Cemetery Records

“Freedoms Call 2nd N.Z.E.F. Roll website is very detailed and very informative. It helps you easily make your way through the challenges that confront you when you are researching whakapapa and military history.
All of the north should be very proud to have Dale Calder researching our WWII military history. As a researcher myself, I for one certainly appreciate his effort and work. Let’s all assist him help us.”

– Mark Cavanagh, Historical Researcher, Brisbane, Australia.

The New Zealand Remembrance Army

Over 350,000 men and women have left our shores to do their duty. Many did not return.

Those who did return went back to their former lives, yet their service and contribution should not be forgotten.

Airman, Sailor, Soldier, Nurse and Servicewoman, each deserves their contributions to be recognised, protected and maintained for future generations.

Our goal is that every service grave in New Zealand is restored to the same as their comrades overseas, maintained to the same standards or better as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Ours is a simple mission. We recognise the contributions that those who have gone before us have made.

We work with RSAs, veteran associations, schools, cadets and anyone who has an interest in helping us. We are a diverse volunteer group based on Kiwis recognising Kiwis.

Please join us. Do a little, do a lot. It is up to you.

To join up, message us at the New Zealand Remembrance Army on Facebook .

My thanks to Mark Cavanagh, for alerting me to the existence of this website.

Council Cemetery Databases

I’ve obtained some details of death of veterans post service from the Auckland Museum Cenotaph and many from council cemetery database records. 

I would reiterate what I said in  Births, Deaths, Marriages , that anything you read in this section should be used only as a guide to your further research. Chances are that what you see is correct, but do not just take it at face value. Go in and check the records yourself, so as to satisfy yourself that what you’ve seen on the database is correct. If it is not, then please get in touch with me via the Freedom’s Call Facebook group, so that I can correct the roll entry as necessary.

The Whangarei District Council Cemetery Records are available through the website :

I have undertaken a massive trawl for all RSA Plots showing on these records. This proved a very fruitful exercise.

The Far North District Council Cemetery Records are available through this website :

Please note that I have run a full sweep of all of the RSA plots in the Far North Cemeteries Index, as well. This too yielded many names which I was able to crosscheck to other sources.

Auckland Council Cemetery  Records (North, Central, South and West Auckland, excepting Purewa) can be viewed through this link:

Purewa Cemetery has its own unique address, to be found here.

That for cemeteries in the Hamilton area is here.

I have also gone back through the Roll and undertaken a cursory check of cemeteries outside of the above areas. This was done for areas showing up anywhere else on a given line of data. For example, last known address may have been say Gisborne and place of enlistment Napier. I therefore checked the council records in both of these districts.

Note: Where there were several aliases showing on the roll, then I did not undertake searches outside of the Northland boundaries which had been set.

I also undertook a huge sweep of Northland cemeteries on the Find a Grave website and Billiongraves websites . 

 Some terms as they relate to the Roll:

 Burial:

The deceased was buried in the cemetery stated.

Cremation:

The deceased was cremated. (Note: That is not to say that the deceased’s ashes were necessarily interned there, or sprinkled there).

Ashes/Burial:

Includes all records of ashes either buried or scattered on a grave site, irrespective of whether cremation was undertaken at that cemetery. In such circumstances I have recorded details of the gravesite and plot number (where known). 

Where I’ve found ashes were ‘scattered’ or returned to family (but no further information exists) then I’ve recorded this in the ‘Details’ column. I have not undertaken a search for any subsequent internment.

If I have been unable to ascertain Date of Death , I have included details of Date of Burial or Date of Cremation , or the date when ashes were buried. I have done this to offer you guidance as to when Date of Death may have occurred.

Funeral Director: It seemed sensible that I include wherever possible the name of the Funeral Director involved. Usually, there has been no pointer as to where the deceased resided at time of death, so I felt this might be a handy addition. The Funeral Director might be able to assist you in your quest.

