Can You Please Help Us?
Why We Need Your Help
We envisage this project to be a collaborative effort. The scope of this project is enormous, and well beyond the means of a few individuals. (For example, the cost of obtaining death registrations for persons known to have been buried at Norsewood Cemetery would be around $NZ 20,000 — and that's just the ones we know about!)
Sponsorship Required
Please consider sponsoring the following:
- Restoring lost cemetery records
It appears that most of the burial records from 1872 to about 1900 — ie, the historically-significant graves of first and early settlers — appear to have been lost, and we would like to find and restore as many lost records as possible.
For additional information on how YOU could sponsor the restoration of these historically significant burial records, please click here.
- Identifying country of birth for immigrants buried at Norsewood Cemetery
We are hoping to identify the country of birth for immigrants known to have been buried at Norsewood Cemetery.
In many cases, this will require purchasing a $NZ 20.00 Death Printout* (preferable to a Death Certificate, although Certificates are also welcome) which can be ordered from Births, Deaths & Marriages Online (a secure New Zealand Government website), or by contacting the Department of Internal Affairs.
Please consider sponsoring Death Registration(s) for the burials marked “O/seas,” or with a question mark, in our burial records:
Information Required
- Recreating lost cemetery records
Do you know of anyone who was buried at Norsewood Cemetery (or elsewhere at Norsewood), who does not appear in our burial records?
Do you have any information — eg, from family Bibles, newspaper clippings, oral histories, etc. — that might help us to find and restore as many lost cemetery records as possible (see above).
- Genealogical Information
We are seeking persons who have traced the ancestors and/or descendants of Norsewood pioneers and are willing to contribute genealogical information for this project. We would like to record Norsewood settlers, plus 2 generations of ancestors, and 3 generations of descendants from the immigrant patriarch and/or matriarch — ie, 6 generations in total. We would also like to be able to record their spouses and spouses' parents.
We would be pleased to hear from anyone who is able to help with information for this project, particularly if they have supporting documentation. (This would also help speed up the process!) We realise that even small amounts of genealogical information can represent considerable commitments of time and other personal resources, so we plan to give appropriate credits to contributors. If you can help, please contact us.
- Family Stories
We would be grateful for any family stories, or histories, that would help give “life” to genealogical information.
- Photographs
Do you have any photos of the people buried at Norsewood Cemetery, or of the first and early settlers? (Please scan photos at 300-400dpi.)
We would like to add photographs to our records as we have done with the family of JENSEN FORLAND (JENSEN) & Eli (Ellen) JONSDATTER DRIVENES, and the graves of Knud ANDERSEN AULI (ANDERSEN) & Rangdi ANDERSEN (nee OLSDATTER GLOMSÅSHELLERUD).
Can you identify any of the people in our Historic Norsewood Photographs blog? We believe they were related to people at Norsewood.
Do you have any photos of old grave markers (eg, totara (timber) grave markers)? We would like to be able to add these to our records as we have done with Jørgine (Georgina) HANSEN (nee LARSDATTER LUNDHAUG) and Hans Martin HANSEN.
We'd Like to Help You, Too!
- If you contribute to this project, we will publish the information, online, and credit you as a contrbutor. We may also be able to put you in contact with other people researching the same family/families. In our experience, this has allowed some contributors to make significant breakthroughs in their research. (In our case, we were contacted by a long lost cousin from the branch of our family that stayed in Norway — very exciting!)
- If you want to see what your family tree might look like, take a look at the LARSEN family, JENSEN family, and BIRKEGAARD (PETERS) family pages. Contributors are listed on the family's 'Table of Contents' page, and among the citations, as appropriate.
- Need help identifying photographs? We'd be happy to publish them on our Historic Norsewood Photographs blog.
- Looking for someone you cannot find here? Please contact us.
* A Death Printout is a copy (like a photocopy) of the original entry in the Death Register (Death Registration), and often reveals more information than a Death Certificate, even though it is NOT considered an official document. A Death Certificate is an official document which has been transcribed from the original Death Registration (and is therefore prone to transcription errors); it may not contain all the information available from the Death Registration.
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