Guest contributor: Frances Devaney

Following on from the Scottish theme in my blog in May I wanted to alert you to some of the family history resources that you can find in Auckland City Libraries research centre.

One of my favourites is the Register of New Zealand immigrants of Scottish birth arriving in New Zealand before 1 January 1921. This has been compiled by the Scottish Interest Group of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists and contains not only an index giving the name, year of arrival and the year and county of birth in Scotland but copies of the original forms that people completed giving information about their ancestors. These can contain further information such as the ship of arrival, parent's names, names of children, and so forth.

On microfilm we have the Scottish index of births 1907-1955 and of marriages 1932-1956 and the Scottish 1901 census. Although this census is available on www.ancestry.com the original images of the census forms are not. However, with our new microfilm reader/printer/scanners you can get copies of the original forms from the microfilm. 

We also have a large variety of cemetery information both in hard copy and on CD, particulary monumental inscriptions, most of which have been compiled by various local genealogical societies. Because of  variations in title these can be difficult to locate in our catalogue. One of the easiest ways to find out what Scottish cemetery resources we hold is to use the classic catalogue search option on our websitewww.aucklandcitylibraries.com and search by call number using the family history call number notation 4 SCT CEM. Give it a go and you'll be surprised by the gems held in our collection.

This is only a small selection of the Scottish resources available in the Auckland Research Centre so if your ancestors are part of the great Scottish Diaspora don't despair, you can still carry out some of your research in New Zealand through our fanatastic collection here.