Pacific Island Guide to Family History Research

= Pacific Island Guide to Basic Family History Work =

Forward
Because Pacific Island family history is based largely on an oral tradition, we face special challenges in doing it. And we need to use special methods. These methods were not widely known among family history researchers, so in writing this guide, I needed to find Pacific Islanders who had been successful in doing family history work and learned from them how they did it.The people who shared their stories and information with me were very kind and generous, and it is their hard work that has made this guide possible. Most of their names are in the Bibliography.

I tried to find someone from each of the island groups to interview, but was not able to get a case study from all groups. My hope is that one of the case studies in this manual will be close enough to your situation to help you. Steps 1 through 7 and Steps 9 and 12 (see Contents below) are the same for everyone, and are to help us get started with our family history work. Some of the information in Steps 8, 10 and 11 are about temple work of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or Mormon), but the information in the guide can be of help to people of any religion.

Contents
Latter-day Saint Pacific Island heritage

Step 1. To start, write down the basic information we know from memory.

Step 2. Gather written records we and our family already have

Step 3. Learn more about the customs and history of our ancestors 6 Step 4. Gather oral histories from our oldest relatives 10 Step 5. Organize our information onto paper forms and computer. 12 Step 6. Organize our papers and keep them safe 13 Step 7. Keep track of what we have done and plan what we are going to do next 19 Step 8. Find and record Temple Ordinances that have already been done. 21 Step 9. Do enough research to verify that the person really lived and how the person is related to our family 23 A. Information in this manual about the islands where our ancestors lived 24 B. The Cole Jensen Collection and its Directory 24 C. Oral Genealogies from the 1970s 25 D. Records from institutions near us 25 E. Photographic collections 25 F. Family History Library Catalog 26 Table of Island names (current, historical, and native names) 27 Map of the Pacific Islands 28 Particular Island Sections (Contents) 30 Cook Islands (Includes Rarotonga) 31 Easter Island 32 Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, and Palau 34 Fiji 40 French Polynesia 43 Marquesas Islands, Tuamotu Islands, Gambier Islands, Society Islands (includes Tahiti), Austral Islands Hawaii 59 Kiribati (Gilbert Islands) 74 Nauru 76 New Caledonia 78 New Zealand 79 Niue 94 Samoa (Western and American) 96 Solomon Islands 100 Tokelau 101 Tonga 103 Tuvalu (Gilbert Islands) 109 Vanuatu 111 Wallis and Futuna Islands 113

Step 10. We can get ready to prepare names for temple ordinances (Temple sealing policies) 115 Step 11. We can prepare names for temple submission 117 Step 12. We can share what we found and did 117

Bibliography 118