The Newsletter
Te Awamutu
Branch
NZ Society of
Genealogists
No 194
May 2009
Convenor: John Graham 871 8986
Email: jmrg@xtra.co.nz
Secretary: Karen Glew 871 7778
Email: kglew@xtra.co.nz
Treasurer: Sandra Metcalfe 871 3250
Email: Metcalfe@wave.co.nz
Editor at large: John Graham
Te Awamutu Website:
Email: jmrg@xtra.co.nz
www.teawamutu.net/genealogy
New Zealand Society of Genealogists Inc. www.genealogy.org.nz
Meetings are held in the Parish Lounge at St John's Anglican Church, Arawata Street
(parking off George Street), Te Awamutu, at 7.30 p.m. on the first Tuesday of each
month – February to December. Visitors are most welcome.
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Next Meeting: Tuesday 5 May AGM – following the AGM 4 photos of well known New
Zealanders will be projected on the screen and members will be asked to come up with
an epitaph for them in 5-10 minutes? As mentioned previously there are a couple of
vacancies on the committee, so please consider putting your name forward.
The final ‘Praise be’ rehearsal will be taking place at the same time, so don’t be put off
with the number of cars in the car park – our membership hasn’t risen that much!
Tuesday 2 June – John Armstrong an historian will talk on researching the history of
Waikato Hospital. More details in next newsletter.
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Convenor’s Corner:
Prior to the commencement of our last meeting Jan White (Manager) and Catherine
Jehly (Archivist) from the museum gave a brief update on happenings at the museum
 Te Awamutu newspapers – grant applications have been submitted to
purchase scanner/copier which will facilitate digitising the old papers and allow
them to go online (the branch sent a letter of support)
 Public programmes – keen to encourage more programmes highlighting the
local history. These could be run at lunchtime or in the evening. If any member
of the branch feel they can contribute please contact the museum
 Website – this is being revamped, all things being equal ‘Waipa stories’ will be
posted up, with invitations to the public to add their own stories.
 Heritage Awards – call for nominations will go out shortly, with the theme
cultural heritage
 Heirlooms – Catherine looked at our website and saw the topic for the evening
and brought two documents stored in the museum archives
o A shipping ticket, London to Auckland
o A letter to the editor of the Te Awamutu newspaper dated October 1911
Te Awamutu Branch NZSG # 194 – May 2009
Disclaimer: All efforts are made to ensure the information published is accurate
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Members shared a number of interesting items which included:

A grandparents wedding photo framed in its original frame and the story
behind the photo and associated letter

