Who uses the registers?

The birth, death and marriage (BDM) registers are a source of useful information for many people. And a number of legitimate users of the registers may have been hindered by the BDMRR Bill:

• People who study history and genealogy find BDM information essential to their research. It's unique in that it provides records of ordinary people.
  
  Historian Dr Geoff Rice recently wrote a book on New Zealand's 1918 flu epidemic (pictured right); he used the death register to track the extent of the epidemic. Historians were concerned that more modern studies of a similar nature would be impossible.
  
  
• Journalists sometimes use the registers to verify facts. If a reporter thinks that a subject is lying about a family relationship, then the registers can be a means of proving or disproving a story.
  
  
• Separated family members can track lost ones through the registers (see Case study - finding Paul). For 120 years, the Salvation Army has run a service that helps people find missing relatives. The service relies on the registers to track some people.

Stories in the registers

The births, deaths and marriages registers might seem like dull registration files, but they can tell very personal stories.

• Information held on the death register includes primary and secondary causes of death (for example suicide, syphilis, or cancer), place of death (for example a mental hospital), place of burial, and ethnicity (since 1995).
  
  
• The birth register can also yield interesting stories. A printout of a birth register contains a person's full name, place of birth, parents' names, siblings born to the same parents, and the parents' marriage date. You can see how old someone's mother was when she gave birth, and the father's identity (in most instances), and whether they were married.