such speculation in the media of the day?

Cyrus had emigrated from England to New Zealand with his family in 1870 and wasted little time making enemies and enacting his own form of justice. When his wife Emily’s singing performance at the Music Hall was savaged, the hall was mysteriously gutted by fire. More arsons took place and while all these couldn’t be linked to Haley, there was one involving the property of BNZ founder Thomas Russell, also director of a company in which Hailey claimed to have lost ₤3000.

While Thomas Russell himself wasn’t short of enemies, Cyrus’s grudge was so intense, he set about trying to kill him. In December of that year, Haley fired through the windows of the Russell home (the glorious Pah Homestead in Hillsborough Road, Auckland), almost killing one of Russell’s children. Haley also wrote anonymous notes threatening death to Russell.

He was caught and tried, and subsequently convicted of attempted murder, threatening to kill and threatening to destroy property - he had also set fire to hay on the Russell property. His sentence was life imprisonment in the Dunedin gaol.

Ref: Taranaki Herald, 6 October 1875, Papers Past


Haley first attempted to escape the prison in 1873, but in 1875, after receiving disturbing news about his children, he tried to flee a labour gang and was shot by a warder. The inquest following his death concluded it was “justifiable homicide.”


Ref: Taranaki Herald, 9 October 1875, Papers Past


To learn more about this fascinating and disturbed character, you need only check out the Papers Past website where all his activities and accompanying speculation were well documented.

Ref: Daily Southern Cross, 30 January 1872, Papers Past

Indeed, the Daily Southern Cross of January 30 1872 says of the man following his arrest after the Hillsborough house incident, “Various reports respecting Haley are in circulation, one of which is that he is insane, and another that he is feigning insanity. Neither report is correct. Haley's conduct in confinement is perfectly rational, and he is neither apparently nor in reality insane.”

Joanne

'Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 4-RIC342' Showing the grave and tombstone of David B Cruickshank in St Mark's Cemetery, Remuera. The inscription reads: In fond remembrance of David B Cruickshank who died on the 8th of May 1895 aged 53 years