This website’s Record of the People buried in Saint Peter’s Cemetery, Onehunga gives us some insights into the lives of the people who settled in Onehunga, in particular during the years of 1848-1900.
As noted in this website’s section Sources Consulted, there are significant gaps in the Saint Peter’s Burial Registers, and the existing Registers offer only minimal information, usually only ‘name of the deceased person, age, and date of burial.’ Also the handwritten entries are sometimes a challenge to interpret. In some cases we have only the ‘plot number and a surname.’ In such cases, where we have the barest of information, the entries are highlighted in red.
So we have had to turn to other sources to flesh out the thin details that we have from the Burials Registers, and to begin to thicken the story therein.
In some cases we have been able to do some detective work to unearth the truth; or sometimes, when alerted by family descendants to the probable burial of their forebear in the Cemetery, we have made an entry such as ‘presumed buried in family plot.’
If you are able to shed some light on any of the entries, in particular those highlighted in red, or if you believe we have ‘got the wrong end of the stick’ regarding an entry, or if you are confident that a forebear of yours will have been buried in Saint Peter’s Cemetery because they lived in Onehunga during the years of 1848-1900 (and are unlikely to have been buried in the Onehunga Catholic Cemetery), please contact John McAlpine, ‘author’ of this website, using this website’s Contact Us option.
John writes:
If possible please send me hard data to back-up your assertions: e.g. photocopies of birth and death certificates, data from BDM Records, copies of written entries in the family Bible, newspaper entries etc. Be aware that great-aunt’s memory of events can be fallible, even though she may think otherwise!
Remember, the purpose of this website is to both honour our forebears and to thicken our insights into the lives of the people of Onehunga in the later decades of the nineteenth century.
Biographies:
John writes:
Should you be a serious family researcher, or should you have such a researcher in your family, I would welcome a brief biography (1000 words max) of people buried in the Cemetery – see Biographies on this website for examples of such biographies. Please be in contact with me if you feel motivated to write a biography.