K - Kiwi

Kia Ora

It doesn’t matter where I live, I’ll always be a Kiwi. Even if one day I do become a citizen of another nation, I will still support the All Blacks, the Silver Ferns and celebrate our unique two degrees of separation uniqueness. Despite starting my life in the Waikato, I will always be a Hurricanes, Lions, Pulse and Saints supporter. 

I feel at home where I live right now, but I miss the little things. News broadcasts which are actually news, not tabloid misinformation constantly creating a mood of impending disaster. People who tell it like it is, without making it all about them. Watching rugby instead of league and AFL with over excited commentators. Spontaneous roadtrips and changing scenery.

It is funny, looking in from the outside to be able to see that all the things that felt like they were being done the wrong way, were actually world leading. Great ideas and models, just hindered by an economy which hadn’t invested in the areas of need for a long time. A strong economy striving to be a free market but not looking after the basics; a strong economy but still a tiny country not paying the people a compelling salary to stay and follow their passion.

Anyway, this isn’t meant to be political. It's about that Kiwi essence, that pride we all take in our country. The team of 5 million who can do anything if we put out minds to it. The team who collectively hold their breath in the last minutes of a Rugby World Cup Final, or Bledisloe Cup match and particularly anytime we play Australia. The way we embrace other cultures, how we immerse ourselves in Tikanga and respect each other and our differences. That doesn’t happen in other countries, well not in the same way.

It got me thinking. You can take the Kiwi out of the country, but you can’t take it out of the person. Where did it come from, that sense of belonging ? How long did it take for our ancestors (and here I am talking about those of us whose ancestors came on sailing ships and airplanes, more than the Tangata Whenua) to feel they were New Zealanders rather than English, Scots, Irish etc. What contributed to build that fierce pride, that Kiwi ingenuity ? It was definitely strong when our ANZACs joined WW1. Was it already building in 1905 when the Originals toured England and beat Devon in their first match 55-4 ? Did it begin even earlier, borne out of disasters or through the sheer determination of those early settlers to build a new life in a far flung colony ?

Wherever it started, and however it started, it has become part of us all. Right now we all need to remember we have it, we are all on the same team – even if we aren’t all on the same part of the planet.

Kia kaha Kiwis.

J - James Hogg

Families all come with stories. Some have their origins in fact, and some do not.

One which I haven’t yet been able to prove right or wrong yet, is whether there is in fact a connection in my daughter’s paternal grandmother’s family to James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd. Fact or fabrication, who knows ?

I have done a bit of searching sporadically over the years, collaborating with other people around the world who can trace their family lines back to the same Hogg ancestors as my daughter.

James Hogg was the second son of Robert Hogg and Margaret Laidlaw, he was born at Ettrickhall Farm, Ettrick, Selkirkshire towards the end of 1770 and baptised at the parish church on 9 December. His family had been farming in the area for generations.

His formal education lasted not much more than a year, when he was 7 his father became bankrupt and James began work as a cowherd and later a shepherd. In his late teens/early twenties he was employed as a shepherd by a relative of his mother; James Laidlaw of Blackhouse Farm in Yarrow. Here he had access to a good collection of books and taught himself to read and write. He also taught himself to play fiddle and began to make a name for himself as Jamie the Poeter, singing traditional ballads and reciting the rich folklore of the Scottish Borders.

The Laidlaw family were acquainted with Sir Walter Scott and introduced James to him in 1802. Laidlaw’s son William became Scott’s close friend and amanuensis. At this time, in 1802, Scott was collecting ballads for his Border Minstrelsy and William Laidlaw, James Hogg and his mother, who had a large store of her own, all contributed. James had printed his own “Scottish Pastorals, Poems, Songs &C.,” in Edinburgh in 1801.

He divided his time between farming and writing and in 1813 wrote his most picturesque and imaginative work, “The Queens Wake”, which was at once a great poetical if not financial success. He was friends with Wordsworth and knew Byron.

James Hogg’s most known work today is “The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner” said to have been an inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.”

James Hogg died 21 Nov 1835 and was buried at Ettick Church. At his death Wordsworth wrote “Exemptore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg.”

But is there a connection to my daughter’s family ? I am thinking, after trying to follow the lines of James’ family and of his brothers, that like my daughter’s line of descent from the Lochiel in the Cameron family, this line too might be through a daughter rather than a son.

There is a Laidlaw connection in her tree. Could Margaret Laidlaw, her 5 x great-grandmother who married Thomas Watson be the key ? Could Margaret’s father Walter be a brother of James Hogg’s mother ? Was James Laidlaw of Blackhouse his uncle ? I’m still waiting on DNA matches to help make that decision, but here’s another story to add to the mix.

