Social history project for Te Awamutu CBD

BTG 01Aug17 - THREE of the CBD buildings Te Awamutu Genealogy Group has included in its social history project: Burchell's Building, Thompson Bros Building and Burns House.

The Te Awamutu Genealogy Group is launching a project that will capture the social history of local commercial buildings for Family History Month.

"Exploring your own roots is only one facet of family history," says group convener Sandra Metcalfe.

"Another satisfying aspect is exploring the social history of the places our ancestor lived and worked."

Several members of the local genealogy group have been inspired by an initiative carried out in Northland where local genealogists and Heritage NZ partnered to record the social history of commercial buildings in the main street of Dargaville.

The Te Awamutu Genealogy Group is starting a similar project focusing on commercial buildings in the Te Awamutu CBD.

A wealth of knowledge about the construction of historical buildings has already been gathered by others to feed into the Waipa District Plan but very little is publicly available about the businesses and the staff who operated from those buildings.

For the first stage of this project, the research team is keen to make contact with former business owners and staff who worked in the following buildings: Fowlers Building, Burchell's Building, Thompson Bros Building, Burns House, Alexandra Buildings, Gifford's Building, Teasdale Building and Spinley's Building.

If you have memories or historical information you think may be of interest to the project, your name and contact details can be left with the volunteers on the genealogy group display this week at the library between the hours of 10am-4pm daily or you can email teawamutu@genealogy.org.nz