April 27, 2023
Anzac spike in interest for Online Cenotaph
It’s been a busy month for Auckland War Memorial Museum’s Online Cenotaph, which holds information on more than 264,000 New Zealanders who have served in the military and the merchant navy since the South African Wars.
Enquiry services manager Victoria Passeau says on top of basic records like embarkation information, the public and whanau can add information and photographs or lay a poppy on individual records.
“People can access it online as well as get support with us in the museum. We receive about 200 inquiries a month but during the Anzac Day period we would probably get over 500, but we get around 10,000 to 20,000 poppies laid in the month to Anzac Day as well as thousands and thousands of things uploaded and added to the records,” she says.
Ms Passeau says the Online Cenotaph can be a good start for whanau before they go searching for the full military record of their relatives from the Defence Force archives or Archives New Zealand.