Wānaka Genealogical Group

27/08/2025

Tomorrow!

Wet day for you to prepare a short presentation
on resources you used and how you solved a mystery in your
Genealogical research!

27/08/2025

📅 Thursday, 28 August 2025 | Zoom – 10 am AEST

Are you part of a FamilySearch Affiliate Library? Come and learn what’s new!
Join librarians and family-history enthusiasts to explore the latest updates and resources.

Discover more at 👉 https://www.familysearch.org/en/australia/?cid=SO-00051248

22/08/2025

All too often it can feel like we have ‘hit a brick wall’ with our family history research. Have you spent hours looking for birth, marriage and death records but still can’t find what you need?
As well as the basic records such as church records and census records it’s good to know about other major record sets too, even those you can’t search online.

Today I want to tell you about ‘sasines’.

Sasines are Scottish property records and these have been indexed from 1781 to the present day (apart from those registered in the registers for Royal Burghs). The indexes are not available online but you can search these for free in the Digital Archive search room of the National Records of Scotland, where you can also view images of the original registers on the computer terminals.

When there is no index we can use the minute books as finding aids. One minute book may cover several years and the brief summary is usually enough for us to determine if the entry relates to our family. If we find an entry we can then consult the full sasine.
Why are these so useful? They often name relatives and give relationships, which can fill in the blanks in our family tree.

Here is an example from Ayr from 4 August 1779 (National Records of Scotland reference RS66/9 p. 337). How many genealogical pieces of information can you spot?

"Air 4th August 1779 106. Seasine Elisabeth Faulds daughter of the deceast Tho[mas] Faulds of Hairshaw now spouse of William Gemmill of Waterside in liferent of an annuity of £5 Sterl[ing] with a Kitchen and a room or chamber adjoining thereto and a yeard of one rood of ground & that only during her widowity furth of the lands of Waterside Nether Aiker and Muirend all lying in the parish of Dunlop and Shire of Air proceeding upon a Contract of Marriage dated 16th March 1772 entered into betwixt her and the said William Gemmill was pres[ente]d by said Da[vid] McWhinny and reg[istere]d &c"

If we were researching this family, it could be a challenge to know who the father of Elizabeth was but now we have a name and residence. Also, he is described as deceased so we know we are looking for a death before 1779.

Elizabeth is described as the spouse of William Gemmill and we learn that they have a marriage contract dated 1772, likely near the time of their marriage; a marriage which I cannot find in the church records.

This is all from the minute book! Of course, there may well be even more details in the register itself. There does not appear to be a will for Elizabeth on Scotland's People, so we may presume she had few assets, but what we have learned here is that many people we do not expect appear in sasine records.

You can find out more about using sasine records on our website. Do you want to keep learning about resources for Scottish family history research? Join us at the next Scottish Indexes Conference.

21/08/2025

It can be hard to imagine what life was like for children living 100 years ago. Emily Ross (nèe Elliott) told her story of a young girl living in the late 1800s, and her words have been compiled into one story, “Through the eyes of a child”.

She wrote, “There had been an old road along the bottom of the hill before we came and I remember playing on the clay banks of the cutting of this old road. The new road went along the other side of our house. At first there were no fences around the property.”

“We had a large apricot tree which grew very nice apricots; peach, plum and apple trees, currant bushes and gooseberries. The peaches were grown from peach stones. If anyone gave us a peach to eat, we carefully kept the stone and took it home to plant it.”

To read the entirety of “Through the eyes of a child”, head to our website here: https://www.wanakahistory.org/stories/through-the-eyes-of-a-child

18/08/2025

✨ Curious about the future of family history?

Join us for a special Facebook Live with Thomas Nelson, a Content Preservation Manager at FamilySearch, for an exclusive first look at FamilySearch Labs: https://www.familysearch.org/en/labs/?cid=SO-00050751

👉 Confirm your presence here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1615651939129861

🔍 What’s coming:
• Full Text Search – explore 1B+ images
• AI Research Assistant
• Sneak peeks at upcoming tools

🎤 Ask your questions live and get inspired!

18/08/2025

What if your family's story is hidden in an old newspaper?

Watch this recent webinar to see how MyHeritage AI turns millions of pages into searchable records — and watch a live demo that led to a surprising discovery.

▶️ https://brnw.ch/21wUYxG

13/08/2025

NEXT GATHERING:
1.30 pm 29th August.
the Lake Wanaka Recreation Centre.
topic 'Problems to Solve and New Finds'

11/08/2025

Working alongside fellow researchers and learning from their mistakes can help you along your own genealogical journey. Share the mistakes that you don't want other family history researchers to make in the comments below.

Start your journey: https://bit.ly/3jdqEnK

11/08/2025

Only 2 days left! 📅
Join our free webinar and learn how MyHeritage uses AI to turn historical newspapers into family history records. Sign up now: https://brnw.ch/21wUND0

06/08/2025

03/08/2025