All Births, Deaths, & Marriages research of the actual registers is performed by staff at the Registrar Generals Office in Lower Hutt. They perform lookups for you, but you will need to know certain information such as the location, surname and date (re: above).

You may contact the Registrar Generals Office either through your local BDM branch, or through the post. Either way you will need to fill out a form for an inspection of their records or for a certificate. Registrar Generals Office:

BDM Central Registry

191 High Street

PO Box 31-115

Lower Hutt

which has a national collection of all New Zealand Births, Deaths and Marriages records dating back to the mid-1840s. BDM staff do the actual searching from certificates - inspections of the record with various fees applying. You can ask for a search by applying at your local branch of Birth, Deaths and Marriages. All information is open to the public, except adoptions.

BDM Index on Microfiche

Some years ago the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages in Lower Hutt brought out microfiche of the index to the 1840-1920 records and a further set of fiche spanning the years 1920-80 became available in 1997. Canterbury Public Library has copies from 1920-1980.

The registration of European births, deaths and marriages has been compulsory since 1856. Compulsory registration of Maori marriages dates from 1911, and of births and deaths from 1913.

Birth, Death, Marriage & Burial's within maoridom were passed on by word of mouth. Many maori burial grounds were recorded by the Maori Land Court in succession files, if the person was a maori land owner.

Indexes are compiled annually and are available on microfiche for purchase. Several libraries and genealogical societies throughout New Zealand and overseas have their own copies.

For more information contact your nearest Births, Deaths and Marriages office or Central Registry.

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Auckland Army Records are available at Auckland Central City Library.

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• DC10 plane crash on Mt Erebus, Antartica. (Whakapapa the Genealogy BBS)

• INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC - 1918 Influenza, prevalent in NZ society in many forms at all times, was the cause in 1918 of the greatest epidemic NZ has had. It killed an estimated 6700 people. The worst death tolls were in the more intensively settled areas: there were 1680 deaths in Auckland city and 1406 deaths in Wellington city. The total European deaths were put at 5516, and Maori deaths at 1200. The epidemic was part of a worldwide plague of pneumonic influenza. According to one estimate, the death toll around the world was 21 million.