#52Ancestors, Week 20, Another Language

Nau mai haere mai

Te reo Māori has been recognised in New Zealand as an official language since 1987. For many years speaking it was almost outlawed, but slowly it has been revived and continues to become stronger.

When I was at primary school we learnt to count, sang songs (waiata), days of the week, colours, played stick games (ti rākau) and learnt simple weaving (raranga) and poi. We grew up using words as part of our everyday language that I didn’t even realise were Te Reo until I was an adult. There are plenty: e hoa, taihoa, ka pai, pakaru, kai, waewae, taringa, aroha, hikoi even before all of the place names and landmarks.

Nowadays, there are totally immersive preschools and schools like Kōhanga Reo. Most schools have kapa haka groups. Haka is well known around the planet, especially associated to sport like rugby. It is just part of who we are, as New Zealanders,  no matter whether we are Māori or not. Our pronunciation has improved and changed over time as we become more aware of HOW words should be pronounced and of the rhythm of the language.

At school, children learn their mihi, a short introduction about themselves; where they come from and what they identify with, who their parents are. These are often developed over time and may be used outside of school in workplaces and other meetings as adults.

Tēnā koutou katoa

Ko Taupiri tōku maunga

Ko Waikato tōku awa

Ko Oriental tōku waka

Ko Les tōku pāpā

Ko Lis tōku māmā

Ko Claire tōku ingoa

Nō reira tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

First you greet everyone, then you name your mountain, your river and sometimes your sea or lake; the places that you identify as home.

Then you say how you or your family travelled to New Zealand (Aotearōa), traditionally by ship (waka), and what your tribe (iwi) is, if you have one. Then who your parents are, then finally your name. (often at school you will also say the name of your school)

When reciting your mihi you always come last, because without all that comes before you – your parents, your family, the land and river to which you belong – you are nothing.

A more complex mihi is a pepeha where your entire family tree (whakapapa) is recited. Māori was not a written language before European settlement. For Māori knowing their whakapapa is integral to knowing where they belong; who they are. It was all passed on generation to generation orally.

I have written a very simple mihi pepeha (hopefully correctly) to demonstrate.

Ngā mihi nui kia koutou katoa

Ko Taupiri tōku maunga

Ko Waikato tōku awa

Ko Whanganui-a-Tara tōku moana

Ko Oriental tōku waka

Nō Kirikiriroa ahau

Ko Davys tōku whānau

Ko Les tōku mātua

I te tahi o tōku mātua

Ko Ruth tōku kuia

Ko Walter tōku koroua

Ko Lis tōku whāea

I te tahi o tōku whāea

Ko Elsie tōku kuia

Ko Albert tōku koroua

Ko Claire tōku ingoa

Ko Bendigo tōku kāinga

Ko taku hiahia ko te whakapapa

Nō reira

Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

Warm greetings to everyone

My mountain is Taupiri

My river is Waikato

Wellington Harbour is my sea

The Oriental is my ship

I am from Hamilton

My family is Davys

My father is Les

In my father’s family

Ruth is my grandmother

Walter is my grandfather

In my mother’s family

Elsie is my grandmother

Albert is my grandfather

My name is Claire

I live in Bendigo

My hobby is genealogy

That is all

Greetings to you all, greetings to you all, greetings to you all.

I’m never sure 100% sure about my mountain. My grandfather was born near Mangawara Stream at the base of Taupiri Mountain. The mountain is sacred (tapu) to Māori, and driving past always feels like I am arriving or leaving the Waikato region.

The Waikato River flows through Hamilton, where I was born, and north past Taupiri; so it has to be my river.

I spent my teenage years in Wellington, and I love that harbour and coastline, so I identify with that as my body of water.

The Oriental was the sailing ship which bought the first of my families from England to New Zealand -to Wellington in fact.

Going back up my family tree each of the previous 2-3 generations would likely have had different mountains, rivers and ships to which they identified, some even back in England or Ireland. 

Māori have a much longer association with Aotearōa. Even if they have moved about more recently, they still identify with a marae or river or mountain that has been significant to their whānau for generations.

I love the richness of Tikanga Māori and the tapestry that is woven into our lives too.

#52Ancestors, Week 19, Mothers' Day

Last year, I shared memories about my Mum and both of my grandmothers. Great grandmothers then - there are four, and all DNA confirmed. This could be a long post.

Sarah Hall 

was born 2 June 1862 in Boagh townland in the parish of Drumgoon, County Cavan Ireland. The closest market town was Cootehill. Boagh is located close to the county border with Monaghan and not far from the border that now separates the Emerald Isle into two countries. With more English sounding surnames it could be supposed that her forebears may have been among the English who settled and took up land overtime, and became known as Anglo-Irish.

