Comments on: Finished!

By: Donna

Donna — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 04:48:58 +0000

My mothers family came out on the Duchess of Argyle and my fathers family came out on the Jane Gifford on one said and the Waipu fleet on the other side ( great grammas side and great grandas side) So i guess that makes me a truly well rounded New Zealander. Most of the known recorded history is from my mothers side which follows the family tree back to William Thorburn ( see DOA passenger list) and that he and the family were promised emigration to a land flowing with milk and honey and at the time of arrival there were only 4 cows in the entire country and no bees as of yet (as far as i can recall, excuse if my count is out)

By: tigtog

tigtog — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 06:11:13 +0000

I’d forgotten that conversation with Almanzo. I should reread the Laura books.

By: Deborah

Deborah — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 02:33:12 +0000

Actually, it wasn’t my great great great uncle who married someone who travelled on the Duchess of Argyle; it was my great great great great uncle.

So going back along that line of my family tree, I am the fifth generation of my family to be born in New Zealand, although my great great great grandfather was just 12 when he arrived here with his parents and brothers and sister. Another brother was born after the family arrived here.

By: innercitygarden

innercitygarden — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 02:18:35 +0000

I met a woman on Saturday night who’s forebears lived in the same small town as mine, her family were undertakers, so it’s entirely possible that they buried my family.

Incidentally, most of what we ‘know’ about the Wild West was invented for travelling shows and is (historically speaking) bollocks. So you wouldn’t expect to see cowboys in an historical novel in the same way they’re depicted in the films.

By: Deborah

Deborah — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 22:08:06 +0000

Indeed they did, 'tho I think my direct forebears were on the Jane Gifford. However, one of my great great great uncles married a woman who sailed on the Duchess of Argyle as a girl.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 20:56:59 +0000

It occurs to me Deborah, our ancestors came on the same waka.

By: penguinunearthed

penguinunearthed — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 10:12:57 +0000

My father’s relatives came out to Waipu in the 1850s. He met one of them when she was an old lady. She told him stories about how, as a three year old, her favourite game had been climbing to the top of the mast… something I cannot imagine when I go and see those ships (or their replicas) now.

History can be very close if you look for it.

By: stephen judd

stephen judd — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 23:41:08 +0000

The McNairs, from whom I am descended through Dad’s mother, came on the Duchess of Argyll in 1842. So there’s a connection for you, one that would go unmarked without the occasional retelling of old stories.

When I was a little boy, I met an old Dalmatian in a geriatric hospital who had worked in the gum fields up north in his youth. He was in his 90s and remembered g0ing through the barren areas that had been kauri forest, poking sticks into the earth to find nuggets of gum.

A few years ago I met my grandmother’s cousin Gladys, another very old lady. She remembered being in revolutionary Russia (Lithuania now), watching the aristocrats being taken out to be shot. “In their white shirts.” Only rich bastards had clean white linen.

I think I feel a post of my own coming on …