My Maternal Grandparents

This is the only photo I have of myself with both my grandparents. I’m the infant in my grandmother’s arms. The other baby is my cousin and the little girl is my aunt. The photo was taken early in 1941.

My mother didn’t know much about her family history. Both her parents were born in New Zealand. She was able to tell me her mother’s maiden name, and her mother’s maiden name. With just this to go on I set out to discover who these grandparents were, and where their forebears had come from, and why did they come here. For some time now I have been obsessed, but with the help of my son I have found out. They were mainly poor country folk from Southern England, who took advantage of the NZ Company’s offer of free passage for workers to the new colony. They came at the beginning of the push to populate the country.

Nelson had been established only a few weeks when the first ship of immigrants arrived early in 1842. This was the Fifeshire. On board were a 2x great grandmother and two 3x great grandparents. Shortly after the Mary Ann arrived. She carried three 2x great grandparents and three 3x great grandparents. A few months later two more 2x great grandparents disembarked at Port Nicholson (Wellington) from the London. All these less than a hundred years before the photo was taken.

In 1857 the last of them arrived on the Alma, a great grandfather and two 2x great grandparents. This makes a total of fourteen direct ancestors, plus their extended families, who came to New Zealand for a better life. They worked hard and in a very short time they had their own farms and businesses. I’m so proud of them.