As if Irish records weren’t difficult enough to find and unravel, especially from afar, her mother’s maiden name was also Hall. She had nine brothers and sisters and six of them accompanied her and their parents when they emigrated to New Zealand in 1876. They left Gravesend on 27 November 1876 on the Oxford and arrived in Auckland on 1 March 1877. The family lived for a time in Papakura. William and Anne, her parents later moved to Hamilton near to where she and her husband were living. One of her mother’s sisters also emigrated to New Zealand in the 1880’s.

Sarah married my great grandfather Francis Davys in Papakura on 15 December 1885. They began their married life near Dargaville, perhaps farming, but by the time their 2^nd child was born they were again living in Papakura. By 1898 they had relocated to Taupiri where Francis was operating a sawmill with some of his brothers. At the end of 1907 they moved again, to Tamahere, where they lived until the end of 1913. In March 1914 Francis died in Hamilton. By now a grandmother, Sarah lived on to see her younger children marry and welcome more grandchildren. She died on 26 February 1938.

I don’t know too much else about her. Did she have an Irish accent ? or had that disappeared as so often happens with child immigrants.

Emma Louisa Bartlett 

was born in the Waitohi Valley, near Koromiko or Picton, Marlborough, New Zealand on 12 September 1875. She was a 2^nd generation New Zealander, both her parents had been born in the colony to settlers or the children of settlers. She was the 3^rd daughter in a family of eleven. About 1883 her parents moved their young family of five to North Island, initially in Foxton, then Otaki and Manakau.

She and her siblings were amongst the first pupils at Manakau School when it opened in 1888 soon after moving from Otaki. Emma did not start with her 2 younger sisters, joining them a few months later. Her elder sisters did not return to school in Manakau, likely their mother needed their help at home with younger brothers and sisters. However, Emma didn’t spend long at school, it is unclear exactly when she left but the note “Home” suggests her assistance was again required at home. Her two elder sisters were married by 1891 and she herself married William Cooper on 24 January 1894 in Manakau.

Their first three children were born there before they moved to Levin in 1899 where William was employed as a builder. In around 1910 they moved to the Waikato, where Emma’s parents had moved earlier. They farmed at Elstow near Te Aroha until about 1918 when they moved further north to Auckland, before moving to Hamilton in 1921. They spent most of the 1930’s farming again near Katikati, then returned briefly to Hamilton where William had built houses. He also built a home in Mission Bay Auckland and they lived there for a couple of years, returning to live in Hamilton in 1943. Their children were all grown and married by this time with their own children and even grandchildren. Emma and William celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary in 1944. She died on 7 January 1945.

I don’t know too much else, except my Dad says she was “just lovely”, that my daughter calls her “pretty Emma” and that she called eggs “haighs” – where does that come from ?

Laura Ellen Kelsey 

was born on 17 July 1878 in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire. Her mother died when she was ten months old. Her father worked for the Great Western Railway, so she and her brother went to live with their grandfather in Dudley until their father remarried.

I imagine her early life was a little unsettled, but she had some strong figures in her life; her grandfather and her aunt. Her stepmother died, leaving her father with three more young children in 1890. I imagine Laura may have been expected to help with them at home until he remarried for the 3^rd time. She was a housemaid before she married in 1901 and had moved to Leamington Spa in Warwickshire by then. Whether this was her first position I do not know, and when she moved is unknown as well. Her father died in 1898, perhaps stepmother #2 had no time for extra children and that was the catalyst to move away. More than likely though, she would have been in service and away from home before this anyway.

Laura married George Timms on 1 July 1901 in Old Milverton where George was employed as a coachman at Cranford House. Their first two of their four children were born there before they moved back into Leamington. Life threw Laura a few curve balls resulting in her becoming an absent parent and spending twenty years in an asylum. She died on 20 September 1935.

Edith Lilian Vose 

was born on 9 February 1881 in Templeton, near Christchurch, Canterbury. She was the fifth child in her family, but she was the first to be born in New Zealand. Her parents and elder siblings had immigrated in April 1879 from England. They were market gardeners. In England her father had been a labourer and stoker with the Royal Arsenal. Her grandfather had been in the Royal Engineers. Her mother came from rural Wiltshire but had worked at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London before marrying.

After some years in Templeton her parents moved to Prebbleton and to Christchurch itself, before returning to Prebbleton later in life. Edith’s elder brother Samuel owned some land in the Wharenui settlement later known as Upper Riccarton, Christchurch. He too, was a market gardener and built a small cottage there. Edith lived with him and kept house. Samuel died in 1900 aged 28 and left the property to Edith who was then aged just 19.

