Three volumes of historical Tongan records showing births, deaths and marriages of British subjects that resided in Tonga between 1874 to 1968 have found a new home in Auckland.
Photo: RNZ/ Sela Jane Hopgood
Attacked by book worms, the records have been rebound once, and while their spines have started to wear and tear, the records were written on good quality paper and are still legible.
The Tongan records were held in the British consulate in Nuku'alofa and were transferred to Wellington in 2006 when the consulate closed down.
The University of Auckland's Special Collections department will look after the three books that were donated by the British High Commissioner to New Zealand, Jonathan Sinclair.
In 2002, the department became the home of the Western Pacific Archives, which are records that cover all aspects of Britain's colonial administration in the Western Pacific from 1877 to 1978.
Special collections manager Stephen Innes was flabbergasted when he was told the Tongan records would be added to the archives.
Mr Innes said the collection had grown so large, much of it was stored off-site in 3000 boxes that stretched 760 metres long.
"These records are only a very small part of that, but they're very important because they relate to births, deaths and marriages that were recorded in Tonga and we've had a lot of difficulty finding those records over the period that we've held the Western Pacific Archives here," he said.
Jonathan Sinclair and Stephen Innes Photo: RNZ/ Sela Jane Hopgood
Mr Innes said that despite the data being restricted to initial registrations of British subjects in Tonga, the information would still be useful for the Tongan community.
"They had to be British subjects in the official record, but nevertheless there is still land records for example for some countries, so they may be in there.
"They may not be registered in the formal registers, but they may well be covered by the records of that body," he said.
Mr Sinclair said the historical registers would spark an interest from all people with links to Tonga.
"People be they British, Pakeha, Tongan, Samoan are able to now look at these records and perhaps find a bit more about their ancestry and that's fantastic," he said
"It's fascinating to see the difference from what is today a very technical process or very online process to one where paper was king and these are meticulously recorded and it goes back to the 1800s.
"You can't help, but be impressed by the quality and the consistency of what went on, which we all benefit from today," he said.
In the future, Mr Innes said he hoped the records would be digitised.
"It has a lot of potential for digitisation because it is basically beyond privacy concerns, so it would be easy to make them available on digital platforms," he said.
Tonga has been a constitutional monarchy since 1875 with Britain's Western Pacific High Commission governing parts of its administration, such as foreign affairs, education and health, including the registrations of British subjects until 1970.
