Week 2 (Jan 8-14): Origins

Genealogists often get the question, "Where is your family from?" With this week's theme, you could explore an immigrant ancestor, but you could also think about the origin of other aspects of your family. Who was the first person in your family to settle in a particular town? If you have a long line of people with the same occupation, talent, etc, who was the first person you know who did it?

It was a question such as this that really set the ball rolling for genealogical research in my family. A social studies homework question at primary school. 

“How many generations has your family been in New Zealand?”

Well, they didn’t all come at once and they didn’t all come from the same places either. How do you calculate that? Are you meant to count just from the first ancestor BORN in New Zealand (or wherever) or do you count their parents who were the immigrants?

Family	Emigration Year	From Where	Arrival Port
Cooper	1841	Somerset, England	Wellington
Barratt	1842	Surrey, England	Wellington
Bartlett	1842	Somerset, England	Nelson
Laney	1842	Hampshire, England	Nelson
Fuller	1860	Surrey, England	Lyttelton
Davys	1862	Somerset, England	Auckland
Hall	1876	Cavan, Ireland	Auckland
Vose	1879	Kent, England	Lyttelton
Timms	1929	Warwickshire, England	Auckland

So, pretty much England and depending on which line 4-5 generations since the first NZ born ancestor in most families – but only 2 generations in another.

Most branches of my family emigrating to New Zealand came as a family, bringing their children with them. Only one branch was a newly married couple who would start their family in Canterbury and the most recent branch to emigrate brought a single woman travelling alone.

#52Ancestors, Week 1, Start

This is the beginning. A start. My new blog challenge for 2018.

Hope I can stick at it. There is a lot of writing going on in my life right now.

Assignments, job applications, emails, blog posts (in no particular order).

Some prompts for this topic included focussing on me, or the person/s who got me hooked on genealogy, someone who started a business…

So, this might be my only chance to be an ANCESTOR.

I have only one direct descendant and I think the branch stops there. Life takes many turns though, so one day I might need to revise that.

Maybe I will be the aunt, grand aunt, great grand aunt, 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, 6^thor 7^th cousin who people will refer to in the future as they begin their genealogical research.

Who Am I ?

2^nd, 4^th,5^th generation New Zealander – depending which grandparent you focus on.

First child

Big Sister

Educated

Mum

Friend

Aunt (great grand aunt even !)

Born in Hamilton, New Zealand. A city since 1945, with a river delineating it into Hamilton East and Hamilton West, and a lake. An Inland city, the centre of commerce serving a large rural community. A city surrounded by wide open spaces. Less than an hour to the West Coast and 90 minutes to the East.

Went to school, joined Brownies, competed in figure roller skating competitions, did gymnastics, learnt piano…

Moved to Wellington. Capital city since 1865. A coastal city, a little bit shaky, and a tad breezy. But with one of the prettiest harbours in the world and stunning on a good day (no-one ever remembers them though). Coolest little Capital in the world.

Went to College. First job. First overseas holiday.

Alternated living on both sides of the Tasman for ten years or so. Then a much longer time back in Aotearoa before relocating recently back to Australia for study.

Genealogy ? When did that start ?

Probably with that question in Social Studies 

“How many generations New Zealander are you ?” 

And then it just grew. Dad had always had an interest in family history. He told me recently he used to make lists of who all his cousins were (he has a lot). I just tagged along.

Names have always been a fascination for me. I used to make lists and marvel at the few which were exceptions to the norm. What inspired parents to step away from the Mary/Ann/Sarah and James/William/John lists and choose names like Kerenhappuch, Violet and Peternel or Theophilus, Julius and Balthasar. Some of them will have been biblical choices, others linked to the fashions and trends of the time.

Stories piqued my curiosity – the great great grandmother rumoured to have left her family; great great grandfathers who had more than one wife. Incomprehensible to a nine year old from a “normal” nuclear family. Then came the internet and the whole thing exploded. So many late nights hooked in cyber space.

And then along came genetic genealogy - learning how to interpret DNA results and use them as another secondary source to verify the researched paper tree. (I'm getting there.)

I hope you are ready to learn about 51 of the people in my tree - I hope I can find enough to write about 51 of them !

 Think like them. 

Put yourself in their place. 

Be a detective. 

Never leave any stone unturned.