Nine months after Samuel’s death Edith married John William Fuller on 8 May 1901. John lived in the same street and had been living with his married brother. He worked for the railways and would walk past Samuel’s property each day. He was a lot older than Edith and six years older than Samuel. My Nana would say that he thought he was on to a good thing, marrying the young “heiress”. I like to think it was less calculated. Maybe John was friends with Samuel and wanted to take care of his young sister for him, maybe she was a friend of his niece Elsie, maybe they just fell in love.

They lived their entire married life on the property which had been Samuel’s and raised a family of five. They grew raspberries and fruit and had their own milk cow for many years. John died in 1942 but Edith remained in the little cottage with her youngest daughter, growing raspberries, gardening and enjoying her grandchildren and great grandchildren. She died on 10 April 1963.

#52Ancestors, Week 18, Close Up

Close up; like in focus ? Or close up; like a clam. Hmmm.

As a researcher I come across plenty of both. Sometimes I get so engrossed with researching a particular person, I really get to know them. Close up. I want to know every detail that I can, where they lived, what the village/town/city was like – what does it look like now, who were their neighbours, friends. I want to understand what life was like for them. If I can go to the place where they lived and have a nosey around; walk the streets and laneways which they walked, all the better.

Then there are the other things, obstacles, brickwalls, secrets. Where everyone you ask knows nothing – or if they do it is a bunch of chinese whispers; or they just close up; like a clam.

But I have to know.

It is heart wrenching that so many things which we hardly blink an eye at today, caused so much distress and shame in the past. People – our flesh and blood – suffered; keeping secrets, not letting their guard down, not giving anything away; when sharing may actually have been cathartic.

I always wonder when I find the clue, or the answer to the riddle. Wouldn’t they be SO amazed to learn what we have found – once they get past the piece that caused the hurt in the first place.

Some things, like having a convict in your past, are even welcomed and celebrated by researchers.

#52Ancestors, Week 17, Cemetery

I’m not sure why, but I like wandering through cemeteries. The first one I remember going to was Hamilton East, with my Dad one evening. That memory stuck with me and I was able to relocate the resting place of my great-grandparents with not too much difficulty some 45 years later.

Wandering around churchyards and cemeteries is common place for many genealogists, so there are a number of special places I have come across.

One which I especially enjoy wandering through is Bolton Street in Wellington. On the side of a hill rising above The Terrace, it is one of the oldest cemeteries in Wellington and consequently is the resting place of many early settlers.

In the 1960s part of it was dug up and the graves re-interred to make way for the motorway which now runs relentingly through the middle. A pedestrian bridge crosses above the motorway so that you can walk down from the Seddon Memorial near Anderson Park and the Botanic Gardens, or up the hill from the Bolton Street entrance where the chapel and sexton’s cottage stand.

My great great great grandparents are buried there, or at least memorialised on the headstone for one of their sons. Others too, sisters of my great great grandmother. Most are in the new memorial lawn where a lot of the re-interred souls were buried. A bench sits near this site, behind the chapel commemorating the arrival of the Barratt family (my great great great grandparents) in Wellington in 1842.

The cemetery at Kilmaillie near Fort William, Invernesshire was one we explored while in the UK in 2014. We went early one morning and wandered in the dewy grass looking for a headstone with McIntyre on it. There were quite a number of them, and Cameron too since we were at the heart of clan Cameron country.

Finally, there it was. Almost obscured by trees which have been growing for almost 200 years. Lauren’s great great great great great grandparents. Reverend Duncan McIntyre of Lochaber, Camusnaherie (Rev of Kilmaillie) 1757-1830 and his wife Jean, the daughter of James MacIntyre of Glen Noe – the 3^rd of that family 1777-1855.

very hard to read in the shade - will have to go back again I guess, one day.

A bit of Scots royalty there – Jean’s great grandfather was Ewen “Dubh” Cameron, Locheil 1629-1719.

Also spotted there, this one !

In Memory of John Telford, first engineer on the western end of the Caledonian Canal. That amazing engineering feat which includes Neptune’s Staircase and was designed by James Telford. John and James are thought not to be related. The work was difficult and detrimental to his health and he died in 1807, fifteen years before the canal opened. There is more about the construction and some photos of this grave (referred to as dilapidated but not looking as overgrown as my photo) here.

Next on my list – Melbourne General Cemetery, to see if I can locate the resting place of my great great grandmother.