James Hogg’s grandfather William O’Phawhope Laidlaw is said to have been the last man in the Border country to speak with the fairies. I know someone who will claim this fact as the evidence that holds the key.

 

 

I - Ireland

We all have some Irish in our families don’t we ? It certainly seems that way. The Famine was certainly a catalyst, but not the only reason. They left their native country in droves and went to every corner of the world.

My great-great-grandfather Edward Vose and at least two of his siblings were born in Ireland. His father was with the Royal Sappers and Miners and posted to Ireland to carry out the Ordinance Survey of Ireland. As was often the way then, the entire family travelled with the Army – even the families of Privates. Apparently though the topic of being born in Ireland was a touchy one, his grand-daughter in a letter to my parents said that although it was true that he was born there – he made sure everyone knew that he wasn’t actually Irish.

But there are Irish in my family on my Dad’s side.

Dad’s grandmother Sarah Hall came to New Zealand with her parents and siblings in 1877. They were from near Cootehill in Cavan. One of Sarah’s aunts, a sister of her mother Anne, also emigrated to New Zealand in the 1880s. Another of her mother’s sisters emigrated to New York in the 1850’s and a brother and some their cousins followed in the 1870’s and 1880’s. One of Sarah’s cousins founded the Californian Perfume Company which would later become Avon.

Sarah’s mother was a Hall too – coincidence ? I used to think so. Then along came DNA.

Some years ago, I had made contact with a cousin in New York and he sent me a lot of research from a fellow cousin in New Zealand. None of which I had seen before, but when a DNA match appeared in our lists of matches for the mother of the author of the research, I reasoned I could attribute our match (and shared matches) to Sarah’s mother’s family.

There were many other matches though who appeared to be in Ireland, or to have roots there. None of the names in their trees were familiar to me, but I did notice commonalities across some of their trees. I put it in the too hard basket for quite a while.

Then one day, I decided that I need to make a start to try to unravel it all and so I messaged a few of the larger matches. Some replied and were as baffled as me, but one was the key to it all. It seemed most of these people were connected through Sarah’s father William. My new DNA matched cousins had the names of a couple who turned out to be the likely great-grandparents of Sarah. They had had a large family and as with Sarah’s mother’s family, many of her father’s had also emigrated to the US and even New Zealand.

A lot of information was shared across the interweb. They had some children in their tree who they didn’t know too much about, so it seemed that Sarah’s paternal grandfather fitted in there. What a surprise to learn that Sarah had relatives on her father’s side who had also emigrated to New Zealand, this time settling in Canterbury, rather than Auckland and the Waikato. All of the common names I had seen in the trees for the mystery DNA matches fell into place amongst the descendants of siblings of Sarah’s grandfather.

Solved, I thought.

But then, my original DNA match, the one I had been using as a control for Sarah’s mother’s side of the family appeared to have shared matches to Sarah’s father’s side of the tree too.  As I see it the only way that can be, is if Sarah’s parents were related… I went back and looked at the new tree from those new Irish relatives and what did I see ? Another son in the family they had pieced together where they didn’t have information going forward – and his name ? David…the same as Sarah’s grandfather.

From email discussions with a couple of others it seems that it is highly likely that Anne and William Hall were first cousins. The community they came from was a close one, they were Presbyterian and there seems to have been a lot of intermarriage between local families through the generations.

Being Presbyterian as well seems to point back to Scotland; perhaps it is true that these families were part of the Ulster Plantation settlement in Ireland in the 17^th century. They all do seem to have more Anglo sounding surnames than what are normally thought of as being typically Irish. (Bailey, Hall, Pritchard, Reilly, Moncrieff, Livingstone, Montgomery et. al.,)

There is still a lot of unravelling to do, and it still seems quite overwhelming. But I will get there in the end.

H - Hammond

Mary Hammond was my great-great-great grandmother. She was born in Andover, Hampshire on 8 June 1808 and baptised three weeks later at St Mary’s church. She was the fourth child in her family and the first daughter. Three more sons were born before another daughter, Elizabeth in 1819.

Her father John had been married before he married her mother Sarah Knight in 1800 and had two children from that marriage, a son & a daughter before his first wife had died.

Mary married George White on 24 June 1827 in Andover and they had two children Ann and Henry before George’s death on 20 April 1834. At the time of the 1841 census, Mary was living with her widowed mother and both were described as Silk Weavers. Her children were also there in New Street, Andover now aged 8 & 10 and a Confectioner named Edward Laney also lived at the address. Possibly as a lodger – the 1841 census doesn’t identify relationships in the same way that later census’ do. (A confectioner makes fancy cakes not sweets, as I always thought.)

