Who Do You Think You Are Magazine Forum

[AdrianB38]

Just filling in some blanks and I'm looking at an entry in Ancestry's New Zealand, Death Index, 1848-1966. It reads

Name: May Pleass
Death Date: Apr-May-Jun 1953
Registration Place: Te Awamutu, Auckland, New Zealand
Folio Number: 1561

Now Ancestry warns me that

the place noted in the record is where the death was registered, rather than where the death itself took place.

So obviously Te Awamutu is that place of registration - but does it tell me anything about where the death occurred? I ask because in England & Wales the death is registered in the district covering where the death occurred - yes, you can go to another, more convenient office, but the actual registration, as I understand it, ends up registered and indexed by the office covering where the death occurred.

So is there a similar rule in NZ? Would the death have occurred in "Te Awamutu Registration District" say? (I hope some of you live in NZ!)

Thanks

[ianbee]

Hi
While you are waiting for an authoritative answer!
May was buried in Te Awamutu. The cemetery database (and probate record) seems to suggest that she was living in Putaruru.
Where did she die? Don't know, but I am getting the impression from some stuff online that the funeral director was often the informant on death certificates in NZ. Maybe that has something to do with it?

Whatever, the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1951 does say
6. (1) Subject to the provisions of this Act, all births
and deaths occurring in New Zealand shall be registered
by the Registrar whose office is nearest to the place
where the birth occurred or to the place of burial, as
the case may be.
Provided that any other Registrar may register any
birth or death if it is shown to his satisfaction that
the person whose duty it is to give the information
required by this Act for the registration of a birth or
a death could not, without difficulty, delay, or expense,
attend at the aforesaid office.

Peruse it here
http://nzlii.org/nz/legis/hist_act/badra19511951n22328/
Ian

[JMcK]

I think Ianbee has that correctly.

The Auckland part of things I think refers to the fact that Auckland Province used to extend to a horizontal line across the North Island at the level of Lake Taupo, with Wellington Province being south of that line. Although Ancestry does like to add a few other random places on occasion.

Incidentally do you know that on the NZ BDM site, once you find the death (you can't use wild cards sadly) you can, by continually changing the date range you are searching, close in and find the actual date of death. (useful if they don't show on the cemetery index, but especially useful for births)

Jo

[AdrianB38]

Ian - thanks - I feel that "registered by the Registrar whose office is nearest to the place where the birth occurred or to the place of burial ..." and "Provided that any other Registrar may register any
birth or death... " suggest a degree of flexibility that means it would be unwise to rely on the office definitely implying something about the location of death. (Interesting that it's nearest to the place of burial not the place of death!)

Jo - thanks for that about Auckland Province - I have not yet sorted out in my own mind what the place-name hierarchies for Australia and New Zealand should be - I'm just hoping that there aren't too many places called Adelaide, say. And that's a good tip about the NZ BDM site - a binary chop search would work nicely if I wanted that level of detail.

[JMcK]

Provinces

https://www.otago.ac.nz/library/pdf/hoc ... lletin.pdf