Well I survived 2020 (so far). What an “interesting” year it has been. I think this is the year NZ has grown up. As a country we have felt our uniqueness and worked together to face the “problems” that befell us. Who would have believed that we, as free adults, would do what we were told and stayed locked up at home without any arguments and protestations. We didn’t march down Queen St protesting about it. We just did it. I hope we don’t have to live through this sort of event again.

2020 has been a “year of recognition” for this newsletter. Previous years we would receive a small number of written responses to what we have produced. The last two editions produced a massive response. It started with a few neutral comments on the NZ and US elections. I was deliberately neutral and passed what I thought were humorous but innocuous jokes. WELL some objected and we lost one or two readers who unsubscribed because I obviously disapproved of Mr Trump. Then last month we were swamped by positive feedback. Thanks very much. It has been appreciated. My mother told me never to discuss religion and politics in public and maybe she was right.

Anyway, back to reality. Once again, we have an interesting newsletter. The articles are varied. The jokes are funny although they are not the main reason for reading the newsletter.

I hope this month’s issue occupies some of your time and you find something valuable.

Peter Nash

Do you want to receive this newsletter every month?

This newsletter is free. There are not many free newsletters of this length in New Zealand. I am biased but it should be an interesting read.

To subscribe is easy too. Go on - don't misspell it as I have, twice already. https://www.famnet.org.nz/

The front page is lovely, but click on [Newsletters]. A page opens showing you a list of all the past newsletters, you can click the link to read one that you’re interested in.

Like the front page, the newsletters page has a place where you can log on or register. It’s in the top right-hand corner. Put your email here and click [Continue]. If you aren’t already on our mailing list, there will be a message “Email not in database” and a button [New User] appears. Click this and follow the dialog to register. It’s free and easy. You should receive a copy every month until you unsubscribe.

Robert has assured me that he will not send begging letters to your email - apparently, he has enough money at the moment. You will not have to put in your credit card number. You will not be charged a subscription.

Tell other genealogists so they can enjoy the newsletters too.

Regards

Peter Nash

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Regular Contributors

From the Developer

Seasons Greetings

I hope everybody has a great Christmas and new year. For us Christmas will be slightly reduced, one of our daughters won’t be making our family celebration, a consequence of grandchildren getting older and now several having holiday jobs that makes it impractical for the family to travel to Auckland. Life goes on, things change.

Americans have just celebrated Thanksgiving. In New Zealand we have a lot to be thankful for, not the least being that we’re not Americans and have a government that works. We’re extremely fortunate to be able to trust our public institutions. Whether we got the election result that we wanted or not, we know that the election was honestly held and that the politicians that we didn’t like are merely mistaken, not evil and corrupt. To be able to say this puts us in select company.

There will be no January Newsletter, Peter and I are taking a break (whether we deserve it or not).

Telling your story: Index

1. Writing your story as notes, or with Word.

2. Embedding pictures in Word documents.

3. Saving Documents for Web Publication.

4. Saving Scrapbook Items

5. Sharing your Story: Managing your Family Group

6. On Line Editing: More Facts, Family, GDB Links

7. Comparing and Synchronising Records

8. Producing and Using Charts

9. Merging Trees. Part 1: Why Bother?

10. Merging Trees. Part 2: Adding Records On-Line

11. Merging Trees. Part3. Combining Existing Trees

12. Finding Your Way Around FamNet (Getting Help)

13. FamNet – a Resource for your Grandchildren

14. FamNet’s General Resource Databases
15. Updating General Resource Databases

16. Privacy

17. Indexes: beyond Excel.

18. Linking trees

19. Uploading a GEDCOM file

20. Uploading Objects to your Database

21. Bulk-uploading Objects. FamNet resource: Useful Databases
22. Publishing Living Family on Family Web Sites

23. Have YOU written your family story yet?

24. Editing and Re-arranging your Family Tree On-line.

25. It’s the Stories that Matter

26. Using QR Codes for your Family History

27. What happens to our Family History when we’re gone?

28. Our Shared Database Grows

Robert Barnes

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The Nash Rambler

Has Technology Killed Genealogy and Family History?

I’m depressed again!!!! I’m in mourning for my beloved hobby and addiction. Even my regular top-up of good coffee (not Nescafe types) has not lifted me out of my funk. Woe is me, and alas alack and other words that Shakespeare used.

Let me explain.

I had a brilliant session with my U3A Genealogy group recently. This was our third monthly meeting this year due to my mate, Covid. The group all participated in our mutual problem solving (in a genealogical sense not everyday living sense). And, as usual, I was left with a couple of problems to work on for a lady who does not use the computer very much.

Remembering the ethical ramifications, I was asked a couple of questions only and these were what I had to answer. I had to ignore anything I had accidentally found but would suggest that she investigate the resources that had exposed some “interesting” events that were associated with these two families.

The first problem was the birth and parents of a gentleman in Ireland, surname BOYLE, who was born in the early 1800s. Luckily, there was a wedding with a lady with the surname RABBITT (I’ll ignore all jokes that immediately spring to mind about hunting rabbits). This lady researcher had spent some years on this problem and had come to a full stop with her research. Well I entered Ancestry.com family trees and searched for the RABBITT lady and came up with many trees. One in particular had many sources quoted which showed that they were unable to solve the exact problem I was asked. Within 20 minutes I had confirmed the tree as being “correct” by verifying the sources and was satisfied that it was worth looking at. The question asked by my friend was answered – I could not go any further back because nobody else had.

The second problem involved the ancestry of this lady’s newest granddaughter-in-law and involved some unusual surnames, including ARDERN – no relation to our Saint Jacinda.

Equally quickly Ancestry.com came up with the family traced back many generations. I checked the best looking tree and, after 20 minutes or so, proved that the tree was worth looking at.

So, in under an hour, I had done two very successful searches and checked out or proved those trees.

So the art of genealogical research has been so simplified to a quick session on the computer. No trips to libraries and genealogical societies is needed. No attendances at conferences, lectures, or genealogy group meetings was needed. No discussion and group problem solving sessions were needed.

No wonder Genealogy Societies and groups are dying. No wonder various archives are considering limiting their hours – nobody really needs to visit them. The pay-per-view websites are also sucking up the money researchers have for their research by charging large subscriptions. I nearly died last week when I had to renew my subscription to FindmyPast. This leaves very little available for the local groups to attract.

Another problem

The people, like me, who are the public face of the hobby or addiction, are always suggesting that the research be more susceptible to outlasting the lives of the researcher by being written up in some sort of narrative like a book, published article in journals or newsletters like this. The mantra is “write it up or risk losing your valuable research”.

An article becomes very boring if all we have is birth, marriage and death dates, headstone photograph and lists of children. We need to put “flesh on the bones”. So where do we go to? The most likely answer is old newspapers. During your long lifetime have you believed everything you read in the newspapers? Trump has a name for it – fake news.

Nowadays we all jump on anything that we find in the papers and cut and paste it into our narrative. Why, that “rubbish newspaper” that your parents hid away from you – The Truth – has become an acceptable source. So poor old great great grandfather who accidentally fell over after a few drinks now becomes labelled a drunkard because of one unfortunate episode. An exceedingly poor great grandmother, who attended a local dance once in her lifetime and managed to become photographed gets written up as a regular attendee to such functions and always looked as beautiful as the photograph rather than the scruffy milking shed slave she really was. In the old days it was easier to get a divorce if one of the partners could obtain a co-respondent, irrespective of whether the alleged act or acts took place. Thus, a mutually-agreed role playing exercise ends up labelling one partner as “one of those loose people”. Let alone what the obliging “co-respondent” gets labelled even though they may not “have sampled the goods”.

This means that the old standard procedures of interviewing the living oldies is perceived as no longer necessary.

