Wellington, New Zealand
From Familypedia
Wellington, New Zealand, is a city, a land district, a local government region (since the late 20th century), and a province (from the 1840s to 1876). All with different boundaries but all including the waterfront area where planned British settlement began in the early 1840s after the New Zealand Company's 1840 settlement at Petone was abandoned because the land was too flood-prone.
The city is the most southerly national capital in the world. It was named after the famous duke, who was named after his estate in Somerset.
After the institution of British rule in 1840, the capital was in the far north for a couple of years then in Auckland but moved to Wellington within a few years after that because of its central location in a very long thin country where the only convenient means of travel was by ship.
Central Wellington houses the National Archives and the office of the Registrar of Births, Deaths, and Marriages. Pay $20 for an inspection! Or find a cheaper way to get much the same information.
The name also applies to the whole local government region, including the adjoining cities Porirua to the north and Lower Hutt to the north-east, Upper Hutt City even further to the north-east up the Hutt River, and four distant districts. To the west and south lies Cook Strait (though the height of its swells often belies that word "lie"), while to the east of Wellington City and south-west of Lower Hutt City is Wellington Harbour, formerly known as Port Nicholson.
[edit] Genealogists
The region hosts several branches of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists and a few subgroups of its special interest groups.
[edit] External links
This page is a "stub" and could be improved by additions and other edits.