If you have not found what you are looking for here, it may be because:

1. The name is too generic
2. The person does not feature on NZ council cemetery records
3. The person is on a council cemetery record, but the council records are not online. There are quite a few in this category, including unfortunately two large cemeteries in the Northern Wairoa area.
4. The person lies in a private or Maori (not council) cemetery. Small online databases have sometimes been privately produced for those buried in these smaller cemeteries, so you may wish to run a Google search.

   Update: I have recently been contacted by fellow researcher, Mark Cavanagh, a resident of Queensland, Australia. Mark who has whakapapa connection to Iwi, on his mother’s side, to some areas of the North, kindly made this information available.
   “Local Councils only manage public cemeteries, they do not manage local Maori urupa’s. Most local Maori urupa are private whanau, or private hapu urupa’s, that are managed by the Whanau or Hapu representatives and in some instances only they know where they are.  Some of these private Ngati Hine urupas do hold 2EF veterans, that I can attest to. I have visited at least 15 urupas, but there are many more  salted around the Ngati Hine rohe (that remain on my bucket list).  What this tells us is there are many many more urupa which have 2EF members in the north,  your area of focus. Some have returned services headstones which are easily recognisable, but others have other types of headstones, with some or no reference to military service. Only four of the urupas that I visited are registered in Billion Graves and Find a Grave web sites”.
   “You can safely say that where ever there is a Marae then there will be one, two or more urupas close by closely associated to them.  These days Maori Maps is a very good web site and a great resource and starting point to assist and establish where most maraes  are located https://maorimaps.com/. There is no location or resource location which currently provides locations of Urupas, not even the Maori land Court (MLC). Most of the main Urupa’s were registered by the MLC (I think) in the 70’s as Maori Urupa Reservations, these urupas are managed by trusts and trustees. The trustees contact details should be available via the MLC.  But smaller whanau and old hapu urupas are more likely not recorded anywhere, only the older locals will know where they are.
   Over the distance of time some Maraes have disappeared, the only thing that remains is the local urupas. As the local maori move away from home lands continues the use of those local urupas lessens, so in some cases they are no longer used.
   For all Maori urupas, if any adequate records were kept of who buried there is a challenge. More likely than not no records are kept of who is buried where.  Headstones have been and are still very expensive, and a lot of our veterans unfortunately are buried without any headstones for reasons such as cost, or no continuing family line, or they have personally and mentally disintegrated (probably due to the war) and no one wants anything to do with them. If families are aware they can get a services headstone, then that’s what will happen. But sometimes the family are not aware of it and provides their own headstone, it is then a family preference to record any military service on the head stone” …  “The CWGC will still provide a headstone for servicemen and women for WWI & WWII veterans if it can be proven the person is buried there and they have no marked grave”.

5. The name on the death record does not match that on the council cemetery record. 

That said .. I did pick up many names from the Find a Grave and Billiongraves trawls.

If you haven’t found what you are looking for, it is a good idea to visit the council offices concerned. If it’s a smaller cemetery you are seeking out, see if there is a digital database online, somewhere.

I am fairly confident that over 90% of the roll entries matched with cemetery information, have been correctly matched. Sometimes though, I have had to exercise my own judgement when deciding whether to enter burial/cremation details against a given  record.

I have found some circumstances where persons who have been buried, cremated or had ashes buried or sprinkled in these cemeteries, don’t show up on their databases. Most of course do, but there have been a relative few who don’t.

Back to Northland. In the case of Maunu, Kamo (Ketenikau), Onerahi, Kioreroa and Ngunguru (Cape Horn), cemetery staff tell me that aside from perhaps a few, unmarked, very old plots, virtually all other plots are included for persons buried, or who have ashes buried. In this context you can take ‘ashes buried’ as including ‘ashes sprinkled.’

As to the latter, I can say with some certainty that some who were cremated elsewhere (i.e. not Maunu), are not recorded.

If you have not already done so you can download the Freedoms Call 2nd N.Z.E.F. Roll of Honour, here, to go further your research.