Guest contributor: Marie Hickey

Ancestry.com have just added the following databases to their collection over the past few days which may be of interest to some of you.

Newspapers/periodicalsLyson's Magna Britannia (Bedfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire - 1806-22) [to quote Wikipedia "a concise topographical account of the several counties of Great Britain (to give its full title) was an ambitious topographical and historical survey."]
Illustrated London News (selected years) - this is also available through the Digital Library part of the library website for the years 1842-2003.
Penny Magazine 1832-44 - this was published with the working man in mind and covered a wide range of subjects of general interest and everyday matters.
Soulby's Ulverston Advertiser (1848-62) - a window into the life of the market town of Ulverston, Cumbria
Tewkesbury Yearly Register and Magazine (1830-50) - an anecdotal history includes - marriage and death notices of those born in Tewkesbury but since moved from the area; a list of those who died in a cholera outbreak with details of the way they died, their address and occupation.

LondonLondon Poor Law records has been updated
London Parishes (post 1813 [Births, Christenings, Deaths and Burials], post 1784 [Marriages] - more records have been added.
London Parishes (pre 1813 registers) has had more parishes added.

MiscellaneousFife voters lists (1832-94) - full name, abode, occupation
Queensland Govt Gazettes (1903-10) - we have CDs of these in ARC for 1859-1905
Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Notes & Queries (1893-98) - many articles on buildings, local history, general interest, flora and fauna
Lancashire & Cheshire Historical & Genealogical Notes (1878-83) [from the title page - "comprises unpublished items of local and family history, church notes, abstracts of charters, deeds, wills etc, folk lore, legends traditions etc"]

All the above are name/place searchable.

Another new addition is the selection of postcards for Canada, UK & Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Germany & Austria and Australia.

In case you missed them last month or have not read about them in family history magazines -

Prison Hulk registers and letter books (1802-49)
Licences of parole for female convicts (1853-71 & 1883-87)
Canadian soldiers - selected service records WWI
Canadian war dead - selected service records WWII
California - 1852 census

This should give those who are interested, plenty to play around with.  Check out other new additions by clicking on "recent" in the lower right-hand corner of the home page.

Have fun and hopefully some of those brick wall may come tumbling down or you will learn something further about your family.

The Lock-in is an annual event at the Auckland Research Centre, that allows family historians the opportunity to be locked into our research centre overnight to do their family history research, while being supported and assisted by staff and volunteers from the NZSG.

 

It was my first one and I have to say it was AWESOME! I got such a buzz out of it, and am buzzing still!

 

All-up, we had 60 people, including volunteers. We had researchers from all over the country: Wellington, Taupo, Northland, Tauranga etc.

 

We started with a welcome from team leader and local historian David Verran, who also remembered and paid tribute to my predecessor Karen Kalopulu, before handing over to me. I took care of the housekeeping, order of business and introduced our NZSG volunteers before handing over to my colleague Anahera Sadler. Anahera did a fabulous short mihi maioha after which I introduced our other staff members, lock-in veterans Bridget Simpson and Marie Hickey.

 

We had the traditional “Lock-In Class Photo” taken with staff, volunteers and researchers, with quite a few people wearing the new rebranded “Karen Kalopulu Family History Lock-in” T-shirts with pride.

 

Helping out this year were Geraldene O’Reilly, Robyn Williams, Malcolm McDonald, Viv Parker, Keith Vautier and Owen Ormsby.

 

It was the first time for Malcolm and Owen, but Geraldene’s sixth time, and staff and volunteers were all kept really busy throughout the night.

 

In a small departure from previous years, we had a one hour workshop on offer to those of Irish heritage, with Malcolm McDonald explaining and demonstrating how to use the Lands and Grantors Indexes to the Register of Deeds.

 

We have recently acquired these films on indefinite loan from the LDS, and Auckland Research Centre staff have already been through a training programme with Malcolm, so that we can assist researchers when they visit us.

 

There were numerous success stories through the evening, but two notable ones were of a 30-year genealogical brickwall that came tumbling down; and a young man new to family history research, who was assisted in tracing his family back to England 1841 via census records. Hopefully, he’ll now go off and use the clues the censuses give him, to verify births, deaths and marriages!

 

We had snacks and refreshments to keep us sustained, along with pizza at midnight, and quite a few people made it through to the end at 8am on Saturday morning.

 

Having had my first taste of a lock-in, I now can’t wait till next year’s!

 

Happy hunting all

Seonaid

"Massey's Cossacks" (many of them farmers or farm workers) were sworn in as "special constables" during the 1913 General Strike.

The New Zealand Government under Prime Minister William Massey used them (mounted on horseback and armed with batons) to protect strikebreakers working on the wharves at Auckland and Wellington.

Manukau Library has an interesting section on its website "Massey's South Auckland Cossacks".

In addition, Auckland City Libraries', "Index Auckland" which indexes material from a wide range of sources, includes the names of those serving in Auckland, which were listed in the "Camp Gazette" publication, giving name, initials and the district from which they came. 

The constables were not just from the Auckland region, as the places mentioned are from as far away as the Waikato and Northland.

Janelle Penney