My misery

We no longer have to know history, the various documents that recorded history, where they are and what is their meaning. All we need is access to one or two pay-per-view sites (i.e. Ancestry and/or FindmyPast) and the ability to type in a name in a search box. It helps if we have a finger to press the search button. Up it pops!!! It is becoming possible to say I did my family tree yesterday.

Peter Nash

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DNA Testing for Family History

From the editor: Gail has written quite a series on DNA Testing. You will see them all on the FAMNET website and they are a must-read, particularly if you are considering or have had a test done. They are easy to read and not too technical. Click Index so far to see these articles

Sorting Out Cousins

Every now and then, I receive an email from a previously unknown tester contacting me about a match. One arrived in October stating they matched with a known cousin of mine and because I was the contact person, they wrote to me.

This is always exciting because through the years I have learned there are a number of unknown cousins ‘out there’ who do not match me, but they do match other members of my family. Such occurrences validate my decision to test as many of my family who will allow it.

Anyway, this particular emailer mentioned some surnames in her family and wondered if her match with my cousin could be explored further to enable us both to find the common ancestor. It is not often that Surnames are given and therefore I decided to put on my sleuthing hat and give it my best shot.

First, I chose to see whether the writer connected with me genetically, given that she was connected to a close cousin. We did not. So I checked out my brother’s matches. Again nothing. If you find that strange, please remember that although siblings receive 50% of their chromosomes from each parent, the sizes of the segments are not the same. This often leads to one sibling having a match, but another sibling does not. The reason is that the segment inherited is classed as too small to be considered in the matching algorithms. It avoids dozens of ‘dubious matches or those that are Identical by State (IBS).

IBS means the chromosome segment(s) is similar but there is no familial connection. FTDNA cuts this off at around 20 cMs Centimorgan) in total across all the chromosomes 1 through 22 provided at least one segment is larger than around 8 cMs. Some years ago, out of curiosity, I went to Gedmatch.com where you can set your own parameters for matching although you are warned to not set these below 7 cMs. Doing this certainly made the number of matches increase, but once I get back to about the 5^th or 6^th generation (approximately 5^th cousin matches of about 3cMs and realising this means 64 individual 4 * Great grandparents and all the siblings descendants. I am not interested.

Back to where I was going with this – on looking further at other cousins, I finally found one who also had a match to the emailer. The difficulty at this point is only a few of my family have tested outside of FTDNA. This particular email came from a 23amdMe tester. This meant I needed to compare the chromosome segments of the emailer from 23andMe’s chromosome browser with the matching cousin. Earlier in the year, I had compiled all of my family’s results into a searchable spreadsheet on my computer. This made segment matching very easy and I quickly located another cousin who had a similar match. This enabled me to work out whether the connection was on the mother’s or father’s side of the cousin whose match initiated the email.

It turned out to be on his mother’s side. I then noted the cM match size and this led me to learn of the likely distance of the relationship. From there, I just had to go to the tree for the mother of the cousin and look at the great, great, great grandparent surnames and it was easy to deduce the exact family in which the common ancestor could be found. But who exactly was that common ancestor?

To get better precision, I went back to the original email and was able to work out the likely country that might feature in that family. I finally found the countries associated for the family and their descendants in my own tree and sent the emailer a snippet of the tree for that family. Back she came with where her family fitted in. Jackpot!

Yay! Another family tree extension occurred and two happy correspondents exist.

And just last week, a similar thing happened in reverse. This time, I found a match for my maternal aunt, but as in the previous case mentioned above, not for me. This time, the match for my aunt had posted a basic tree into her FTDNA account and on looking at it, two surnames stood out. But I had no idea which one would be correct as both were from different countries with a descendant of each eventually arriving into NZ in the 19^th Century. The problem was that both these families featured in my Aunt’s tree that I had put together some time previously with one family being associated with her father’s ancestry and the other being associated with her mother’s ancestry.

The cousins I had tested, pointed me in the direction of my aunt’s mother’s ancestry. Nevertheless, I wrote giving her the two surnames and indicating the NZ areas in which the two families settled. Back came the email with names and places that matched those of her mother’s ancestry.

Yay! Yet another family tree extension.

The thing is that had I not tested so many of my family and had I not spent the time putting together the various pedigrees for those testers and had I not had access to a Chromosome Browser, it would have all been much more difficult. It really pays to select more than one firm and more than one family member if you are going to get involved with DNA testing. And it goes without saying, that your family trees need to be as detailed as you can make them – including areas of residence.

Stay as safe as you can over the ‘silly season’.

Gail Riddell

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Digging Into Historical Records

Captain Cutter’s Bay, Port Underwood, Cloudy Bay

In 1838 John Madeiras, a naturalized American, purchased Captain Cutter’s Bay, in Underwood’s Harbour in Cloudy Bay for a fishing Station. “The purchase was made for a large Cask of Tobacco and in consideration of sundry other property at that time delivered.” John resided in the bay until his death in May 1841 after which, Captain Mayhew, the American Consul, took possession of the property [1]

In February 1838 there were three vessels at Cloudy Bay – Montano, Mechanic and Speculator. The Mechanic was from St. John, New Brunswick and after 18 months voyaging it carried a full cargo of 3,000 barrels. Also, at the time there were 36 American vessels cruising off the east coast of New Zealand. [2]

There were four whaling stations at Cloudy Bay in October 1840. They were run by Mr Medaris, Mr Ferguson, Mr Harris and Mr Williams. [3] In May 1841 John Madeira’s party obtained two whales, yielding 14 tons [4] and by 24 July, at Madeira’s station, 73 whales had been taken. [5]

On 25 September 1841 “the whole of a whaling establishment, appendages, and other property of the late John Mendares, deceased” was advertised for sale by Public Auction without reserve at Cutter’s Bay on Thursday 30 September at one o’clock precisely. [6] The property was purchased by Newton Lewyn for £100. [7]

In June 1842, the whaling parties at Cloudy Bay were “very unsuccessful this season” with only one whale killed by Mr Lewyn’s party. [8]

By July 1842 Letters of Administration of the estate and effects of John Medares or John Mendaris, late of Kapiti, were granted to William Mayhew, Vice-Consul for the United States of America. The estate was sworn under £5,000. All persons having a claim on the estate were asked to send particulars and all persons indebted, to pay at the office of Messrs Evans and Chetham, Solicitors, Wellington. [9]

Sundry whaling stores and gear were advertised for sale by Public Auction on 24 December 1842 on the premises of the late John Madeiras at Kapiti. [10] An October 1840 listing of Fishing Stations included a “John Medary, Kapiti, 8 fish, 50 tuns oil, 2½ tons bone.” [11]

Efforts to corroborate John’s death in May 1841 have failed to reveal a date or place of burial. There are also no obvious references to his estate papers, and these may well be held in American records. Unsurprisingly the variant spellings of his surname add a layer of difficulty and being a naturalized American suggests that he is of another nationality.

