Wise's Directories

[Alan SHARP]

Greetings from New Zealand.

When trying to locate long (or not so long) lost relatives in New Zealand, the Wises Directories are a good place to look.

Below is a part QUOTE, from a link to a RootsChat post, by contributor Lucy2:-

.................Wise's directories began, for postal reasons, in 1872-73 to 1955, published by H. Wise & Co., Princes Street, Dunedin and covered all New Zealand. They were an unauthorized, commercial endeavor sanctioned by the Post Office. The 1875/1876 Wise's New Zealand Directory published by Henry Wise was the first national postal directory of householders. Lists people, generally head of household by postal district and sometimes mentions street name and an occupation. Included advertising and indexes. These large Wise's Directories do sometimes contain mistakes and many omissions and can be out of date by a year or two. Beware of surname spelling errors. Occasionally a postmaster did not file the return for his area in time for inclusion in the directory.

Directories record people at a particular time and place. The information will always be a little out of date.
Wise's Online

Otago - Hocken Library's Otago Nominal Index to 1876 includes 21,629 names from the Street Directories (Messrs Harnett and Wise)

Wellington Province - 1872/73
Lower North Island
South Canterbury 1872/73

South Canterbury 1878-1879 C. = Canterbury O. = Otago Large images 150k
Page 1. Albury, Blue Cliffs, Burke's Pass, Cave, Geraldine, Hilton
Page 2. Hilton, Hinds, Makikihi, Omarama, Otaio, Pareora, Peel Forest, Pleasant Point
Page 3. Pleasant Point, Pleasant Valley, Pukaki Ferry, Rangitata, St. Andrews, Sandie Town
Page 4. Silverstream, Temuka
Page 5. Timaru 1878/79
Page 6. Timaru [Hamersley to Shields]
Page 7. Timaru, Waihi Bush, Waimate [Abbebseth to Gordon]
Page 8. Waimate, Waitaki
Page 9. Waitaki, Waitohi Flat, Washdyke, Winchester................

End of linked QUOTE plus
a part QUOTE from Lu's post:-

............It is especially useful for finding "menfolk" (occupations are mostly listed) ... and each edition has an alphabetical section by surname, which covers all of New Zealand, (of value if a place of residence is initially, unknown.....

End of QUOTE

Most larger centre libraries hold copies of the Wise's Directories, and also the Electorial rolls (every 3 years) for their region. As only a limited ammount has been transcribed and placed on line, assistance will be needed from locals at the libraries of interest.

Happy hunting.

Alan SHARP.

PS If there is enough interest, Currie may do a search for links to web published material from the Wise's Directories.

Edit. Corrected credit from Lu to Lucy2. Alan.

[Currie]

Hello Alan,

I have not so fond memories of plodding through many microfiche of Sand’s Sydney directories.

Here’s the page: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nzlsc ... tories.htm I don’t think I could add anything to what’s mentioned there.

I think Google Books have looked at Wise’s Directories but they don’t appear to have anything useful online, not even the older ones.

All the best,
Alan

[Alan SHARP]

Thanks Alan for posting the link. My computer skills are not that accomplished.

When I read the RootsChat thread, I was surprised to note that the Directories were still in production up until 1955. I have successfully used them previously, at my local library, for pre WWI research. Thinking they may have been of help for the Bonner and McDonald NZ enquiries, and finding no mention of them in a TS search, I decided to post the quote.

Regards,

Alan SHARP.

[Currie]

Hello Alan,

I’m glad you mentioned them because I wasn’t aware of their existence. I’d say there would be a lot of interest if ever they appeared online in a large batch. It’s a wonder that Google or one of the Family History sites hasn’t had a serious look at them.

It would be a great project for the National Library of NZ to look at although they’re probably busy enough with PapersPast which is still growing.

All the best,
Alan