Faumuina photo

Looking over many many old photos. This one however intrigues me. It wasn't unusual for a chief of his age to marry a young maiden. Faumuina, an important Chief of the Faleata district near Apia, and his wife, photographed, probably in the 1890s, by Alfred John Tattersall.

FamilySearch Wiki- American and Western Samoa

Did you know that FamilySearch Wiki has some great resources for Samoan Genealogy? I've come back to this site several times finding great resources. FamilySearch Wiki shares links, record collections and information helping you in your genealogy research. You can find  FamilySearchWiki on the FamilySearch.org.

Click on "Search" then "Historical Records"

Click on, "Wiki"

Type in the search box, "Samoa". You can also type in "American Samoa or Western Samoa".

I usually select "Samoa (Western and  American)" there are other results that you can choose.

So , here's The Samoa (Western and American) page.

Scrolling down a bit you see the contents of the page.

Today I'm looking at #4 Resources available. I wanted to re-look at the microfilms they have on this page before I head over to the Family History Library Catalog to search for a microfilm I plan on ordering soon in hopes to find a birth record for my great grandfather Opapo. It is estimated that he was born sometime between 1852-1868 in Samoa. Finding a birth record in that time frame I've been told is impossible. With all the wars happening between the Samoans and outside influences of other countries trying to gain control of Samoa. The only chances I would have getting an actual date is family genealogy, journals and church records. I'm going to check out the rest of the microfilm selection at FHC has for Samoa.

Scroll down the rest of the American and Western Samoa page. There is much more to see.

Wordless Wednesday---Grandma's Fine Mat

Here is a close up of one of the fine mat's my grandma gave to me.

National Library of New Zealand....Opening our data.

I was just on this site yesterday searching for information. I've talked about this site with some of my family members. They never knew that the National Library of New Zealand had anything on Samoa or even thought they would find any information for our family history. So, when I shared this site with them they were excited.

The National Library of New Zealand recently launched the New Open Data of their website. Here's more of what they said,

"The National Library recently launched the new Open Data section of our website, which supplies access to sources of raw library information for anyone to download, examine and use. We do this happily, as part of the New Zealand Open Access and Licensing framework and Open Government Information and Data Re-use Work Programme.

We have always endeavoured to supply our patrons with easy-to-use search interfaces, so that anyone can find our materials using only a web browser. But for those who might have more sophisticated needs, the ability to work with large amounts of data and have access to a particular collection's records all at once can be a key part of crafting a more powerful solution to their research problems.

For these "power users", the new Open Data section consolidates our "big data" offerings from around the site, and some work behind the scenes means those datasets now stay up-to-date. We encourage anyone who is interested to download and use them, including:

Researchers interested in analysing the entire holdings of the library at once.
Library, archives and museum technologists wanting to make connections between their institution's holdings and ours.
"Data hackers" who get excited by unearthing the interesting stories hidden in mountains of numbers and database records.
Entrepreneurs who will use it to build innovative new applications we've only dreamed of: visualisations, collection explorers, new kinds of searches.
Students interested in exploring the data kept by a large public institution, and learning how to manipulate it.
In addition, by publishing this data regularly and in standard formats, the Library itself can become its own best customer for open data. An institution the size of the National Library can have dozens, or even hundreds, of internal systems that it uses to keep track of its information, and getting those systems to talk to each other can be a monumental task.

By understanding the most common ways our data is being used, we can design better and easier-to-use information management and delivery systems and improve our services, both inside the institution and out.

Our initial Open Data offerings include:

Publications New Zealand metadata- Approximately 385,000 bibliographic records from New Zealand's national bibliography. Downloadable and updated every week.

DigitalNZ metadata - Metadata describing over 26 million pieces of digital content from all over the country, with real-time access via the application programming interface (API).

Papers Past metadata - A large and popular part of the DigitalNZ metadata is the Papers Past historical newspaper collection. Over 24 million items from this collection can be accessed through the DigitalNZ API.

We're planning to add much more in the future. Please keep an eye on the Open Data section, and follow us on Twitter to keep updated when new data sets are added, or when the Library is part of any new policy developments in the world of open and free content. We'd love for you to take this data and build something cool with it. And if you do, be sure to get in touch and let us know!

By Michael Lascarides
Michael is the manager of National Library Online in DigitalNZ.


This is totally exciting to me!! I can't wait to take a look on the NLNZ Open Data site. See what kind of resources they have that could help me along in my research. 
Here's a few quick searches I did.

Results of a 'Samoa' search

I tried a few villages in the search box: Fogatuli had no results. Apia had results. PagoPago no results. I tried one of my family names in the search: Afualo. All I got was an image. Try a variety of different searches, first and last names, villages, titles, a term or even a samoan word. Depending on what's in the collections you may get results or not. 

