The Dunedin branch of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists is holding an open day and mini-expo on Sunday.
Education officer Heather Bray said an important place to begin when it came to genealogy was with a basic family tree.
People might not realise how much family trees played a part in everyday life, she said.
"I’ve recently had the experience of somebody completing a death certificate and they did not know their grandfather and grandmother’s Christian names."
People often simply knew them as "granny and granddad".
"If they are only ever talking about ‘granddad’, they don’t know.
"So we are hoping to encourage at the mini-expo that even if somebody doesn’t want to research back to the Domesday Book, or way back in history, they can at least do something about recording the basic details for their family."
The genealogy room on the third floor of the Dunedin Public Library houses resources that can help people explore their family heritage.
This includes school records starting from about 1880 to about 1920, copied from originals housed in the Hocken Collections.
The original records are arranged by date, but copies in the genealogy room are arranged alphabetically.
"So that is one of our biggest assets," Mrs Bray said.
Other resources include cemetery records from across the greater Dunedin area.
While some information was able to be found online, sometimes it was useful to consult a hard copy of material, she said.
"I’ve been researching for 37 years, and I still go back to the paper copies because you get such valuable little clues."
Not everything was on the internet, Mrs Bray said.
"Not everything has been digitised, not everything has been indexed."
The group had about 65 members and the combined knowledge was a "huge asset".
"What one doesn’t know somebody else will."
While some people might only want to explore immediate family connections, with some perseverance it was possible to uncover centuries of history.
Mr s Bray had researched her family tree as far back as 1538.
Her ancestors lived in Cheshire and Staffordshire, in England.
"That is just systematically working through records."
- New Zealand Society of Genealogists — Dunedin Branch Open Day and Mini-Expo, Sunday, 11am to 3pm, Dunningham Suite, Floor 4, Dunedin Public Library