Crochet work dated back to the 1930’s

A framed letter

A small English oak 6 drawer cabinet containing letters going back to 1891
and a scroll presented to John B Graham on his retirement from the National
Federation of Associated Paint, Colour & Varnish Manufacturers of the United
Kingdom
Thank you to members who brought something along to share and to those who
didn’t have an opportunity to share their item, we will do it again later in the year.
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The Lyn McOnie workshop on the 18th April was well attended with 34 people in all,
which included members of the Tauranga, Te Aroha and Tokoroa branches.
The morning session covered delving into the parish chest, where Lyn honed in on five
major areas and the dug a little deeper;
 Where will we find Parish Registers?
o www.familysearch.org
o www.genuki.org.uk
o www.parishregister.com
o www.freereg.org.uk
o www.onlineparishclerks.org.uk
Remember transcripts may not be accurate as there is the human element involved,
always go back to the original document i.e. baptism certificate. See ‘story’ on page 3!
 Parish Locator
o www.onetel.net.uk/~gdlawson/parfind.htm
o www.genuki.org.uk:8080/big/churchdb
 International Genealogical Index (IGI) – This information is extracted from
baptism and marriage records
o Find parishes on the IGI – www.familysearch.org
o
Hugh Wallis and the IGI –
www.freepages.geneology.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hughwallis
Just a caution, this site may not be up to date
 Parish Chest
o Look where the parish records are held as not all records on the IGI and
also look under ‘Poor law records’
The afternoon session was devoted to Family Search www.familysearch.org
 Record search pilot
o Church records
o Civil records
o Many countries
Te Awamutu Branch NZSG # 194 – May 2009
Disclaimer: All efforts are made to ensure the information published is accurate
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 Indexing
o Current projects include records from:
 Australia
 Cheshire
 Essex
 Warwickshire
 Historical books
 Wiki.familysearch.org
o Free family search advice for community, by the community. Scotland
are one of the first ‘out of the blocks’ which has very good information
o Some detail on immigration & emigration
 Education
o Online England beginning Research Series (down load video for free)
o From the familysearch.org home page > library > education > education
and training
 Labs.familysearch.org – this is part of the future only available by login to
church members at present. It is planned to open it up to the wider public once
the ‘bugs’ are sorted
o Family tree
o Standard Finder – this is linked to Geographical Information Systems
whereby locations are geocoded, so with the click of a button a map with
location appears
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Transcription accuracy
A new young monk arrives at the monastery and as with all new monks he is assigned to help
the other monks in copying the old canons and laws of the church by hand.
He notices, however, that all of the monks are copying from copies, not from the original
manuscript.
So, the new monk goes to the head abbot to question this, pointing out that if someone made
even a small error in the first copy, it would never be picked up.
In fact, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies.
The head monk, says, "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a
good point, my son."
So, he goes down into the dark caves underneath the monastery where the original
manuscript is held as archives in a locked vault that hasn't been opened for hundreds of
years.
Hours go by and nobody sees the old abbot.
So, the young monk gets worried and goes downstairs to look for him.
He sees him banging his head against the wall, and wailing, "We forgot the "R", we forgot the
"R" His forehead is all bloody and bruised and he is crying uncontrollably.
The young monk asks the old abbot, "What's wrong, father?"
With a choking voice, the old abbot replies, "The word is celebrate." "The word is celebrate."
Te Awamutu Branch NZSG # 194 – May 2009
Disclaimer: All efforts are made to ensure the information published is accurate
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UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS: A GREAT NEW FEATURE! It is from a Lost
Cousins newsletter in 2007/08.
Until recently the only people you
could enter on your My Ancestors
page at the LostCousins site were
your relatives - but in January we
introduced the 'Neighbours' feature,
to allow you to make contact with
descendants of your ancestors'
neighbours.
From today you can also enter
servants, apprentices, and other
workers who were living in the same
household as your relative(s). You
can do this whether your relative
was another servant - or whether it
was your relative who was the
employer.
Click the Search button and we'll not
only look for your cousins, but also
for living relatives of the servants
you've entered.
If your relative was employed by
someone rich or famous there could
be records that have survived to this
day. But even if it was a humbler
household the opportunity to link
with someone whose ancestor lived
with yours opens up all sorts of
possibilities.
During 2008 we'll be publishing
some of the best stories told to us by
members who have found the
descendants of servants, fellow
servants, or their masters and
mistresses.
BOARDERS, LODGERS, AND
VISITORS
Over 1% of the people entered on
the 1881 Census were visiting the
household where they spent census
night. Some will have been relatives,
perhaps distant ones, of the family others may simply have been
friends.
But experience has shown that
when you're researching a
particularly difficult line following up
on leads like this can work miracles.
Perhaps the visitor, though not
shown as a family member, was
actually a cousin?
Maybe the visitor later married into
the family? Or could he or she have
been a life-long friend, perhaps one
who was a witness at the couple's
wedding?
Boarders and lodgers can also
provide clues - perhaps they worked
in the same occupation, or even for
the same employer? Maybe they
came from the same village?
Over 5% of the people recorded on
the 1881 Census were shown as
boarders or lodgers. Whilst many
will have had no connection with the
family they lived with either before or
after the census there will be a
proportion who did.
You can now enter boarders,
lodgers, and visitors who were
staying with you relatives on census
night. Who knows what you might
discover by making contact with
their living relatives?
A reminder the morning group will be held on the 2nd Tuesday morning of the
month (9.30 -12.30.) at Jan Mc Beth’s house – Contact Jan for further details.
Te Awamutu Branch NZSG # 194 – May 2009
Disclaimer: All efforts are made to ensure the information published is accurate
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