Kia ora P Kelly,

Thank you for your request of 23 May 2023 in which you sought information held by the Department of Internal Affairs. We will be managing this response as a business inquiry.

It may be helpful for me to explain that New Zealand life event records are public records. This means that anyone can request a certificate or printout of a record, even if it is someone else’s. The Department holds a public register of New Zealand birth, death, marriage, civil union and name change information, however the release of registered information is governed by strict access provisions under the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 1995 (Act). The purpose of this is to ensure that the correct record is released and to provide better safeguards for protecting people’s personal information.
Current legislation allows the Department to only release information of a birth, death, marriage, civil union or name change, to an individual in the form of a certificate, printout or copy of the original registration form. The Act allows the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths, and Marriages to make some historical information freely available for internet search by the public.
The information available to search on the Historical Records website https://www.bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.gov... includes:

* Births that occurred at least 100 years ago, or stillbirths that occurred at least 50 years ago
* Marriages that occurred at least 80 years ago
* Deaths that occurred at least 50 years ago or the deceased's date of birth was at least 80 years ago.

The historic data available for you to search is limited so that information relating to people who might still be alive, can be protected.
Once the record has been located, a person can pay a prescribed fee and request a copy of the record (either a printout or certificate) to get more information. Only a small amount of information is shown in the initial search result returned, typically just the name and registration number of the subject. This is in order for the person searching to be confident that they have located the correct record.

A printout is a copy of the information from the registration and contains all the information on the record. It is not a legal document. These are usually used for genealogy.
If you require the record for a legal or official purpose, you will need to request a certificate.
For information about how to order a certificate or print out refer to http://www.bdm.govt.nz/ or Call free 0800 22 52 52 (New Zealand only).

For those you mentioned were born in England, another possible avenue of search is Archives New Zealand https://www.archives.govt.nz/research-gu...

If you have any further enquiries, please feel free to contact the Department on the number above.

Nga mihi,

Krystle Courtier| Official Correspondence Co-ordinator
Te Pâhekoheko, Kâwai ki te iwi | Operations, Service Delivery and Operations
Te Tari Taiwhenua The Department of Internal Affairs
http://www.dia.govt.nz/

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