Nigel Prickett, in his archaeological review of Cutter’s Bay, wrote that “the nature of this establishment and its history between 1836 and 1842 are not known.” The former date is associated with the setting up of shore works by Daniel Dougherty of the American whaler James Stewart and the latter with Dougherty’s return to New Zealand and his taking up residence prior to the 1843 whaling season. [12]

The James Stewart, of New Brunswick, Captain Dougherty, arrived at Hobart on 03 March 1836 with 500 barrels of black oil and 150 sperm. [13] It sailed, with stores, for the South Seas on 16 March [14] and was one of the 20 ships listed as being at Cloudy Bay on 15 June 1836. [15]
Reverend Samuel Ironside, of Ngakuta Bay, presided at a baptism and wedding at Captain Cutter’s Bay on 30 October 1842. Maria Te Hau was first baptized before marrying Antone Sylva in the presence of William Wood and Rawiri Kingi. [16]

From 1843 the owners of Whaling Stations were recorded in newspapers along with numbers of men and boats employed, and the amount of oil and whale bone produced. Up till January 1844 the owners of the three Cloudy Bay Stations were Wallace, Levien or Levin and Wright. Newton Lewyn, the owner at Cutter’s Bay, also suffered from a variation of surname spellings and could potentially be confused with Nathaniel Levin. [17]

In August 1844 Wallace is replaced by Thoms and in October Dougherty replaces Lewyn. [18] In 1845 Dougherty’s Station employed 25 men, had the use of three boats, and produced 57 tuns of Black oil and 2¼ tuns of whale bone. [19]

Captain Dougherty’s home at Port Underwood was damaged by the 1848 earthquakes that commenced on 16 October. The stone chimney was cracked and there were many and deep cracks in the clay walls. [20]

On 26 October 1848 Thomas Arnold and Frederick Weld departed from Flaxbourne in the Petrel for Port Underwood and after being received hospitably by Captain and Mrs Dougherty, they slept in their house. The next day they were taken to Captain Cutter’s Bay “where all the signs and tokens of a bad whaling season were apparent. Two days later they crossed Port Underwood to Oyster Bay. [21] The Dougherty family removed to a cottage at the Wairau River mouth in November. [22]

This may mark the point where occupation and use of the whaling station at Cutter’s Bay ceased.

[1] Letter from H. Ross, Wellington to the Colonial Secretary 31 May 1843 Claim to land for Newton Levyn – Archives NZ Reference ACGO 8333 IA1/44 1843/1407 (R23518991) – available online

[2] The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser 05 Apr 1838 Ship News

[3] New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator 31 Oct 1840 Whaling Stations

[4] New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator 22 May 1841

[5] New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator 24 Jul 1841

[6] New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator 25 Sep 1841 Important Sale at Cloudy Bay

[7] Letter from H. Ross, Wellington to the Colonial Secretary 31 May 1843 Claim to land for Newton Levyn – Archives NZ Reference ACGO 8333 IA1/44 1843/1407 (R23518991)

[8] The New South Wales Examiner 25 Jun 1842 Shipping Intelligence

[9] New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator 02 Jul 1842 John Medares, deceased

[10] New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser 20 Dec 1842 To Merchants and Whalers

[11] New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator 10 Oct 1840 Fishing Stations

[12] The Archaeology of New Zealand Shore Whaling by Nigel Prickett – Section 7.1 Cutter’s Bay

Nigel has sourced information from:

[a] Pages from the past by C. A. MacDonald (1933)

[b] The story of a New Zealand family. Cape Catley, Whatamongo Bay by Celia Manson (1974)

[c] Cutters Bay (S22/40): a whaling station in Port Underwood, Marlborough Sounds by Kevin Jones (1982) New Zealand Archaeological Association Newsletter 25: 252-257

[13] The Tasmanian (Hobart) 04 Mar 1836 Whalers

[14] The True Colonist Van Diemen’s Land Political Despatch… 18 Mar 1836 Shipping Intelligence

[15] The Sydney Herald 28 Jul 1836 Ship News – New Zealand

[16] Te Tau Ihu O Te Waka: A History of Maori of Nelson and Marlborough – Volume III: Nga Tupuna – The Ancestors pages 41, 69 Wesleyan Events: Rev Samuel Ironside at Ngakuta

[17] New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator 17 Jun 1843 and 13 Jan 1844

[18] New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator 07 Aug 1844 and 12 Oct 1844 [Dorothy]

[19] New Zealand Spectator and Cook’s Strait Guardian 06 Dec 1845

[20] The Marlborough Earthquakes of 1848 by G. A. Eiby – Bulletin NZ Department of Scientific and Industrial Research Volumes 224-225 pages 17

[21] Passages in a wandering life by Thomas Arnold (Published 1900) pages 99-100

[22] The Marlborough Earthquakes of 1848 by G. A. Eiby – Bulletin NZ Department of Scientific and Industrial Research Volumes 224-225 pages 54-55

Pandora Research

www.nzpictures.co.nz

Dawn Chambers

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Chinese Corner

The "Leper" of Somes Island

This is the story of a poor unfortunate.

A middle-aged Chinese man thought to have leprosy was sent to live on an island in the middle of Wellington Harbour. No, not Matiu or Somes Island but its tiny northwest neighbour, Mokopuna.

You can see it driving round the bays. A large cone-shaped rock partly covered in low-lying scrub. There is apparently a cleft in a rocky wall off a sloping beach of gravel. It was in this cleft that Kim Lee, a 56-year-old fruiterer from Newtown lived, and after a short three months, died. Not much is known about his life, except that he was living in Adelaide Road and, at the time of his death in 1904, had been in New Zealand 18 years.

According to stories, the Health Department who'd removed him to Mokopuna, employed the local lighthouse keeper to keep him supplied with food. On fine days he'd row out with supplies. In rough weather he sent out rice, hot soup and fruit on a flying fox.

Why this extraordinary treatment? The question is partly answered by conditions of the time. At this time there was no known cure for leprosy although some people did seem to have recovered from it. Perhaps even more than now leprosy was viewed with a sort of social horror. Not only was it incurable but it was also physically ugly and contagious (although it could only be caught through prolonged exposure).

At the time, the most likely people stricken with it were Maori and a few Chinese. In fact, the disease seems to have been pre-colonial. But even by the standards of the century Kim Lee's treatment appears unusual. He was unfortunate enough to live in a time when anti-Chinese feeling was on the rise. Mainly due to the fact that Chinese were moving away from the goldfields and into the cities where they were more visible.

A common stereotype was that Chinese were natural carriers of disease. Perhaps this preconditioning made doctors leap to the conclusion of leprosy. Ironically, it now seems Kim Lee may not have suffered from leprosy at all. An examination of records suggests symptoms more consistent with tuberculosis or an auto-immune disease. In any event, Kim Lee appears to be the only person to have been interred on Mokopuna. If you can imagine the desolation you can assume his passing came as a relief.

Gwynne Nicol, in Ann Paterson's Stories of York Bat (1983) notes the last remnants of Kim Lee's life were recorded by Elsdon Best when he visited the site a few years later. There were remains of some furniture made of packing cases and a mug on a shelf in the cave.

Source: City Voice, date unnoted

By Kirsten Wong

Helen Wong

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Anne Sherman

Coats of Arms and Heraldry in Britain

It is the run up to Christmas and thoughts turn to the special gift we can give to friends and family, the catalogues and websites selling personalised gifts nearly always included something along the lines of history of surnames or heraldry merchandise. These companies would have you believe that everyone with the same surnames descends from the same wealthy family or have an entitlement to the family Coat of Arms. Sadly this is all a myth that many would like to believe in, but few have the right family connections.

As a case in point I have been approached by potential clients who have wanted me to prove the link between their family tree and a crest or wealthy family. Sadly I had to let them all down. It is therefore time to look at these myths and the reality.

To begin with let me explain that a Crest, contrary to popular belief, is not the same as the Coat of Arms, but it is simply one small part that sits on top of helmet or helm. The image below shows a Sea Lion as the Crest.

Coats of Arms have NEVER belonged to a family or name, they belong to individuals. In reality people with the same surname (including uncles, cousins, brothers, or others who are not necessarily related) can have a completely different Coat of Arms. Any company which suggests that one Coat of Arms belongs to everyone with that surname is, quite frankly, wilfully misleading you simply so you will buy it. In Scotland it is illegal to display a Coat of Arms that is not yours.