Five months later, Mary remarried, to Edward Laney. Their first child had been born four months earlier. Just nine months later the little blended family was on board the Olympus, bound for Nelson, New Zealand.

But, Mary wasn’t the only member of her family to take the opportunity to leave England and emigrate to the colonies. I was vaguely aware that some of her brothers had emigrated to New Zealand as well, but I have never really looked at them to piece it all together. DNA matches are making me do that.

Three of her brothers came to New Zealand as well. Although one later settled in Auckland, all three emigrated to Nelson like she did, Two of them, David and James travelled with their wives and children on the Lord Auckland arriving on 23 February 1842.

Her brother Joseph followed with his family a few years later in 1852 on The Rapid arriving in Auckland and making their way to Nelson. Or did they ? The Rapid is mentioned in the obituary for Joseph’s daughter Rose which also mentions her surviving sister in Nelson. However articles reporting on the 100^th birthday of that sister in 1938 say the family arrived on the Lord William Bentinck. Some investigating to be done here I feel.

DNA matches have identified other emigrating family members too. A cousin of Sarah and her brothers who emigrated to Utah and her sister who went with her husband and children to Launceston, Tasmania in about 1853 and lived in Deloraine before moving on to Melbourne.

 

G - Germany

Germany doesn’t really feature in my tree. Although there have been discussions about the brickwall great-great grandfather who “could” have come from there and anglicised his name. Until more convincing evidence is found I think that is as much conjecture as my daughter’s theory that he was from gypsy stock.

Germany though does feature in her paternal tree.

Her great-great-great grandparents emigrated to Australia in 1852. The Germany that they left was not the Germany we know today. Prior to the unification and formation of the German Empire in 1871, “Germany” was made up of a number of kingdoms, grand duchies, duchies and principalities of German speaking peoples. Included in this group were Austro-Hungarian Empire, Luxembourg and Switzerland which remained outside the empire when it was formed.

I wonder what is was that propelled them and some of their friends to leave for a new life on the other side of the planet. They were Roman Catholic, so they wouldn’t have faced the persecution that the Lutheran did. Perhaps it was just the opportunity to change the direction of the lives of their children.

Ruedesheim, on the steep banks of the Rhine is a charming, if touristy town. It seems that every spare patch of land is planted with grape vines. Riesling has been the most highly prized variety in the area since the late 15^th century. Today 84% of the total vineyard area in the Rheingau is planted with Riesling vines; no other area in the world grows such high proportion of Riesling.

On their immigration record, where they interestingly were accompanied by just 2 of their 4 children, Friedrich stated his occupation as “Vine dresser”. There weren’t too many vineyards around Sydney in 1852, so a change in career ensued. He became a stone mason. (In case you were concerned, their other 2 children travelled to Australia with different families, they weren't left behind as such.)

Two of Friedrich’s sisters emigrated a few years later, and possibly a brother. The sisters settled in the Mudgee area of New South Wales. Somewhat of a surprise came when I learnt that their father had also emigrated to Australia, after the death of their mother. He passed his twilight years with his daughters near Mudgee. One sister had remained in Germany. Did she not want to take her father in ? Or had he had aspirations to emigrate all along ?

There is another potential German connection. More research is required to prove that the evidence some have attributed to people in their trees is actually for the right family. John George vs Johann Georg ? the birthdays differ by about 5 years, but with chicken scratch writing in old church records 1733 could be 1738…couldn’t it ? A few DNA matches would come in handy for this branch, but since testers are few and far between and most likely in the range which Ancestry has deemed “invaluable”, they might be lost forever.

F - Frederick Stagg

Frederick Stagg is somebody new-ish in our tree.

I knew there were Stagg’s in the tree. Ann Cooper, sister of my great-great-grandfather married Charles Stagg in 1812, in Montacute, Somerset. Many hours spent with Dad reading the church records on microfilm at the National Library in Wellington (thanks to the LDS and the Wellington branch of NZSG), found that Charles and Ann had 10 children.

All I had was a list of names though. I managed to track some of them through the various census’. At least four of their children died before they were ten years old as was often the case in times gone by.

I also found Ann’s burial – aged 101 ! and a newspaper account (which I have failed to write down the source for – there’s a job for the weekend) which reported her death and her approaching 102^nd birthday. Great genes, I thought. Anyway, that was about all I knew of this piece of the tree, until I came across a couple of DNA matches in New Zealand who shared DNA with lots of my Cooper line.

It made sense, so many other settler families in our tree either followed or came with siblings and cousins to the colonies. So why not this one too ? So I built their tree- cos that’s what I do, and discovered that Charles and Ann’s daughter Jane had come to New Zealand. I’m still not exactly sure when, but she married (apparently for the 2^nd time) near Wanganui in 1859 and had just one child.

