People of Tasman

Which people can I learn about?

Here are some people related to the Tasman District you could find out about:

Tips: These are just some examples of people you could research. You may have someone different you're interested in finding out about. Just use their name as your search terms in the resources below.

Local iwi:

• Ngāi Tahu

• Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō

• Ngāti Kōata

• Ngāti Kuia

• Ngāti Rārua

• Ngāti Tama ki Te Tau Ihu

• Ngāti Toa Rangatira

• Rangitāne o Wairau

• Te Ātiawa o Te Waka-a-Māui

Note: Iwi are listed in alphabetical order. This list was put together to the best of our knowledge. If there are any other iwi to be included, please let us know.

Tasman resources

These local sources have information about people important to Tasman.

The Prow

This is a local history website that was created for intermediate and secondary school students. It has lots of great historical and cultural stories from Te Tau Ihu (Nelson, Tasman and Marlborough) about people.

• Enter the name of the person or a group of people in the search bar at the top of the page.

• This will bring up articles that are available.

• Or go to the People tab to browse a list of stories.

• Or go to the Māori tab for histories related to iwi in the rohe.

Tips: Stories can be told in different ways. It’s a good idea to look at multiple information sources about a topic to help you put together your own narrative.

Tasman Heritage

Tasman Heritage has photographs, maps, interviews and diaries about the history of Tasman, mainly focusing on the Waimea South area (Richmond, Brightwater, Wakefield, and Spring Grove). The results are organised by format, with images, documents, people & families, and audio (sound recordings) separated out.

• Enter the name of the person or a group of people in the search bar in the middle of the page

• Or go to Browse All, filter by Format and select People & Families.

Tips: Some websites have .au, .nz, .uk or other codes in their url. This can tell you which country this website comes from eg .au is from Australia or .nz is from New Zealand. You can check the ‘About Us’ link on the website for more information.

Ngāti Rārua Ātiawa Iwi Trust

Ngāti Rārua Ātiawa Iwi Trust represents descendants from two iwi. These iwi whakapapa back to one or more of 94 Ngāti Rārua tūpuna and 15 Te Ātiawa tūpuna, who were the original landowners of the Motueka homelands.

• Enter the name of the person into the search option at the top right of the page.

• Or browse by selecting Our Stories and Our People or Our History from the drop-down menu.

Tasman District Libraries

Tasman District Libraries is a great place to start for local historical information. All of the libraries (Motueka, Murchison, Richmond and Tākaka) have Local History Collections, with books, journals, published family histories and other items from around the Tasman district.

• The Richmond Library branch also has the Waimea South Historical Collection. To access any of these collections please chat with staff about what you are interested in.

• Te Noninga Kumu Motueka Public Library branch has an amazing collection of local Māori art throughout the library.

Waimea South Historical Society

This collection is held in the Research Room at Tasman District Library, Richmond.

• Talk to library staff to get help accessing the collection.

Motueka Historical Association

This historical society has records that relate to the Motueka area.

• Crozier Room, District Museum, Motueka.

• Look at the top of the page for opening hours.

Murchison Historical and Museum Society

This collection is held in the Murchison District Museum and has family histories and journals, photographs, and more about Murchison.

• 60 Fairfax Street, Murchison.

• Open daily 10am to 4pm.

General New Zealand resources

These sites are a great place to start as they cover lots of different topics about Aotearoa New Zealand.

Te Kāhui Māngai | Directory of Iwi and Māori Organisations

Te Kāhui Māngai, Directory of Iwi and Māori Organisations is a great website for information about iwi, hapū, marae and lists all the Iwi by Local Authority (Council).

• Browse Iwi by selecting Iwi by Map tab and selecting Te Tau Ihu on the map.

• Or browse by Local Authority by selecting Iwi by Local Authority tab and selecting Tasman District Council.

Tips: We like sites that are from government or other reputable organisations, because we can trust the information. You can sometimes tell these sites by their web address – they might have .gov or .edu in their address – or by looking at their About us or Contact pages.

NZ History

NZ History is a great website for information about Aotearoa New Zealand. If we go all the way down the page we can see that the website belongs to the Ministry for Culture & Heritage, so the information is well-researched and reliable.

• Enter the name of a person or a group of people into the search bar near the top of the page.

• Or browse by selecting the People tab near the top of the page.

• People are listed by their last name in an alphabetical list. Select the first letter of the surname.

Tips: NZ History can be good for looking at how things have continued or changed over time. Remember, stories can be told in different ways so it’s helpful to look at multiple information sources to find different perspectives.

