Family history

Trace your family history. Includes records from United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

Access on library computers at any of our libraries.

• Use Ancestry: Library Edition now
• Find out about Ancestry: Library Edition

Offering online access to millions of pages of British and Irish newspapers from 1703-2003.

• Use British Newspaper Archive now
• Find out more about British Newspaper Archive

Canterbury Stories is our place for collecting and presenting online collections from our digitised archives, publications, photographs and community. Canterbury Stories includes material from Photo Hunts, exhibitions on Christchurch places and themes, sets of images, as well as a growing collection of archive and published material.

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This database covers interments in Christchurch City Council managed cemeteries. Apart from some on Banks Peninsula, church cemeteries are not included. There are very few records for the Barbadoes Street cemetery listed. Cremation details are not included in this database unless there was an ashes burial.

Details of interments from Christchurch City Council cemeteries compiled by the Greenspace Unit of the Christchurch City Council.

• Use Christchurch City Council Cemeteries Database now
• Find out about Christchurch City Council Cemeteries Database

Search or browse the interactive Christchurch Streets map to find the origins of our city's street names.

Researched by Christchurch City Libraries, the streets information comes from published works, manuscripts, interviews, as a well as Christchurch City Council archives.

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The Discovery Wall showcases images and videos curated from the Christchurch City Libraries Digital Heritage collection, you can visit the wall at Tūranga or the Mobile Discovery Wall when it visits your local library or you can search or browse the images on our Discovery Wall website. You can contribute to the Discovery Wall by uploading images or videos.

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Search the world's largest collection of historical documents from anywhere for free on FamilySearch. Create a free FamilySearch account to use FamilySearch.

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Access even more records, including images and names indexes in our FamilySearch Affiliate Library Collections on our Family History Computers at

• Fendalton Library
• Lyttelton Library
• Shirley Library
• South Library
• Te Hāpua: Halswell Centre
• Tuakiri | Identity, Level 2, Tūranga
• Upper Riccarton Library

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.

• Use Find My Past now
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Search a selection of newspaper and magazine archives, monographs and manuscripts all cross-searchable, full text and full image of papers is available.

• Use Gale Primary Sources now
• Find out about Gale Primary Sources and what archives are available

Birth, death and marriage records from 48 countries, the complete U.S. and U.K. censuses, immigration, military and tombstone records and more than 2 billion family tree profiles.

• Use MyHeritage Library edition now
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Copies of issues of the New Zealand Gazette and related publications from 1841 to the present. Available in PDF format.

Access this at any of our libraries.

Digitised New Zealand newspapers, periodicals, letters, diaries and parliamentary papers from 1839 to 1945. Coverage includes The Press from 1861 to 1989.

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Digital archive of full text and full image newspapers dating back to the 18th century. 

• Use ProQuest Historical Newspapers now
• Find out about ProQuest Historical Newspapers