The Tongan community in New Zealand will be able to trace historical identity records with a university now holding the registers of births, deaths and marriages for people of British descent born in Tonga.
The records show registrations of British subjects residing in Tonga from 1874 until 1968.
Stephen Innes with the Tongan records for births, deaths and marriages for people of British descent born in Tonga. Photo: RNZ/ Sela Jane Hopgood
The University of Auckland's Special Collections department received the records from the British High Commissioner to New Zealand, Jonathan Sinclair.
Special Collections manager Stephen Innes said the records were formerly held in the British Consulate in Nuku'alofa in Tonga.
Mr Innes said the Tongan registers would now be part of the Western Pacific Archives that began the university since 2002.
"We've had a lot of difficulties finding those records over the period we've held the Western Pacific Archives here. Simply because we didn't know where they were.
"The births, deaths, marriage registers that were held by the local consulate. Because they belonged to a later period they didn't become part of the colonial archives that went to the UK in the late 1970s."
Photo: RNZ/ Sela Jane Hopgood
Mr Sinclair said the records will add to the Western Pacific Archives collection in Auckland, which covers the colonial administration in the western Pacific from 1877 to 1978.
"It's facinating to see the difference from what is today a very technical process or very online process to one where paper was king and these are meticulously recorded and it goes back to the 1800s and so you can't help but be impressed by the quality and the consistency of what went on, which we all benefit from today."
