Find a Grave and Billiongraves

Three New Columns on the Roll of Honour

I undertook a couple of massive trawls of Northland cemeteries on the Find a Grave and Billiongraves websites, using both Cemetery and Person Search functions. These surprisingly yielded some real nuggets. Findings from the Find a Grave site were entered up in two columns added to the rolls, one to indicate if a profile was on the website and the other to show if a photo had been uploaded there. If  a photo was found on Billiongraves, this was recorded in the ‘Other Details‘ column of the Roll of Honour.  

I found entries on both websites  which were not on the online cemetery indexes. Many related to names on the Roll for whom to date I had not had cemetery and plot information. I guess the big plus though was that I was able to pull up so much information relating to those lying in the many small cemeteries, throughout the North and of course many memorial stones and plaques.  Especially in Find a Grave, some of the profiles had short bios, place of birth and/or death, name of parents and name of spouse, so  very worthwhile, albeit time consuming exercises.

The larger cemeteries below I have made bold in black:

Whangarei District Council (Maunu, Kamo (Ketenikau), Onerahi, Kioreroa and Ngunguru (Cape Horn))

Far North District Council (Kaitaia, Totara North, Kaeo, Kerikeri, Paihia, Russell, Kaikohe, Okaihau, Rawene, Kohukohu and Kawakawa) …

… and not exclusively, the smaller cemeteries:

Ahipara (Ahipara Maori), Arapohue, Broadwood, Awanui (St. Joseph’s Anglican Church), Dargaville (New RSA Mount Wesley), Herekino, Horeke (Uta Te Whanga Te Rao Rao), Houhora, Hukerenui, Kaihu, Kaitaia (St. Saviour Churchyard), Kaiwaka, Kaurihohore, Kerikeri (St. David’s Anglican Church); Mangawhai, Mangonui, Mangungu, Marua, Matakohe, Maungakaramea, Maungaturoto (Congregational and Anglican), Motatau (Takapuna), Otonga, Pakaraka (Holy Trinity Church), Ngawha (St. Michael’s Anglican), Paparoa (St. Mark’s Church Anglican), Parua Bay, Peria, Ruakaka (Urupa Takahiwai Marae), Takahue, Te Kopuru (Redhill), Waiharara, Waimamaku, Waimate North (St. John the Baptist churchyard), Waipapakauri, Waipu, Whangaroa (Matangirau), Whareora and Wharehine (Minniesdale). Many other very small cemeteries and urupa also pop up. 

I was also able to run checks on :

Port Albert and Wellsford and see if profiles/photos existed for some of the plots in the Auckland Council Cemeteries and Purewa.

The second very big trawl of both sites pulled in cemeteries from all around New Zealand.