A Coat of Arms must be unique as it was a form of identification, and is inherited by the original owner’s legitimate heirs (usually the eldest surviving son). Other sons can use a similar Coat of Arms as their father but with additions (Cadency) to ensure that it identifies the correct person. Only the heir of the original holder will have the unchanged Coat of Arms once the owner has died.

Not everyone was (or is even today) entitled to a Coat of Arms. The Monarch of Britain was the only person who could grant a right to bear arms (and therefore have a Coat of Arms designed for them). This role has now been given to the College of Arms on behalf of the Monarch. The right to bear arms was seen as a recognition of rank or status, and the person it was conferred upon had the status of a Gentleman or higher and the wealth that such status would require. It is, of course, quite feasible that you are related to someone who was entitled to a Coat of Arms, but that does not mean that you are also entitled to it. Systematic and proper research with undoubted proof may connect you to an illustrious ancestral line. Sadly some researchers and even those professing to be professional researchers may make biased assumptions in order to link a particular family line to one with the right to a Coat of Arms, which is why you should engage someone who is trained, or works, within the area of Heraldic research.

Genealogy has long been an important part of the Heraldic process and there are several quite old books that have been written detailing the family history of the Peerage. An internet search for peerage books is an easy way to find these. This link may help you.

Even these books cannot be taken at face value as some of them have since been found to be unreliable. In 1901 genealogist J. H. Round stated in the preface of his book ‘Studies in Peerage and Family History’ that some older genealogy consisted of invented pedigrees or histories repeated without question. Sadly this is still a problem today.

So next time you see a personalised gift offering you your own Coat Of Arms, don’t be fooled! If you think your family may have had entitlement of a Coat of Arms in the past, contact a professional genealogy researcher with experience/qualifications in heraldry or the College of Arms in London who can do the research for you.

Anne Sherman

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More Famous New Zealanders You have Probably Never Heard Of

Sydney Alfred Smith (1883-1969)

One of the leaders of forensic science and pathology during the 20^th Century was born in Roxburgh, Otago in 1883. Sydney Alfred SMITH was the son of James Jackson Smith, a goldminer and later drayman for the borough council and Mary Elizabeth KINASTON née WILKINSON.

After schooling at Roxburgh, Sydney was apprenticed to a local chemist.^[1] He passed the Pharmacy Board’s examinations while working at the Dunedin Friendly Societies Dispensary. While dispenser at the Wellington Public Hospital, he studied part time at Victoria University College. From here he began his studies at the University of Edinburgh, supporting himself with part-time tutoring.

Sydney graduated Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MB, B.Ch) in 1912, Diploma of Public Health of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgery, Edinburgh and Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in 1913 and Doctor of Medicine (MD) in 1914. In 1914 he also won the Gunning Prize in Forensic Medicine from the University of Edinburgh.

By September 1914, Sydney was in Wellington, giving notice that he was applying to have his name placed on the medical register for the Dominion of New Zealand.^[2] He became district health officer for Dunedin and in July 1915 was attached to the Trentham military camp at Upper Hutt to oversee health improvements. He was given the honorary rank of Captain and later Major.

In March 1916 New Zealand was suffering from an Infant Paralysis (polio/poliomyelitis) epidemic and as district health officer Sydney warned parents of allowing “children under the age of fourteen years to frequent places of public assemblage or entertainment.”^[3] He made visits all over New Zealand checking on conditions and oversaw the closing of schools etc. The epidemic resulted in 125 known deaths, most of them children and teenagers, with many more being infected.

In January 1917, Sydney was appointed as medico legal expert to the Egyptian Government and lecturer on medical jurisprudence. This involved scientific and medical knowledge to legal problems, such as inquests. One of Sydney’s most important cases in Egypt was the murder of Major-General Sir Lee Oliver Fitzmaurice Stack, Governor-General of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. On the 19 November 1924 Stack was assassinated while driving through Cairo. The pistols and bullets used were identified by forensic science.

In 1928 Sydney was appointed Regius Professor of Forensic Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He served as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine from 1931-1953 and in 1954, was elected Rector. In 1935 he was one of the forensic experts who used forensic anthropology to superimpose a photograph over the X-ray of a victim's skull. His books, Forensic Medicine: A Textbook For Students And Practitioners and his autobiography Mostly Murder are still referred to today.

He was knighted in 1949 and retired in 1953. Sydney Alfred Smith died on the 8 May 1969 in Edinburgh, Scotland, married with two children.

1 Otago Daily Times, Issue 22637, 31 July 1935 p4

2 Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2261, 22 September 1914 p1

3 Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2721, 16 March 1916 p7

Christine Clement

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Jan’s Jottings

An Interesting website

Here is something I have never heard about!!! Have a look and be amazed. Nothing we can use straight away - have not found any names - but interesting background facts and figures.

https://www3.stats.govt.nz/Historic_Publications/1886-census/Results-of-Census-1886/1886-results-census.html#d50e4942

Jan Gow

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Wairarapa Wanderings

Tancred

TWIZELL…. I have often wondered how the NZ area of Twizel obtained its name. Maybe it is from Lady Jane TANCRED who was married to Sir Thomas TANCRED.

If one looked up the family estate of Prideaux John SELBY, the father of Lady Jane, in Alnwick. Northumberland you will find that it was called TWIZELL,

Prideaux had three daughters, one of which was Jane who married Sir Thomas TANCRED and came out to New Zealand. They lived down in the South Island then moved to Hawkes Bay, where Sir Thomas died and buried at the Napier Old Cemetery. Lady Jane is in a grave next to him.

Prideaux is also the name of a son for Thomas and Jane. Selby is another son’s name.

I have met extended family members of the Tancred family over the years. Ted and Irene Somerville (this name is from Dinder, Somerset) have since died, but lived near Porirua, Wellington. I used to go down to talk about the SOMERVILLE/TANCRED families. When I was due to visit my homeland back in 2004, Ted suggested that stay with the Tancred’s at Aldborough saying “you will be most welcomed there”. I was too, thanks James! I was shown around Sir Henry Tancred’s estate which had the remains of a Roman town. “Awesome” is all I can say about my private showing. I was also showed Fountains Abbey which is close by.

But, to get back to Prideaux SELBY, he was an orthinologist, botanist and natural history artist.

Henry Tancred, brother to Thomas, was the first Chancellor of the University of New Zealand, the first elected Fellow of Christ’s College, and endowed annual prizes for History and Literature there. The Tancred Prize at Christchurch College was donated by wife of Henry when she gave £700 in his memory after he died in 1884. He was buried in Christchurch and his headstone needs some TLC.

He was born on the Isle of Wight, Hampshire in 1816, and educated at Rugby School, Warwickshire, (where Rugby was founded). Henry had served in the Austrian Army and suffered a fall from a horse suffering a severe facial injury, which gave him a speech problem for the rest of his life. Because of this his brother often assisted him with speeches. Henry emigrated to New Zealand, aboard the ship Barbara Gordon, in 1850 to the South Island. He was a member of the Legislative Assembly. In 1857 he married Georgenna Janet Grace RICHMOND (born Glamorgan, Wales 1831) and had no issue. After Henry died, she went over to England and died in London. 1913.

The Tancred estate is in Aldborough. Yorkshire, photographs on google. Worth viewing!

Carterton had one of the sons of Sir Thomas and Lady Jane, Prideaux, living in Francis Line, Clareville. He had the large house in Francis Line which later became Hikurangi Maori Boys School. Other sons were in the area, because, at Clareville Cemetery, we have one of the daughters in law buried there, Emily De Courcy TANCRED who died 1907.

