Family History Month 2025

Originally published 5 August 2025 on the Tauranga Historical Society blog.

This month libraries and archives across the motu (country) will be hosting events and displays for Family History Month, including Tauranga, Rotorua and Whakatāne.  For those searching online, Pae Korokī has some great resources to add social context and images to family stories. 

You can search Pae Korokī by name, street, organisation, iwi and more. It is good to start broad e.g. just the surname, and then add more keywords depending on the results (the how to guides have some good search tips). You can browse through the results, or use the filters to refine your selection.

Some of the collections that will show in your results include:

Tauranga Photo News. Described by a librarian as 'the Instagram of that generation', between 1962 and 1970 Renwood Studios and other contractors would capture local events, celebrations, weddings, arts, theatre and sports events, and people at work for. 

Front cover of Tauranga Photo News No. 17, October 1963.

Although the covers were brightly covered the pages inside were black and white newsprint, now with a slight yellow tinge (print copies are viewable in the reference section at He Puna Manawa - Tauranga City Library). Gatherings of all sizes were shared, including these photos of Tauranga Rovers basketball team celebrating the end-of-season at Mrs M. Scott's Ōtūmoetai home.

Page 58 of Tauranga Photo News No. 17, October 1963.

For those looking for people photographed between February 1969 and September 1979, Tony A'Hern, local editor and photographer, donated a set of Photo News negatives. Logan Publishing Tauranga and Bay of Plenty Photo News Collection Many of these weren't published and don't yet have names in the metadata. If you recognise anyone do let the Heritage & Research Team know.

Audience at Western Music, December 1969.

Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries, Logan Publishing, Tauranga and Bay of Plenty Photo News Collection Photo pn-5558

Gifford-Cross Photographic Collection is another wonderful source of high-quality images of local people, places and events. Donated by the owners of the Bay of Plenty Times in 1992, there is an ongoing project to share online the approximately 140,000 - 180,000 images.

Sometimes family research involves looking through lots of items to find the few that are of your family. The image below is one that there are no names associated with the photograph, but someone might recognise a parent or aunt or uncle or tīpuna.

Children on board Japanese ship, July 1966.

Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo gcc-14892

You might also see relations in our Audio visual  collections. Particularly in footage of city events captured by local film-makers such as Norman Blackie, Roy Pilkington and Jack and Rene Fenn. Maybe someone in your family was on an Orange Festival float or competing in an apple eating contest in the 1960s and 70s, or at the opening of Taurua Marae in Rotoiti (1960)?

Or perhaps you can hear their voice sharing memories in an early 2000s oral history recording, a project by Max Avery,  Jinty Rorke  and others.

The archive collections are a treasure trove, containing all sorts of items and ephemera, including family scrapbooks, like Ms 102, compiled by Annette Tootell, whose mother Gertrude Hunt, was the accompanist for renown singer Te Rangi Pai (Fanny Rose Porter, Poata):

Page 1 from the scrapbook of photographs and copies of newspaper articles about Te Rangi Pai's career as a singer.

Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Ms 102/3

Minute books from local organisations can contain comments from an ancestor, and a snaphot of their interests, hobbies and public service. They may test your manuscript reading skills, but like Papers Past, can quickly go from seemingly dry text to fascinating glimpses of societal values and conversations.

Snippet from the Tauranga Combined Māori Women's Welfare League discussion in November 1972 about possible sponsorship of a contestant for the Tauranga Orange Festival Queen.

Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Ams 35/3/1

If you know of a business a relation was employed by, there may be a relevant collection in the archives, like this record of Miss Bunker receiving a gold watch for 10 years' service at Rainster House.

Page from the Rainster House Album, part of Rainster House papers and photographs, 1945-2005,

Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Ams 308

Maps can help determine old streets that might have since changed name or numbering or even location. Aerial photographs 'maps' allow you to zoom in from above and trace paths previously walked.

Tauranga City Centre from Matapihi Rail Bridge, by Aero Surveys (NZ) Ltd, June 1965.

Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Map 23-136

If you use the 'Zoom to 100%' icon in Pae Korokī (from the tools menu on the left of the image), you will see the detail much clearer and crisper, than just 'zooming' in with your mouse or fingers on the screen.

Tales of the streets and clubs and people, are also told in local history publications, such as the early issues of the Journal of the Tauranga Historical Society.

There is a lot to explore in Pae Korokī to help provide context and detail to your family tree, and maybe one day you can publish it in a book, like local historian Robert Craig Scott, or share as a story in Pae Korokī.

Written by Kate Charteris, Heritage Specialist at Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries