Serendipitous Discoveries

Sometimes as we are exploring New Zealand I come across interesting information when I am not expecting to. An example of one of these happy discoveries is when we visited Clendon House in Russell, the home of Captain James Reddy Clendon and his family in the late 1800s. I had a vague idea that there was some connection between the Clendons and the Maxwells. Leafing through Clendon family photographs, copied from the family album, I was excited to discover members of my own family. James Clendon's son was married to my great grandfather's half sister Katie Quigley. In the album were several photographs of Katie's nieces and nephews - photographs of relatives I had never previously seen images of!

Agnes Blair nee Maxwell

Another example of this is when we recently visited Great Barrier Island in the Hauraki Gulf. This was a holiday which we thoroughly enjoyed as the island has some wonderful walks and a very special quality which leaves you feeling re-energised and ready to go back to busy everyday life. While we waited for our plane on our last day, we explored the local museum. I looked at the wonderful array of artifacts, tools, models and photographs, all the while aware of a nagging feeling that some of the names were familiar and maybe there were some family connections here. Because I had no knowledge of any family at "The Barrier" I had left all of my notes behind. It was only a week or so later that I discovered that one of the first Maxwell's daughters, Agnes, had married a Blair, and that they had indeed lived for many years at Great Barrier Island, only metres as it happens, from where we were staying at Tryphena. Agnes was my great grandfather John's sister.

The moral of the story is to go prepared, research the area you are visiting beforehand just in case so that you can take advantage of your time there. So I guess I'll have to return to The Barrier one day - ah well, I think I can cope with that!

Finding Nuggets

It feels like a wonderful adventure when you are researching family history as you often begin with so little. Gradually the search process enriches those few details until you have a much fuller and more interesting picture.

In New Zealand we are all descendants of immigrants, one way or another. My Maxwell ancestors came to New Zealand on the first New Zealand Company ship to land at Wellington in 1840, the Aurora. James and Elizabeth were from Ayrshire originally, we believe. After a short time the couple and their two young daughters relocated to Auckland. Their story and that of their family is coming to life on the pages I am now writing for their descendants.

At the moment, I am concentrating on their oldest daughter Mary, about whom I knew very little until recently. I have discovered that Mary's line died out quickly and I knew that TB responsible for at least one death in the family. I assumed from that that the family was poor, but have discovered that Mary married a timber merchant and that the family business was very successful. Most of this information was gleaned from the Papers Past site. This is part of the National Library and a great source of early New Zealand information. Newspapers currently available for Auckland are Daily Southern Cross (1843-1876,) New Zealander (1845-1852,) and Observer (1880-1909.)

I found newspaper ads for the timber firm of Schapp and Ansenne, as well as stories of fires at their mills, and even reports of how many men they employed plus how much timber they produced. Far from being a poor family struggling with disease in urban late 19th century Auckland, this family was prospering from the profits of timber from Coromandel, sold in Auckland and used to build many of Auckland's early buildings.

You'll get a great thrill when you discover more about your ancestors too. I often liken it to mining gold - each nugget turned up can completely change your viewpoint and open up new pathways to search, hopefully leading to even more gold!