Adele Pentony-Graham

12 Neich’s Lane

Clareville 5713

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Guest Contributors

Ken Morris

No Maori Allowed

- New Zealand’s Forgotten History of Racial Segregation. Robert E Bartholomew

ISBN 978-0-473-48886-4 Published 2020 bartholomewpublishing@gmail.com

I first saw reference to this book in a posting by Seonaid Lewis of Auckland Library in the newzealand@groups.io genealogy list and it was for a Heritage Talk in July 2020. The title & blurb piqued my interest with reference to “untold & forgotten history”, to racial segregation in Pukekohe and white-Maori relations in general. I was born 1941 and lived in Tauranga until 1959, after which I studied and worked in Auckland till 1979. In Tauranga I grew up with Maoris, in Auckland I worked with & played rugby with Maoris and lived in Pukekohe in the late 60’s. On this basis I was interested to read, review and comment on the veracity of some of the authors observations, especially in that it’s not “untold & forgotten history”.

I found the book a confronting read, not that I was not aware of segregation and that all was and isn’t all hunky-dory with the residents of Aotearoa but that the author was hell bent on justifying his position of highlighting the worst situations, with little or no balance of some good situations. Many points are laboured and repetitious especially about where people could sit at the Pukekohe cinema and Maoris drinking in pubs.

There are extensive research references with information & excerpts included in the book, these references cover the period of colonial settlement thru the present and as such show some change in bias and social attitude over generational time. The references cover learned studies, governmental/local attitudes & efforts as well as some interviews with those that were part of the segregation that occurred in Pukekohe (& would have been replicated in other parts of the country). A significant number of references are from newspapers both local and national. Most of these newspaper references supported the authors reason for his book, with little or no attempt to include any balance, ie it couldn’t all be bad. Considering today’s newspapers ownership, editorial and reporter bias together with ‘false news” I’m sure that also occurred in days gone by.

Looking back on my school days in Tauranga ~ 1945/6 till 1959, I must admit there were no Maoris at the Tauranga Primary School, there were rural primary schools and I can remember one in particular on Matakana Is where we visited and were taken ashore from the ferry a few at a time on horseback ridden by the Maori school kids we were visiting for the day. Starting secondary school in 1955, it was co-ed and for all students of, secondary school age, most classes were male or female and there was no segregation. In 1957 our Head Boy Prefect Cliff Mathews a Maori was awarded an American Field Service Scholarship and spent a year in the USA. The winter sports season saw up to 10 bus loads of teams visiting other colleges in the Bay of Plenty and Waikato. As a students and sportsman I mixed with whoever I wanted to, there were as many European as Maori who I chose not to mix with, the decision based on mutual interests and not on race. Contrary to all of the Authors references to Maoris being called ‘niggers’, it’s not a term I remember being used, ‘bloody Maori’ might have been a bit more common but so was ‘bloody !!!!!!!!’ being a common Kiwi expression. If one of our Maori farming neighbours called on the party line phone, he’d say “Is that you Morris? It’s Mr Wihapi here”

After college I moved to Auckland to study civil engineering and work for a contractor based in Otahuhu, I lived in Papatoetoe and Pukekohe and our work area took in all of South Auckland including Pukekohe. Our workforce was pakeha and Maori and they worked and were paid as equals. The book recalls a 1961 article published in the New York Times where a European resident was reported “They’re a pretty good sort of bunch. They like to drive tractors and bulldozers – gives them a chance to show off. Some however are slovenly and slipshod. I certainly wouldn’t want my daughter to marry a Maori”, again the author showing a bias, as in some occupations they were superior to Europeans.

I played rugby for College Rifles from 1961-65 (the rugby club was formed in 1897 from members of a volunteer rifle brigade formed to serve the colony). In that time ~ 50% of the team were Maoris chosen on merit and the coaches scrutiny and not necessarily as in a 1950 article in Gisborne Herald where “the Maori is seldom a taught rugby player. Usually his ability is instinctive… this is why his game is so brilliant” – but I guess it’s a sort of back hand compliment. On away trips out of town accommodation was not a problem, and there were a number of successful mixed marriages, if that is a politically correct term.

In the book there are a number of references to African-Americans, black South Africans, and the Australian Aborigines, but no reference to the North American Indians of the authors place of birth. The African Americans are not the indigenous race. I realise the book is about racial segregation in NZ but would have thought some comment/comparison as to how the invaders/colonists of North America settled with the locals would be incisive.

The author states “My intention is not to vilify the descendants of those that took part in these events ……” but neither does he try to give some balance to what happened in Pukekohe and other places.

It’s a book all Kiwis should be aware of, not a must read for many, I’m pleased I have read it, it’s raised many memories, not all good, but most better than some of what has been portrayed.

Whilst far from perfect, NZ is better than some nations where the colonist (invader if you must) have remained in power, and it has a better working relationship with the original people.

Ken Morris

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Geoff Mentzer

Shooting Star: A Biography of a Bicycle

EPILOGUE

In July 1910, Fred ADAMS bought two adjoining lots on Hackthorne Road in Cashmere, which was then a village that overlooked Christchurch. No mortgage was registered and by October 1911 he, both sisters and at least two brothers were living on the other side of Hackthorne, presumably renting. His hand by supervision if not directly came to be seen on his plot. The one acre 25 perches (4682 sq m) commanded "a magnificent view, embracing the whole horizon from Heathcote in the north-east to the Southern Alps in the south-west."¹ And over the following three years the property was fenced; ringed by a shelter-belt of pines; a house area levelled and paths laid out that included a driveway; an orchard area set out and enclosed by a macrocarpa hedge; a lawn established along with rock terraces; garden plots planted with a profusion of flowers and flowering shrubs; and rock walls built that were covered with roses and creepers.

Three years later, however, the section was put on the market as is without buildings, and although subsequently subdivided, it finally sold several years after that as one piece.

Fred had outlaid considerable time, effort and expense on this entire development, and the question remains, Why did he abandon the project?

Watty's three sons arrived unaccompanied in Wellington in January 1911, their passages paid by Aunt Mary. They made their way to Christchurch where unfortunately, rather sadly, they were placed with three separate caregivers in different towns. In October 1916 when the two older boys enlisted together to serve in the War, both stated their parents as deceased. Whether or not this was true of their mother or simply guesswork is unknown. What is true, is that as with so many other men, both were too young to serve. The cost of that lie was the life of the younger, shot on the frontline in Belgium.

On April 8 1911, Nicky OATES' daughter Ellen 'Nellie' Louisa fell from a moving train north of Otaki, and was instantly killed. She'd been travelling north from Wellington with her mother and following a nervous breakdown, had been under medical care for two or three years. Described later as being her usual self – melancholic and depressed – she had fallen unseen from the platform between two carriages. At the inquest, Railways personnel testified that it was impossible to fall from the platform by accident.²

In 1912, Adams Ltd was described as the largest motor, motorcycle and bicycle business in the Dominion, and the only one of its kind in Australasia.³

In July 1913, Fred bought a sea-front residence at Clifton Bay, Sumner. On the market for at least five months, the one rood 16 perch (1417 sq m) property was being sacrificed – according to the agent – at the asking price of £1250 ($206, 252 in 2019.) The rear portion of the two-storied twelve room dwelling – a boarding house known as Te Tahuna – was said to have been a remnant of the original building, Day's Hotel, built in the late 1850s. Again, no mortgage was required.

Although not in line of sight, the property was perhaps only two kilometres from where sister Agnes had spent her last days, where she'd drowned. It's easy to imagine some emotional draw for Fred and family to shift from inland Cashmere to seaside Clifton.

