Locating burials

If the burial took place in Christchurch start with

Christchurch City Council Cemeteries Database

This database includes interments from the following cemeteries: Addington, Avonhead Park, Belfast, Bromley, Linwood, Memorial Park, Ruru Lawn, Sydenham, Waimairi, Woolston/Heathcote and Yaldhurst. There are only a small number of Barbadoes Street records in the database. Records from the Banks Peninsula area are not currently included but will be in the future.

Cemetery transcriptions, Christchurch

This CD Rom is available in the Aotearoa New Zealand Centre. Included are: transcriptions of headstones in the Memorial Park Cemetery to February 2002; the Ruru Lawn Cemetery to 2001; the Waimairi Cemetery to 1998. There are photographs and maps of all three cemeteries.

If the date of death is known, try these resources

• Tombstone transcripts: Christchurch and Canterbury
• Cemetery burial books and plot plans
• Newspaper death and burial notices
• Church Register Index
• Index to the Registrar-General’s births, deaths & marriages
• Funeral directors and crematoria

If the date of death is not known, use

• Church Register Index
• The G.R. Macdonald dictionary
• Wills: probate records
• Index to Registrar-General’s births, deaths & marriages
• Electoral rolls and Wise’s directories

If the name of the cemetery has changed, look at

• Old and new cemetery names

If the burial took place in Canterbury, but outside Christchurch, try

• Church Register Index
• Tombstone transcripts: Christchurch and Canterbury
• Canterbury burial books for the area beyond Christchurch
• Tombstone transcripts: elsewhere in New Zealand

If the burial took place elsewhere in New Zealand, try

• Tombstone transcripts: elsewhere in New Zealand
• Cemeteries and cemetery records - links to cemetery databases and information from around New Zealand

If there was an unnatural death or an accident, look at

• Inquest files

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