Heritage et AL

Ancestry.com have just added the New Zealand Cemetery Records, 1800-2007, to their website and to mark the occasion next week is New Zealand Cemeteries Heritage Week at Auckland Libraries.  The week involves a series of talks, seminars and ‘How-Tos’  by speakers from such places as the New Zealand Society of Genealogists , the Royal New Zealand Naval Museum , Ancestry.com and Auckland Libraries. All the talks will take place at the Whare Wānanga on the second floor of the Central Library.  Ref: Henry Winkelmann,  Showing views of St Stephens Chapel and cemetery at Judges Bay, 4 April 1916, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1-W563.

Take a walk through Aotearoa New Zealand’s literary history in Takapuna this summer. Did you know that it is possible to take a free guided tour through Frank Sargeson’s house ? If you are interested please contact  Research Bookings on the Library website  and from there you can make an appointment to view the house. This is a wonderful opportunity to transport yourself back in time and imagine the gatherings, the discussions, literary and otherwise, that have taken place within the walls of 14 Esmonde Street, Takapuna, down the years. Ref: Andrew Henry, Sign at Frank Sargeson's house, 20 January 2015.

Ireland and Scotland Ireland As with many other records for Ireland, those for Poor Law can be sparse. Remember though that Ireland was under British rule until 1922; therefore, many records are held at The National Archives, England (TNA) .  There is a research guide on TNA's website about Poor Law.  After Ireland split, Northern Ireland remained under British rule with that area of Ireland remaining under the English Poor Laws. The Irish Poor Law Act passed in 1838 was similar to the 1834 English Act.  Poor Law Unions were abolished in the Republic of Ireland (Eire) in the early 1920s and workhouses were closed accordingly; except for Dublin.  The minute books of poor law unions have mainly survived and these are held at National Archives Ireland in Dublin.  Loan funds were set up in Ireland in the early 19th century and one of these was the Irish Reproductive Loan Fund (which operated 1821-74) and gave credit to the poor without them having to ...

The Dick Smith NRL Auckland Nines tournament takes place this weekend at that most hallowed of sports grounds, Eden Park. (Go the Warriors, just quietly!) Last year was the inaugural tournament and in the lead-up, I took a nostalgic look back, via our family history blog Kintalk, at the old league ground, Carlaw Park.  Now, we're skipping across town to the tournie venue itself - the stadium where that girl-and-boy-crush Richie McCaw held the Webb Ellis trophy aloft at the Rugby World Cup Final in 2011 - Eden Park.  The park began as a cricket ground in 1903, and was due to the vision of one Harry Ryan, a cricket enthusiast who approached landowner John Walters to lease part of his land as a sports field.  In the book   Eden Park: A History,  the authors write, "Certainly the rough paddock strewn with stones, studded with outcrops of rock and streaked with cowpats, falling away to a boggy trough that filled in a downpour and remained flooded throughout ...

This coming weekend, January 24 th -26 th, marks the observation of Auckland Anniversary. This year  ASB and Auckland Council are presenting weekend packed with events to celebrate the 175 th anniversary of Auckland. The main events will be held on Queen’s Wharf and at Shed 10 and include a multimedia exhibition that promises to give a glimpse into the area’s past. Ref: F.R. Stack, Drawing showing the Auckland Regatta 1862..., Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 863-RB586.

Continuing on in a similar vein as our previous summer holiday themed posts, we thought we would focus on another common experience from the New Zealand summer holidays: traffic jams. Hopefully you've managed to avoid them over the past few weeks, but if not this selection of images will help add some levity to your memory if you did encounter one. As these photographs show, traffic jams over the summer holidays are not just a recently occurring phenomenon. Ref: Traffic jam on Upper Symonds Street, 1920s, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 589-58.

The exhibition  ‘Aotearoa Houses: settlers to hippies’ is currently running in the atrium outside the Central Auckland Research Centre on the  second  floor of the  Auckland  Central Library. On this blog we've previously featured posts on Hippie A rchitecture  and  State  Houses .  Ref: Pegler for Auckland Weekly News, Showing a settler's house at Poro-o-Tarao, with people posed outside, 19 May 1899, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-18990519-6-1.

In 2013 the Gulf News celebrated its 40th year chronicling the stories of the Waiheke community. We have been indexing the Gulf News into Index Auckland since 1990, with our focus on the people and their stories, and stories about Waiheke's organisation's and development. We have followed Helen Elscot's column as she interviews various islanders asking them where their favourite place is on Waiheke, finding out their life stories as they talk. We have followed families over the years through their various activities, such as protesting against marinas or initiating charitable ventures. There is more to these articles than a local’s rant at council, and even that can be of interest when researching a relation years down the track. Like others of their kind, and there can't be many that are similar to the Gulf News, local rags can be a gold mine for family historians. As an island newspaper, the Gulf News reflects its inclusive, thriving and vocal community. It’...