FOD families who moved to Australia & New Zealand in 19th C (General)

by jhopkins , Saturday, September 10, 2016, 05:29 (3005 days ago) @ Jefff

Jefff, that NZ site is seriously good as a research tool. NZ had such a tiny population for so long, the newspapers covered lots of events that don't get a look in in the media these days - the comings and goings of ordinary folks are no longer news nowadays. In those days, ordinary citizens got written about, not just the irritants in society like politicians.

As examples, I was able to follow the cycling progress of my great uncle (first generation born here) through accounts of sporting events in small towns and villages across the South Island. There are accounts of wrestling matches, one of which led to the eventual death of a great uncle. Two or three of my great uncles were involved with the Oddfellows lodge, and the papers had regular lodge news and election results. Similarly with school board elections - the papers even have accounts of the new teachers being appointed to the schools of one horse villages (of course most of these "villages" no longer exist - when travelling around the country you come across an old hall or a war memorial, with no houses or shops left around them).

Fortunately I didn't find my relatives in the Court news, but there is a lot of that in the papers as well. There are many accounts in those papers of ship arrivals and departures to what was called "Home" (Mother England to some), so you can often find passenger lists and vivid accounts of the conditions on immigrant ship voyages to NZ.

In some ways it is sad that the newspapers nowadays cover the daily doings of vast numbers of irrelevant people like so called celebrities. However, in the days of PapersPast, ordinary people got recorded. The focus was tiny and close up; now it is far away from most people's reality.