New Zealand Colonial Records

History
European contact with the Māori people in New Zealand began in 1769 when Captain James Cook circumnavigated and mapped New Zealand. Contact with other explorers, traders, and christian missionaries continued into the mid-19th-century. Beginning in 1787, parts of New Zealand were included in the British colony of New South Wales. In 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi was signed between the British and several Māori chiefs, making New Zealand a part of the British Empire. Following disputes regarding translations of the treaty and European settlers' desire for more land, the New Zealand Wars started in 1843 between the Māori and British. This led to many of the Māori becoming impoverished. New Zealand became a self-governing dominion under the British Empire in 1907. In 1919 after World War I, New Zealand signed the Treaty of Versailles and became part of the League of Nations.

Online Records
For more record collections, search for New Zealand in the FamilySearch catalog, Ancestry.com catalog ($), and the New Zealand Archives.