Journal of the Polynesian Society

Have you visited JSTOR.org? I've used it and found some articles on Samoan culture. Though I haven't used this site in awhile. A post on Facebook from the American Samoa Genealogy Facebook  Page posted an article, "The War Of Tonga And Samoa And The Orgin Of The Name Malietoa."
It's an interesting article, also since the Malietoa name appears in my 6th generation that brought me back to thinking that I need to revisit this site again.

Here's what JSTOR is all about.

I put a "Samoa" search in and got over 1,000 results. To narrow down your search you may want to try an advanced search. 

You can also choose a "Browse" search. I clicked on it and got this. Wow! That starting from 1892 the list goes longer. I just couldn't fit it all in.

I wonder what kind of links they have? 

If you want to download an article some do have a cost, some are free. I tried to view an article and got this,

Take some time and visit JSTOR.org. you may find something that could help your Samoan research along.

Two Genealogy Databases for Free only for a few days....

I was reading this article by Diane Haddad & The Family Tree Magazine Staff,

Thursday, April 18, 2013
Two Genealogy Databases to Search While They're Free
Posted by Diane

You have a couple of days left to take advantage of these free database offers from sites where you'd normally need to subscribe or hope your library subscribes:
Ancestry.com has made its marriage records collection free to search through April 21 at midnight ET. These records are great sources for female ancestors' maiden names and sometimes the couples' parents' names, in addition to the marriage date and place. You'll need to register for a free account, if you don't already have one, to view records.
ProQuest's Historic MapWorks Library Edition (link to it from this page) is free to at-home users through April 20 in honor of National Library Week. Here, you can browse by place or search for an address, keyword or GPS coordinates to find old landowner and other maps. (The landowner maps aren't indexed by name here, so you need to search for the place and then find the person's name on a map.) You can download maps and overlay the maps with Google maps to pinpoint the modern location. 


Cool! I already sent this off to some of my immediate family who don't have a subscription to Ancestry.com. Hahaha! They are peeled to their computers! I don't have a subscription to Ancestry.com either. So, soon my face will be peeled to my computer looking for my families.

I also am interested in the ProQuest's Historic Map Works Library Edition. Curious to see what I find on Samoa.

So, check out the links. I'd to hear what you found, if it worked for you or not?

FamilySearch launches new site

Have you see the New FamilySearch.org?

They launched the new site today! New features on the site like Fan Chart, add photos to your Family Tree and Live Help options. I'm still poking around and having fun on the new site. What you think about  the site? Post your comments below or on the SGG Facebook.

AN ACCOUNT OF SAMOAN HISTORY UP TO 1918 Book

I just saw this book online on the New Zealand Electronic Text Collection.

 Teo Tuvale is the author of, "An Account of Samoan History up to 1918"

I have found some great books on Samoa genealogy on the NZETC site. Try a 'Samoa' search and you get over 800 results. Plug in some of your family names, titles or villages. You never know what you might find.

The Beginning of SGG.

I've had a few questions and emails about how the Samoan Genealogy Group started. 

One day my grandma Mataniu showed me her ledger books all filled with Samoan family names and genealogy. She began to tell me her experiences in how she got these names. Ever since then I have been hooked on genealogy. My grandma and my parents were my first teachers. They've been doing their own genealogy research for years. They were excited that I got the genealogy bug.

I studied my grandma’s records, asked her questions, listened to her stories.  I did the same thing with my parents studied their records, asked questions and listened to their stories. 

I live in the United States right now. I am unable to travel to Samoa and other pacific islands to get genealogy information so I turn to the internet, order microfilm, seek out books, phone calling,  libraries, archives, travel to family history centers and talk to Samoans about their family genealogy.

I wanted to collaborate with others doing Samoan genealogy and share stories, experiences and resources that support Samoan genealogy research so the Samoan Genealogy Group was created.

I do have other daily/weekly tasks. I try to post a blog weekly if my tasks aren't to demanding. This is probably going to be one of the longest blogs I’ll write. I like to keep my blogs short and to the point. I know that you folks don’t have all day to read a long blog, you got stuff to do too. 

 Now, I know I am not the best blog writer. My punctuation may not be correct nor my grammar.  But I do have a great love for my Samoan heritage and for genealogy.  

Thank you for visiting this blog and my other sites SGG Facebook page, SGG  Twitter and the SGG Pinterest.

Wordless Wednesday - Laie Beauty Hole

My dad would tell me one of his fun times growing up in Laie was swimming at Laie Beauty Hole. He said that locals would throw coins in the Beauty Hole and the kids would dive to grab the coins before they hit the bottom.

BYU-Hawaii Library Digital Collections, Laie Beauty Hole, ca. 1910-1930, jpg, Laie Plantation and Community Photo 1879-1965, http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/Laie/id/33/rec/50, photograph, 2009-02.