New Zealand

[webwiz]

I am researching a rare surname. So far everyone I have found in New Zealand belongs to the same tree. I have everyone born over 100 years ago which is as recent as one can search on the official BMD site. However, on the deaths they show people who have died and were born over 80 years ago. So I have a number of names of people born 1915-1935 but I cannot access the birth register to see who their parents were, and fit them into the tree. Does anyone know a work-around?

[keldon]

You could try PapersPast to see if there are any birth announcements. There are some newspaper titles which cover this period.

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz

[webwiz]

You could try PapersPast to see if there are any birth announcements. There are some newspaper titles which cover this period.
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz

Thanks Phil. Unfortunately whilst it is uncommon as a surname it is not rare in general usage and there are thousands of matches. As far as I can see you cannot restrict the search to family announcements on this site.

[Richard in Perth]

Try putting in another keyword to your search; e.g: BIRTHS <surname>. The site sorts the search results by relevance so you should find most of the births notices appear at the top of the resultant list, since births notices are usually under the header "Births". You can also restrict by date, so you only need to look from 1915 to 1945, since earlier records are covered by the BDM site. Also of course restrict your results to "Articles" which will filter out all the advertisements results.

[webwiz]

Try putting in another keyword to your search; e.g: BIRTHS <surname>. The site sorts the search results by relevance so you should find most of the births notices appear at the top of the resultant list, since births notices are usually under the header "Births". You can also restrict by date, so you only need to look from 1915 to 1945, since earlier records are covered by the BDM site. Also of course restrict your results to "Articles" which will filter out all the advertisements results.

So simple! Thanks Richard.

[webwiz]

OK that was worth doing as the notice gives an exact dob, better than the BMD site, for births over 100 years old. Frustratingly none of the births 1915-1935 that I know of from the deaths register came up on the newspaper site. I guess the practice of reporting births in the paper had gone out of fashion in this period. Any other ideas?

Here in the UK births become public knowledge as soon as they are registered. IMHO it seems to be taking privacy to extremes to restrict access for 100 years.

[Cliff inNZ]

On the NZ BMD site you can narrow it down to the actual date by a process. You have the year - now try say Jan 1st to June 30 - that will tell which half the year. Keep halving the period till you get the day. It is a bit drawn out - about 10 tries - but you do get a result !!

[webwiz]

Thanks Cliff. Your system works, rather laborious - about 10 minutes each, but neat.