Demolition of Te Tahuna had been underway by June 1914, and the following year, a kitset house from England was erected on the site. This house, destroyed by arson in 2016, retains his influence in the large garden, its extant Palms, Pohutokawa and Puriri, Oak and Norfolk Island Pine. At the house rear had been his photography studio, a hobby along with shooting, angling and golf. Fred too belonged to the Canterbury Automobile Association, at one time serving on the Council. It is ironic that his first car – the reliable and strong red Star – vanished with time, while Nick's 1899 Benz – replete with rattle, shudder and breakage – was still alive and running in Christchurch in 1935.

After fifteen years of moving house, Fred lived out his years at Clifton Bay with his two sisters and brother William. He died there in 1929, leaving an estate valued at £103,719 1s 5p ($10,457,228 in 2019.)

Henry Thomas (Harry) Adams had married in Christchurch in 1911, the first of the siblings to do so. Brothers Charles and Reginald would marry in consecutive months in 1915 and they were the last of the family to do so. And from that entire Adams generation, married or otherwise, there was no known issue; that entire Pacific conjunction of the Adams and Neilson families was destined to vanish. Was there some defect that rendered them childless? Were they warned to never children?

Buried in the Adams DNA was a scrambled conflicting instruction, that of height, which of the siblings varied from above average to deeply truncated. Gossip extant has them as dwarfs, physically deformed, mentally handicapped, two of them never appearing in public, unable to care for themselves, sent to hide in a hillside cave at the rear of the Clifton Bay house whenever visitors called.⁴

While Fred jnr and youngest brother Reginald were above average height, Harry, George and one sister at the least were all remarkably short. But any lack of familial height was more than matched by their stature, their standing in the community, albeit in the background. They are recorded as being civic minded, generous and loyal towards and appreciative of Company and personal employees. It's rather telling that the primary beneficiaries of their largesse were various branches of the New Zealand Crippled Children's Society, children's homes and orphanages, and the Salvation Army.

The final advertisements found for Star bicycles at Adams Ltd appeared firstly in March 1919, for newly-arrived Stars, made in Canada. The second, in December, was for English-built ladies' and men's Stars. Perhaps Adams Ltd continued to sell new Stars, perhaps not. What is fact is that Adams Ltd by then was nation-wide, one of New Zealand's largest motor vehicle dealers. And bicycles if they figured at all were a tiny portion of Company proceedings.

This concludes extracts from "Shooting Star: A Biography of a Bicycle." The complete work is available at:

http://ketechristchurch.peoplesnetworknz.info/site/documents/show/262-shooting-star-a-biography-of-a-bicycle

Geoff Mentzer

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Graeme Jury

Organizing Digital Files

This is my system for organizing my files based on an ahnentafel series to keep my families in order. I am the base person with an ahnentafel number of 1 so all my descendants will file below me in my directory and my direct line ancestors will have a directory above mine. The reasoning is that the whole purpose of my data is to record my direct family lines and any collateral members are to support and enhance this and should be accommodated within my primary system. At first look the system seems pretty complicated but it has the advantage that it is with ease, both browsable and searchable. Naturally any system does not necessarily fit everyone’s style but it is worth studying it carefully and extracting anything that fits how you like to do things or maybe you are at the point where you realize that you have “gotta get a system” so how do I go about it?

The storing of your data

I have a directory on my computer HDD named “Media” in which I store all my genealogical data of a permanent nature which includes photos, scans, notes, documents – anything which I would want to include in my family tree information. I use Gramps as my family tree software and its database does not reside in this directory but in another on the same level named Gramps.

Data risk management

This is a topic on its own so is only briefly covered but of utmost importance you must back up your data in more than one place. Consider a hard drive connected via a USB port to your computer where you faithfully back up your data after every session or significant work on your data. This is not safe. If your computer HDD fails your only copy exists on the USB HDD and is not backed up anymore. I have seen attempts to restore onto another machine from the backup drive go wrong with total data loss of everything. You need at least two backups. In my own case I backup to a local USB HDD, a NAS server on my local LAN and a cloud backup. A total of 3 backups. I only do work on my database in my Media directory and never directly in the backup sites which are only ever updated from the original Media directory.

Level one directories within the Media directory:

These directories are arranged to hold the biological parents of succeeding generations and thus are arranged in pairs. For myself (Graeme Victor Jury b1942) I am ahnentafel number 1 and am not arranged as a pair. The naming is as follows:

[num1] [+] [num2] [_] [Lastname,Firstname1] [+] [Lastname,Firstname2]

Where:

num1 is Lastname,Firstname ’s ahnentafel number
num2 is Lastname,Firstname2’s ahnentafel number
The ahnentafel numbers are separated by a minus (-)
Lastname,Firstname1 is the male name of the parents
Lastname,Firstname2 is the female name of the parents
The names are separated from the ahnentafel numbers by an underscore
The names are joined by a plus

For my parents:

002+003_Jury,Ray+Sanson,Phyllis

and in the case of my grandparents:

004-005_Jury,Percy+Wood,Rosalind

006-007_Sanson,Ernest+Scott,Lillian

and paternal Gt grandparents:

008-009_Jury,Richard+Grylls,Eliza

010-011_Wood,Paul+Hart,Elizabeth

Level two directories:

These directories are used to organize the information pertaining to either of the parents in the above directory and will hold information in subdirectories like:

Other marriages/partnerships of either parent
Children of both or either parents with one directory per child but not the child who is my direct ancestor as they will have a level 1 ahnentafel numbered directory of their own.
and a series of document files and photographs like census, newspaper clippings, obituaries, and family photos etc. These probably don’t need to be in separate directories as they will be named systematically and chronologically to identify them and the Gramps database can be used to identify them as well but with care in the naming they should be able to be found with a few clicks.
Children of children go in yet another level of directory i.e. level three and so on.

The file naming convention

This is based on a system used by Calvin Knight http://calvingenealogy.com/filename-convention/

and I have modified it to suit my style. The file names need to be of a format that they can be easily searched for whether embedded in a directory structure or part of a huge flat file system. The arrangement of firstname,lastname(birthdate) helps identify individuals where families named successive generations of people with the same name or when a child died in infancy the next same gender child was given their name which is even more confusing.

The naming Convention is built up from descriptive elements to identify the person, place or data contained in the file.
For people I use the naming convention of [Lastname] [,] [{Firstname}] [(YYYY)] with no spaces between words. YYYY is the birth year filled with (0000) if unknown and the brackets must be there as this is used for sorting people by year.
As in standard Linux naming format I am using square brackets [] to indicate required portions of the file name and curly braces {} to indicate optional portions. (options may also be within [] brackets.)

1. {_} Optional underscore prefix if the file is not associated with a person, also “_Unknown” can be used when I don’t yet know the person, place, or thing.

2. [surname / birth name / place / object]

3. {first name}

4. {abt} {bef} [aft} [(YYYY)] The year of the person’s birth in brackets with 0000 used if unknown. The date can be prefixed with about, before, after
NOTE: It is possible that there may be 2 dates in a file name as in a person name and census date so to allow sorting on the census dates etc. the second date is enclosed in double brackets ((1987)) for example.

5. [999] A sequence number, even if there is only one, I’ll always use 001. This is NOT a version number. For photos, I’ll use 3 digits. For a specific document, I’ll use 2 digits (see examples below).

6. {-image type code} These one-character image type codes (see below) will always be preceded by a dash character. The absence of this code would indicate that the image is the unaltered original. Multiple codes can be used, and as an example “-wc” would be an image that has been re-sized for the web but it is also a cropped portion of the original image.

7. {version number} Only when needed and I chose not to zero fill the number. For example, “-w1” indicates that this is the 2nd version of the file that has been re-sized for the web. There would be another file with “-w” which is the original version.

Examples of image type codes (item 6 above):

· -e = Edited or retouched, changes were made to the original. This is probably still a full resolution image and may still be in the .tiff or .png format if scanned.

