Whāngai is when a tamaiti or child is raised by someone other than birth parents, often a member of the whānau. For example, a child might be raised by their grandparents.
Traditionally, the practice of whāngai was to strengthen whānau, hapū and iwi ties and relationships and to honour the responsibility that whānau had to each other.
The tamaiti whāngai may know both their birth parents and their whāngai parents, and the wider whānau will usually have been involved in the decision.
Whāngai can be a formal legal adoption or based on traditional tikanga practices, or both.
Adoption normally refers to ‘formal adoption’, where the Family Court makes the adoption order.
With a formal adoption, an adoption order is created by the Family Court, and then registered by Births, Deaths and Marriages.
A whāngai arrangement can become a formal adoption if the whāngai parents apply for a formal adoption.
Find out how to request records about a formal adoption from:
A traditional whāngai arrangement will likely have been agreed to among whānau and in some situations there may not be any official records.
If you do not find any official records about your whāngai arrangement, it may be useful to ask whānau members or kaumātua if they know of any other records (written, oral, or other).
For example, there may be information written in personal diaries, in letters or emails to other whānau members, or someone may recall their own memories of events or conversations.
From 1901, the Native Land Claims and Adjustment Act 1901 required tamaiti whāngai to be registered with the Native Land Court in order to inherit lands from their whāngai parents.
From 1909 until 1955, under the Native Land Act 1909 Māori could no longer use the whāngai system. All adoptions by Māori parents had to be approved by the Māori Land Court.
Māori parents could not adopt Pākehā children. If a couple, where one parent was Pākehā and the other Māori, wanted to adopt a Māori child, they had to go to the Magistrates Court.
Adoption orders made by the Māori Land Court might be recorded in their minute books.
Find the contact details of the Māori Land Court district officesopen_in_new.
Adoption applications during this period often involved getting a social work report from the former Department of Māori Affairs. Te Puni Kokiri (TPK) may hold some of these social work reports at Archives NZ.
Archives NZ holds copies of Māori Land Court (the present-day version of the Native Land Court) minute books from 1865 -1975. The minute books include information about land, whangāi and probates.
Find out how to request information from Archives NZ.
If your whāngai arrangement involved Oranga Tamariki (or a predecessor organisation such as Child Welfare, the Department of Social Welfare, or Child, Youth and Family), then Oranga Tamariki will have records about this. This also includes what they would describe as foster care or adoption.
Find out how to request records about you from Oranga Tamariki.
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