Local history and genealogy

We provide a wide range of resources to assist with your local history and genealogical research.

The Genealogy Collection is housed at the Winton Public Library and is available for in-library use. The collection is utilised and supported by local genealogy researchers, who are available to assist you with your family history questions on Tuesday afternoons. For more information on our genealogy sessions, check out the event calendar on our What’s On page.

You can also access a vast array of information online. Ancestry Online is available through the APNK PCs at each of our branches. Links to other resources which may be of interest to local history and genealogy researchers can be found below.

Births, Deaths and Marriages (BDM) registers and maintains New Zealand birth, death, marriage, civil union and name change information. Historical data is available to search and order at Births, Deaths and Marriages Online. The information available includes: births that occurred at least 100 years ago, stillbirths that occurred at least 50 years ago, marriages that occurred at least 80 years ago, deaths that occurred at least 50 years ago, and deaths where the deceased’s date of birth was at least 80 years ago.

https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/

Developed by the Auckland War Memorial Museum in association with the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, the Online Cenotaph is New Zealand’s living memorial to those who served this country during times of international conflict. It is an authoritative and easy-to-use starting point for families, schools, communities, researchers and people all over the world to explore and enhance the content held about New Zealand service personnel.

Papers Past is a remarkable website run by the National Library. It features millions of pages of digitised, searchable historic New Zealand and Pacific content. At Papers Past you’ll find magazines, journals, diaries, parliamentary papers, and newspapers (including The Southland Times 1862-1920).

Te Ara is an online encyclopedia created by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage. It’s a great place to start when you are searching for general information about New Zealand or the biographical information about well-known New Zealand figures.

The Southland District Council maintains a searchable graves register. You can search by year of death, cemetery, and first or family name to find details of graves within the Southland District. 

Southland District cemeteries search