The next thing I found was some affidavits on Archway and Family Search concerned with the death of Frederick Stagg who had died intestate at Wellington in 1875. One from Jane Woodman who said she was his sister and another from Fred Cooper, the seedsman, younger brother of my great-great-grandfather. In his affidavit, Fred confirmed that Jane was Frederick’s sister. They would have been first cousins. Jane & Fred were both mentioned in the notices placed in the New Zealand Times, 7 December 1875, declaring that the Public Trustee would administer Frederick’s estate.

More recently I have found that Frederick Stagg was a grocer, having a store and living on Thorndon Quay, Wellington, close to where some of his Cooper cousins were doing business as soft drink and cordial manufacturers. He was also married, to Marion/Merion and had at least three children. Two of them died in infancy, one was reported in the Evening Post, 10 March 1870. In the matters relating to his death though, there was no mention of his wife or any surviving children.

More questions than answers, again. I think I will have to buy a couple of certificates to try to discover some more.

When did they arrive in New Zealand ? Had they come direct from England ? Or via Australia where another uncle had emigrated in the 1840s. Who was Jane’s first husband and where did they marry ? Is the William Frederick Stagg aka Henshaw marriage in 1896 actually Frederick William Stagg the surviving child from Frederick Stagg’s marriage ?

And if that is him – how ironic in this crazy year to see that he named his daughter Corona !!

E - Exeter

Exeter is a town that has several appearances in our family tree. Mostly weddings and baptisms, but now a whole new event to research !

I received a letter the other day from England, passing on some pieces of information about the research done by earlier genealogists in the family. Some I had seen or heard before, some I hadn’t.

There has been talk over the years about members of the family being involved on the wrong side of an uprising – but which ? Monmouth was suggested. Records weren’t accessible, even to those living and researching in England, so it just remained “something’ in the back of my mind.

But now !! It seems there might be a connection to an event which took place in Exeter in a tumultuous religious time. The Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549. This is now thought to have been the most important attempt in England to oppose the Protestant Reformation of the reign of the boy-King, 9 year old Edward VI.

The rebels were protesting against the new Prayer Book, which had been translated from Latin to English. They wanted to keep the old Latin book, Cornishmen in particular (where the uprising began) were angered because they did not speak English and were used to the Latin services. The leaders sent a draft of their demands to the King. Unlike the petitions produced by some other rebellions, where protesters asked the King to grant what they wanted, these rebels insisted their demands be met. Among their demands were that Mass be in Latin and all Latin services and ceremonies be restored.

In 1539, concerned that the Catholic doctrine was under threat from the influence of the Lutheran Protestants who would remove all symbols of Catholic imagery from churches, Henry VIII gave his support to the passing of a parliamentary Act known as the Six Articles of Religion. He did this against the wishes of his Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer. Henry VIII remained a devout Catholic throughout his life and this Act aimed to enshrine some of the important element of Catholicism in law. In his will, Henry stipulated that these Articles should remain in force until his young son, the future King came of age.

Henry had been reluctant to introduce the sweeping changes that many Protestants were wanting, apart from where he could appropriate the wealth of the church by dissolving the monasteries. His last parliament, in the dying days of his reign passed an Act empowering him to take into his hands all chantries, hospitals, colleges, free chapel, fraternities, guilds and their possessions. Commissioners would be appointed to inquire into their revenue and inventories would be made of all their goods and certificates returned to the Court of Augmentations. It was left to the King to determine which should stand and which should be dissolved or refounded. Perhaps he still had misgivings, because this did not begin in earnest until after his death.

Cranmer however left no-one in doubt of his intentions proclaiming in his speech at the boy King Edward VI’s coronation that he would see idolatry destroyed and the tyranny of Rome banished.

The government decreed that the church in all parishes must use the new Prayer Book from WhitSunday on June 9^th. This caused widespread anger, in Sampford Courtenay the parish priest was prevented from saying the new service and urged to wear his popish robes and say the mass and all the service as in times past. Although the movement was supported by many clergy, it was predominately a layman’s movement by the people, who did not want to lose the devotional practices to which they had become accustomed.

Numbers grew and the Devonshire rebels were joined near Crediton by rebels from Cornwall about June 19^th. In July the combined force numbering 4,000-6,000 made the fateful decision to besiege Exeter which had remained loyal to the Crown. The siege dragged on for 5 or 6 weeks.  Vengeance followed with brutal executions.

There are some books I need to hunt down and read which involve the churches and parishioners in some of the parishes where our family lived. Maybe there will be further developments later in this challenge. (If the books arrive quickly enough and I can read them all in double quick time too)