RNZ

Radio New Zealand, or RNZ for short, has articles, news reports, podcasts, and documentaries about people in Aotearoa New Zealand.

• Select the word Search near the top right of the page to open the search page.

• Enter the name of the person or a group of people you are looking for.

• Look for the words Listen or Video in the search results list. These show if the story is just text (written), has an audio recording you can listen to, or a video you can watch.

Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Te Ara is an excellent starting point for all questions about Aotearoa New Zealand. If we look down to the bottom of the page, we can see that the website belongs to the Ministry for Culture & Heritage, so the information is well-researched and reliable.

• Enter the name of the person or a group of people you are looking for in the search box.

• Or go to the Biographies tab and browse by last name.

• People are listed by their last name in a alphabetical list, select the first letter of the surname.

Tips: We like sites like this because they’re reliable. You can tell because of their web address – they have either .govt or .ac, meaning they are from government or educational organisations. They’re also New Zealand sites, so relevant for us.

Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (DNZB)

Te Ara has a great resource called the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (or DNZB for short). You can use it to find information on people who were born in, or who lived in, a particular place. It also gives you options to search by iwi or Tribal Affiliations. It only has biographies for people who have died.

To search for people born in Tasman:

• Select the words Advanced Biographies search (this will open a new page with options to filter, or narrow down your search).

• Under Birthplace look for NELSON and select a Tasman place name eg Motueka or Richmond.

• Select Apply to see a list and information on the people born there.

Tips: If you're using a desktop or laptop computer, in the Advanced Biographies search hold your finger down on the Ctrl key on your keyboard when you select a place name, occupation, or Iwi/tribal affiliation from the list. This will let you select multiple options in the same list.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision is an archive of historic Aotearoa New Zealand films, documentaries, and sound recordings. This is an excellent site for primary sources of historic events, industry, people and places.

To watch films and documentaries on this site:

• Enter your keywords in the top right search box and select the magnifying glass to start the search.

• In the panel on the left, tick the box beside Moving image to narrow your results down to films and documentaries (if you are using a phone or tablet you may need to open the menu to see the filters panel).

• Select the title of a result to watch it.

Tips: You may see a message about cookies on this website. Cookies are a kind of data collector that is used by some websites to collect information about their users.

DigitalNZ

DigitalNZ is a search site that focuses on New Zealand history and brings together results from lots of different websites. It’s an easy way of searching online resources from lots of New Zealand libraries, museums, universities and government sites all at once, and it has lots of primary sources.

The results are grouped by the type of information, like images, videos, interviews, newspapers, articles and research papers. Here are some tips for using DigitalNZ:

• If you look down the results page you'll see there are lots of options to limit your search by format, place, date or content partner (organisation). Lots of organisations outside of Tasman have photos and other information on Tasman, so be careful not to limit your search too much at first, or you'll miss some great resources.

• In the search results list, select a tile or image to see the item at full size and read more about it.

• In the About this Item section there is a URL link.

• If you select this link it will take you to the website the item is originally from. This site may have lots more information on the topic.

Tips: Search words, or keywords, are the most important words in our question. Usually it’s better to leave out small words like ‘the’, ‘at’ and ‘of’ and just choose the main ones, eg. 'Whale strandings Farewell Spit'. We can always change our keywords or add more if we need to.

Books

If you live in Nelson or Tasman your school or local library will have lots of books, journals and other information about Tasman's local history. Here are a just a few:

• Appo Hocton : Wong Ah Poo Hoc Ting : New Zealand's first Chinese immigrant, Nelson, 1842-1920 by Karen Stade

• Courage and camp ovens: five generations at Golden Bay by Enga Washbourn

• 1642 Abel Tasman by Henry Van Zanden

• Moutere pioneers: the German settlement of Nelson: the north German immigrants; and their settlement of Upper Moutere and Neudorf, in Tasman, Nelson, New Zealand by Graeme K Tyree

• Thomas Brunner: his life and great journeys by Emily Host and Vivienne Nelson

• Te tau ihu o te Waka = a history of Māori of Nelson and Marlborough. Volume 4, Ngā whānau rangatira o Ngāti Tama me Te Ātiawa: the chiefly families of Ngāti Tama and Te Ātiawa by Hilary and John Mitchell

• Heaphy by Iain Sharp

• Married & gone to New Zealand: being extracts from the writings of women pioneers by Alison Drummond

• Ernest Rutherford, schoolboy at Foxhill: an inspiration for all New Zealand school children by Marion J Stringer

SCIS no: 5496542

More about Tasman