· -v = Converted from a bit mapped file to a compressed file

· -c = Cropped image, or a zoomed in portion of a document

· -w = Web, re-sized for placing on a web page or sending in an email

· -t = Thumbnail image

· -n = Notations added, or maybe a circle, a box, names, an arrow, etc.

· -r = Reverse side of the document/photo

New Zealand Census prefix with NZER (New Zealand, Electoral, Rolls) followed by date and place information. Census images will always be filed under the most senior family member with an ahnentafel numbered directory even though it may contain children who are direct line and have an ahnentafel numbered directory of their own or siblings who may have remarried a spouse.

· [LastName] {,FirstName} [_NZER] [_Place] {_Place} {_Place} [99].filext

There are some special photograph and document names due to their frequent use

· Birth Certificate Cert-b

· Death Certificate Cert-d

· Marriage Certificate Cert-m

· Gravesite photos Grave000 (where 000 represents the photo number)

· General Photos Photo000 (Usually of people and/or places)

Example File Names:

· Jury,Graeme(1942)Photo001.tiff (unaltered original image, full resolution as it was scanned)

· Jury,Graeme(1942)Photo001-v.jpg (converted to a compressed file

· Jury,Graeme(1942)Photo001-vw.jpg (resized for the web)

· Jury,Graeme(1942)Photo001-ve.jpg (edited)

· Jury,Graeme(1942)Photo001-vt.jpg (thumbnail)

· Jury,(1933)Photo001-vc.jpg (cropped with the person’s first name not known)

· Jury,Family_abt(1872)Photo001-vn.jpg (notations/highlights/boxes/circles/arrows)

· Jury,Unknown(0000)Photo002-wcn.jpg (re-sized to fit web page, cropped & notated)

· Jury,Graeme(1942)Cert-b.png

· Jury,Graeme+Webby,Ngaire((1980))Cert-m.png

· Jury,NZER_Taranaki_New Plymouth((1938))01.jpg (Census of a number of Jury family members in the 1938 census at New Plymouth)

· Jury,Ray_NZER_Hawke's Bay_Hastings((1949))01.jpg (Single person census)

· Hall,Mark(1881)USCensus((1930))01-c.jpg (This is the zoomed in portion of the 1930 US Census page. Other family members are in this image but I’m listing just the father for the file name.

Photographs:

Will largely come from two main sources viz. Digital camera shots or more usually scans of old family photographs which you may do yourself or download from the web. In the case of digital camera photos they will almost certainly hold meta-data like date taken and exposure details but scans will probably have nothing so it is important to name them so some idea of the period in which they were taken is added and information about the people and places are also captured.

Graeme Jury

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An Invitation to Contribute:

I have a number of people that contribute occasional articles. These appear irregularly if and when the authors send them to me. I use them to bulk up each month's newsletter. The more we have the more "rests "I can give my much-appreciated regular columnists.

This is a way that a person can get some of their writing published. Of course, we are all writing up our research results, aren't we? I have always said that every genealogist is an expert in some small piece of history, resources or research methods.

We circulate this newsletter to about 7,000 subscribers worldwide but is read by many more as it is passed on to other readers and LDS research centres. Every month I get feedback on my poor attempts at writing and I have now made many "new friends", albeit digital ones. In a few months I hope to meet a few when I waddle along to a few conferences and meetings in England and Scotland. I have even had a few very helpful assistances in my research.

Why don't you contribute an article?

My basic requirements:

1) The column must be in English

2) The column should be no longer than about 1,200 words

3) The article should be emailed to me in a Word document format

4) The subject should be genealogical or historical in nature

Do not be afraid about your "perceived" bad English. The article will be edited, in a friendly manner, by me and then Robert. Then all columnists and a few valuable proof-readers get to read the newsletter before it is emailed out. You’ll be paid $0 for your article, which is on the same scale that Robert and I pay ourselves for editing and publishing the newsletter.

From our Libraries and Museums

We are offering a forum to our libraries and museums to publicise their events, and to contribute articles to this newsletter that may be of interest to our readers. Auckland Libraries makes good use of this free service, let’s see if other libraries and museums take up this offer.

For readers of this newsletter: please bring this to the attention of your local libraries etc, and encourage them to participate.

Auckland Libraries

Breaking news!

Remote access to Ancestry is available to Auckland Libraries customers until the 31 December. We will also be checking with Findmypast

If you aren’t in Auckland, check with your library - if your library subscribes to Ancestry via ProQuest, then you will probably have the same good news too!

People just need to log into their library account and access the library edition via their library website.

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February to June 2021
Are you interested in family and local history; the stories of Aotearoa New Zealand, the Pacific, and beyond?

Then why not come along to one of our fortnightly HeritageTalks - Waha pū-taonga and hear more about both our personal and our shared heritage?

These talks are given by experts in their field and can provide valuable insight into our histories and our cultures.

When: Wednesdays, February to November, 12pm - 1pm unless otherwise stated
Where: Whare Wānanga, Level 2, Central City Library, Lorne St, Auckland.
Also online via Zoom (when speaker permits)
Cost: Free
Booking: All welcome. Booking recommended.

To ensure your place, please contact Research Central on 09 890 2412, or book online www.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz

These events have been submitted to our web team and should be showing on our website shortly

Go to www.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz and select events

February

Restoring the mana of a manuscript: Tamihana Te Rauparaha’s life of Te Rauparaha with Ross Calman

Wednesday 3 February 12pm – 1pm

In the late 1860s Te Rauparaha’s son Tamihana wrote an account of his father’s life: a rich source of Ngāti Toa history, language and culture, including the tumultuous history of the 1820s and 1830s. Tamihana’s account has now been published for the first time in a parallel Māori/English edition as He Pukapuka Tātaku i ngā Mahi a Te Rauparaha Nui / A Record of the Life of the Great Te Rauparaha (Auckland University Press, November 2020). Translator and editor Ross Calman discusses the manuscript and the challenges he faced interpreting it for a modern audience.

Speaker biography:

Ross Calman (Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Raukawa-ki-te-tonga, Ngāi Tahu) is a Wellington-based writer, editor and translator, and a descendant of Te Rauparaha. His other works include Te Tiriti o Waitangi/The Treaty of Waitangi (with Mark Derby and Toby Morris), The New Zealand Wars, The Reed Book of Māori Mythology (with A. W. Reed) and The Essential Māori Dictionary (with Margaret Sinclair).

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Moana Currents: Early Pacific migrants to Auckland City with Dr Andrea Low and Emily Parr

Wednesday 24 February 12pm – 1pm

The Kronfeld and Greig families were calabash cousins through their matriarchs Florence Greig and Louisa Kronfeld. Both women were gafa to Samoa; the island of Lotofaga for Louisa and Fasitoʻotai for Florence. Their travels eventually brought them in 1890 and 1907 respectively to Aotearoa New Zealand, where they settled and continued to raise their families, maintained links to the families they had left and nurtured new relationships. Andrea Low, great granddaughter of Florence, and Emily Parr, great great-granddaughter of Louisa, will share stories and images of these early Moana migrants who made their homes here.

Speakers’ biographies:

Emily Parr (Ngāi Te Rangi, Moana, Pākehā) is an artist living in Tāmaki Makaurau. Weaving stories with moving-image, her practice explores relationships between people, political frameworks, whenua and moana. Her recent Master's research on settler-indigenous relationships of Te Moananui a Kiwa traverses oceans and centuries, seeking stories in archives and waters on haerenga to ancestral homelands.

Dr Andrea Low (Samoa, Hawaiʻi, Fiji, Tongareva, Scotland) is a curator and artist in Tāmaki Makaurau and is a multi-disciplinary researcher who brings together archival studies, ethnomusicology, Moana/Oceania/Pacific history, photography, biography and de|colonial perspectives.

