Once you have worked your way through our Beginner’s Guide and looked through our Finding Family Information pages, it is time to look further afield at other national and international organisations who may have the information you are looking for.
Christchurch groups
Tuakiri | Identity, Level 2, Tūranga, specialises in Christchurch and Canterbury family history information, with some national resources. For international resources there are several local groups and organisations who hold a wide range of material.
Contact details of local genealogical groups are provided from the CINCH database including these:
- Canterbury Pilgrims and Early Settlers Association
-
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints: Family History Centre
Check the international website of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for further information. - New Zealand Family History Society
- New Zealand Founders Society. Canterbury/Westland Branch
National Resources
Other organisations who may be able to assist in your search for New Zealand family history information include:
- Akaroa Museum
- Alexander Turnbull Library
- Anglican Archives
- Archives New Zealand
- Auckland City Libraries’ Research Centre
- Canterbury Museum
- Hocken Library — University of Otago
- Identity Services, Births, Deaths & Marriages
- Land Information New Zealand
- MacMillan Brown Library — University of Canterbury
- Methodist Archives
- Presbyterian Archives
New Zealand Society of Genealogists
Local branches:
- New Zealand Society of Genealogists. Bishopdale Branch
- New Zealand Society of Genealogists. Canterbury Branch
- New Zealand Society of Genealogists. Riccarton Branch
- New Zealand Society of Genealogists. Waimakariri Branch
Check the national website of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists for further information.
Special Interest Groups
The New Zealand Society of Genealogists supports a range of special interest groups. These groups create and collect various resources for their areas of interest. Contact details are provided at the links below:
Researchers
You may get to a stage that you want to hire an independent researcher to conduct research outside of your local area or country of residence. Many family history groups will know of researchers who practice in their area. The New Zealand Society of Genealogists may be able to help for the wider New Zealand area and will be able to link you to their international counterparts. Other international organisations, archival collections and libraries may provide links of researchers for their local area as well.
Christchurch City Libraries also offers a research service, for a maximum of 2 hours research time. We provide a quote before beginning the research, and payment is to be made in advance.
International Resources
Our holdings
There is also a small collection of international genealogy resources, including Burkes, Debretts, parish maps of the British Isles, and more.
Family history eResources
We provide access to many online eResources for your research and recreational needs. Family History eResources include the following:
Ancestry Library Edition
Ancestry Library Edition is an international family history database, with more than 1.5 billion names from over 4,000 collections.
Access this on library computers at any of our libraries.
Ancestry Library Edition includes records from:
- United Kingdom and Ireland Census Collection
- Birth, Marriage and Death Records Collection
- Family and Local History Collection
- US Federal Census Collection
Find My Past
Find My Past is a family history and genealogy website covering the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands. It now also includes all the information previously found in the Origins family history database.
Access this at any of our libraries. Limited to four users at any one time.
MyHeritage
MyHeritage - Library edition can be used to trace, share and preserve your family history. Records are sourced from around the world.
You can use this at a library or from home using your library card and password / PIN
Newspapers and Magazine Archives
We also subscribe to a large array of historical newspapers which may be very useful in your family history search including Gale Primary Sources which searches across nineteen different archives in a single search. We also have British Library Newspapers.
Printed sources
British geographical dictionaries
Topographical dictionaries, a series published around 1825 - 1850 are available for:
Other works which will help with finding a family’s British background are:
- E. Ekwall, The concise Oxford dictionary of English place-names
- Bartholomew gazetteer of Britain
- A dictionary of English place-names
- Arthur Mee’s England - a series of titles aimed at providing interesting geographical information on the towns and villages where people who emigrated to New Zealand came from.
Old parish registers
Old parish registers (OPRs) constitute the main source of information for the pre-1855 period in the United Kingdom. There were 900 parishes, the records vary in legibility and quality and, in the main, have not been indexed.
Further sources include tombstone inscriptions, wills, post office directories, armed services records and war registers.
- Phillimore atlas and index of parish registers
- Phillimore lists the English counties and tells the names of the parishes within those counties. Often people would name their parish as the place where they were born.
- New Zealand Scottish directory
- This work, published in New Zealand in 1996, lists the clans and families of Scotland and the names and addresses of organisations in this country which are interested in clans, Scottish history and genealogy. The directory is very much a beginner’s guide.
