Cook Islands (Includes Rarotonga)

Research Help

 * Pacific Island Guide to Family History Research

Resources Available
Use the FamilySearch Catalog and get microfilms by following these steps:


 * Go to the Internet at familysearch.org and click on the Search.
 * From that tab, click on the Catalog.
 * To get to the genealogies, choose a Place search.
 * Type in Cook Islands, Rarotonga and click on this title in blue.
 * Click on Cook Islands, Rarotonga - Genealogy. A list of genealogies will come up with the names of the families listed. By clicking on the one you are interested in you can get the microfilm number.
 * This is a direct link to the FamilySearch Catalog for the Cook Islands. Cook Islands Catalog

Cole Jensen Collection

An important collection of compiled genealogies from Cook Islands is found in the Cole Jensen Collection: Oral Genealogies and Genealogical Information Collected from the Polynesian Peoples and from the Pacific Islands. These records were collected by William Cole and Elwin Jensen over a period of 50 years and microfilmed by the Genealogical Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1984. The original collection consisted of 51 binders. The original materials no longer exist as an intact collection. However, there are nine microfilms (1358001-1358009) that may be available to view at the Family History Centers. This collection has family group records, pedigree charts, oral genealogies, and other genealogical materials collected from the islands of Hawaii, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga, Niue, Cook Islands, and French Polynesia, including the Society, Marquesas, Austral Islands, and the Tuamotu Archipelago.

The microfilm with the transcript of Cook Island genealogies is 1358004.

Oral genealogies taped in the 1970s

During the 1970s the Genealogical Department commissioned people to go to the Pacific Islands and gather oral genealogies because they realized how fragile these important sources of family information are.They made arrangements for the interviews and the older people talked into the tape recorder microphone to get their genealogy on tape. Later the gatherers typed transcripts of the interviews onto paper. The paper transcripts were microfilmed,You can use the table below to find the microfilm number of the transcript for the interview you are interested in.

The list below is a sample of more that 80 genealogies available.