Resource material › Information We Provide › Little Histories

Little Histories sets out some of the stories behind the Births, Deaths and Marriages registers. Author Megan Hutching, of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, profiles seven people who have worked closely with the registers. They describe the evolution of record keeping from beautiful old books, painstakingly handwritten, to computerised data systems that can search millions of records and verify the details of any particular one. Little Histories also contains some fascinating images. Among the book’s illustrations are some pictures of the earliest registers from as far back as the 1840s, published for the first time.

• Link here to an html version of the Introduction from Little Histories

• Link here to download a PDF version of Little Histories

• To order a hard copy of Little Histories (NZ$20.00 including GST) see below

Order a Copy

Price NZ$20.00 (incl. GST). To order a print copy of Little Histories you may either:

• Post your order (with return address) to: 'Little Histories', Births, Deaths Marriages, PO Box 10526, Wellington (enclose credit card details) or
• Phone us: 0800 22 52 52 or
• Email us: bdm.nz@dia.govt.nz

The Department of Internal Affairs retains copyright of Little Histories. Sections of the book may be printed from this PDF for personal use, for study or research.

Little Histories (PDF Downloads)

To view or dowload a PDF version of Little Histories click on the links below:

• Whole document (.pdf) 4.2 mb *

Or download by chapter:

• Contents and Introduction (.pdf) 370k*
  Front page, Contents, Foreward and Introduction
• Chapter One (.pdf) 270k*
  Location of the Registrar-General's Office
• Chapter Two (.pdf) 1mb*
  Legislation Covering the Work of Births, Deaths and Marriages
• Chapter Three (.pdf) 800k*
  Working in the Registry
• Chapter Four (.pdf) 900k*
  Marriage Ceremonies

*This document is in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format. You need to have the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. You can download a free version from the Adobe site.



A group of unidentified women and children. Early 1900s. Reference Number: F- 11038-1/2.
Cowan Collection. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, N.Z.

Introduction

Registering births, deaths and marriages sounds like fairly straightforward and perhaps dull work. After all, it appears to be merely filling in forms and checking them. When you have read this brief history of the Office of the Registrar-General or Births, Deaths and Marriages (BDM) as the office is more usually called, it will be clear that every registration has a story attached to it, and often it is one of great complexity.

In the days when having children out of marriage was seen as shameful, staff in the registries were responsible for registering these births, and the adoptions that usually followed. When divorce was uncommon, staff entered the annulments on the marriage records. When girls became pregnant by their stepfathers, staff entered those details. In small towns they knew all the secrets.

Until recently, new staff members had to sign a declaration saying that the information they dealt with was confidential and would remain confidential, and now it is part of the code of conduct that staff do not look through the registers for their own personal interest. People interviewed for this history recall being given the advice not to look at their family members’ records in case they found something they did not want to know.

Working in the registries, staff are witness to the changes in New Zealand society, reflected in seemingly mundane things such as changes over the years in names that children are called, but also in legislation such as the Adult Adoption Information Act 1985 and the Civil Union Act 2004. As Olivia Bradbrook said in her interview for this book,

“there’s so much wonderful history in BDM. The deaths, the marriages, the births. That’s where they all end up, and the next generation starts there. They’re the history of New Zealand. That’s where it begins and that’s where it ends.”

This history begins with a brief overview of the different government departments in which Births, Deaths and Marriages (BDM) has been located. Chapter Two looks at the different legislation which has governed the work of the office, and the third chapter records the changes in work practice over the years as the registry has moved from paper-based registers to the current computer-based one. Chapter Four contains stories about registry office marriages, and there is an appendix which lists the legislation mentioned in the second chapter.

The information is based on interviews with seven current and former staff and on research done in annual reports and other government publications. The interviews are archived at the Alexander Turnbull Library’s Oral History Centre in Wellington, where they are available to researchers, subject to any conditions placed on them by the interviewees. Those interviewed are Brian Clarke, Eileen Kennedy, Brian Hesketh, Danielle Amon, Evan Gould, Jack Wright, and Olivia Bradbrook.


ABOVE LEFT: Frank James Denton, with his second wife Ethel and their baby, 1913. Reference Number: G-70179-1/2. Tesla Studios Collection. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, N.Z.

ABOVE RIGHT: One month old baby Austin with parents Emma and Richard, 2007.