WEEKEND HERITAGE WALK

Symonds Street Cemetery Walk with David Verran

Saturday 27 February 10am

Taking in both Grafton and Newton Gullies, Symonds Street Cemetery is Auckland’s oldest, dating from 1842. Explore the past through a two hour guided walk by David Verran, local historian, visit the graves of some of Auckland's founding families and learn about the many nineteenth century communities represented in the burial grounds, including Catholic, Anglican, Jewish, Presbyterian, Methodist and Māori.

Numbers strictly limited please book via library website Auckland Libraries: Kia ora

Next Auckland Family History Expo

Auckland Family History Expo committee has set the date for the next Auckland Family History Expo

Friday 13 August to Sunday 15 August 2021

Suggestions for speakers welcome.

If the Covid situation continues our international speakers will speak virtually as they did this year.

Nga mihi | Kind regards

SEONAID

Seonaid (Shona) Lewis RLIANZA | Family History Librarian

Central Auckland Research Centre, Central City Library

Heritage and Research

Auckland Libraries - Nga Whare Matauranga o Tamaki Makarau

Ph 09 890 2411| Extn (46) 2411 | Fax 09 307 7741

Auckland Libraries, Level 2, Central City Library, 44 - 46 Lorne Street, Auckland

Visit our website: www.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz

@Kintalk on Twitter / Auckland Research Centre on Facebook

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Group News

Whangarei Family History Computer Group

Contacts:

Wayne: (09) 437 2881 wayne@bydand.co.nz

Pat: (09) 437 0692 whangareifamilyhistorygroup@gmail.com

Venues

Thursday evening venue is 6 Augusta Place, Whau Valley. Call Wayne or Pat or;

email Whangareifamilyhistorygroup@gmail.com, if you need directions.

Saturday meetings are held in the SeniorNet rooms in James Street.

The rooms are upstairs in the Arcade leading to Orr’s Pharmacy and Tiffany’s Café, Start time 9.30 till finished before 1.30pm.

Waikanae Family History Group

Contacts: Email: wfhg2012@gmail.com

Venue: Meets every 4^th Thursday morning at the Waikanae Chartered Club, 8 Elizabeth Street Waikanae, just over the Railway Crossing from 9.30am to 12 -12.30pm, every month from January to November.

Research days: at the Waikanae Public Library, 10am to 12 noon on second Wednesday of each month.

Waitara Districts History & Families Research Group

The contact details of this group are:

Waitara Districts History & Families Research Group

Rose Cottage 33 Memorial Place

WAITARA 4320

Tel: 06 – 754 – 3212

waitarahistory.genealogy@xtra.co.nz

President:- Rona Hooson

Vice President:- Doree Smith

Secretary:- Trish Smart

Treasurer:- Marilyn O’Lander

office:-067543212

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News and Views

Various Articles Worth Reading

From the Editor: Because of space restrictions and copyright issues I cannot put the complete articles in this newsletter so here are some URLs that are worth looking at:

How to make the most of FREE online family history records from The National Archives

https://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/tutorials/how-to-make-the-most-of-free-online-family-history-records-from-the-national-archives/?fbclid=IwAR1Cnxhu9k3_2xch_Kqwgh05wn0hPGKdK1u1V0IK2lGDwqMf5rEousugwWM

The uncommonly good Commons

by Judy G. Russell | Nov 9, 2020

The Commons on Flickr

An announcement that crossed The Legal Genealogist‘s desk a short while ago brought to mind an uncommonly good resource for genealogists and historical researchers of all stripes.

It’s called, simply, The Commons.

And its goal, it says, is “to share hidden treasures from the world’s public photography archives.”1 Including a whole lot of genealogically valuable images and documents.

It’s on the website Flickr.com, a site many photographers and individuals use to post their own images. And it began there more than a decade ago:

The Commons was launched on January 16 2008, when we released our pilot project in partnership with The Library of Congress. Both Flickr and the Library were overwhelmed by the positive response to the project! Thank you!

The program has two main objectives:

1. To increase access to publicly-held photography collections, and
2. To provide a way for the general public to contribute information and knowledge. (Then watch what happens when they do!)2

The specific announcement that brought this to mind came from the British Library in October:

Today we release 18,000 digital images of historic maps, views and texts from the Topographical Collection of King George III into the public domain.

The collection has been digitised as part of a seven-year project to catalogue, conserve and digitise the collection which was presented to the Nation in 1823 by King George IV. This is the first of two planned image releases.

The images are made available on the image sharing site Flickr, which links to fully searchable catalogue records on Explore the British Library.3

Now — to a genealogist — there’s not a whole lot better than 18,000 maps and related items being released into the public domain. That means they’re free for us to use, without restriction and without concern of any kind for copyright.4

But then you look at what else is available on The Commons and — yeah, there really is more and better.

Let’s start with just some of the participating institutions: the Library of Congress; the British Library; the Smithsonian Institution; the State Library of New South Wales, Australia; The Library of Virginia; the National Library of New Zealand; the New York Public Library; the Nationaal Archief of the Netherlands; State Library and Archives of Florida; the National Galleries of Scotland; The U.S. National Archives; The National Archives UK; Texas State Archives; Public Record Office of Northern Ireland… I could go on and on. In fact, on my computer monitor, it takes seven full screens to list the participating institutions from Sweden, Spain, Brazil, Armenia and so so many more.5

Go on from there to the goodies.

Want to see what life was like in, oh, say, ~~Finland~~ Norway? Take a look at the collection from the Nasjonalbiblioteket, the National Library of ~~Finland~~ Norway. (For Finland, try the Yle Archives – Yle Elävä arkisto, the archives of Finnish Broadcasting, or the collection of art of Finnish artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela in the collection of the Gallen-Kallela Museum. And h/t to reader Marilyn Dahneke who spotted the typo…) In Estonia? Try the collection from the National Archives of Estonia. Australia? Try the collection from the National Library of Australia.

Somebody in your family might be included in the image collection from the Imperial War Museum in the United Kingdom? Check out the IWM collection. Here in the United States, well, I could spend hours in the historical photos in the George Eastman Museum collection. Roots in Montreal? Try the collection of the Musée McCord Museum.

And that’s just the tiniest taste of what’s there.

Not to mention 18,000 way cool maps and related items from the British Library.

Check it out.

The Commons. It’s uncommonly good.

Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “The uncommonly good Commons,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 9 Nov 2020).

SOURCES

1. “The Commons: Welcome,” Flickr.com (https://www.flickr.com/ : accessed 9 Nov 2020).

2. Ibid.

3. “The K.Top: 18,000 digitised maps and views released,” British Library Maps and views blog, posted 13 Oct 2020 (https://blogs.bl.uk/ : accessed 9 Nov 2020). Okay, so I’m a little late writing about this. We in the United States have been a little distracted lately…

4. See “Definitions: Where is the public domain?,” U.S. Copyright Office (https://www.copyright.gov/ : accessed 9 Nov 2020).

5. See “Participating Institutions, The Commons,” Flickr.com (https://www.flickr.com/ : accessed 9 Nov 2020).

https://www.legalgenealogist.com/2020/11/09/the-uncommonly-good-commons/

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Chasing the name Harris

Hi. Did you receive my email to let you know that I think your newsletter is a great help to keep me motivated and keep me searching for my ancestors.

I have mainly concentrated on my Grandfather (William Henry HARRIS) and great grandfather and (James Mason HARRIS), an army officer, for 30 plus years. And because I have so little information I am still unsuccessful in finding them in the UK. I have followed my Grandfather W H H around his various teaching positions in NZ, it is their early life I continue to draw a blank.

Keep up your good work in your very readable newsletter,Kindest

Regards,

Tui Scott

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