Geneology has always fascinated me, goodness knows I have an interesting family tree, but seriously, nothing compares to Paul's family tree. Paul's sister (talented scrapbooker Lesley Cooper) emailed me the other day with a few stories of Paul's great-grandfather.
The shortened version of the story is that this lad come out from England in 1875. He was travelling with his cousin but as they went to board the ship he was turned away, the ship staff telling him at the gang-plank that the ship was overloaded already and he could board the next ship for the 90 day trip from London to New Zealand. His luggage would stay on the ship he thought he was travelling on though, and he could collect it on his arrival in New Zealand.
Some 90-odd days later he arrived in NZ with nothing to his name. He went to collect his luggage, only to be told that they were sorry but the ship he was meant to be on was lost at sea, it went down in the Bay of Biscay. Paul's great grandfather started his life as a lad of 17 years old trying to start a new life in a new country with nothing but the clothes he stood up in. By all accounts he was lucky to be alive.
And so it starts. William Howard went on to have 12 children and died in his early 70s. He was a very well respected man in the district. At his time of passing he already had 42 grandchildren, most of his children went on to have 5-6 children each. That was in the 1930s and since then his family has extended in a huge way, and spread throughout the district.
I sat on the couch the other night re-telling this story my amazed 10year old. Even at 10years old he could grasp the fine-line feeling of "If he got on that ship, none of us may have been here". Life truly is a series of sliding doors, and this story is a fine example.
We don't know where William Howard is buried, but we know where his funeral was held back in the 1930s. Lesly still has his a copy of his carefully typed out obituary. Sometime today we start to search, camera in hand, great-great chandchildren in tow. To find the gravesite of the man that started it all here in NZ. Wish us luck.
laters
Great story Nic! I'm a Howard too and although I'm in Australia, I was was born in England and all my family come from England. I wonder if we're related??? We've had a hard time tracing my Grandfather James Howard who was born in Scotland. My cousins over there have hit a dead end and can't go any further with it. I'm glad you have much more info on your Howard line!
Posted by: Dayna Howard | October 24, 2009 at 12:40 PM
Good luck with finding it! I've recently started researching as much as I can on our family tree too, someone in the fandamily managed to trace us right back to William the Conquerer (famous family tie there!) but the info got lost and that family member has since passed on so I have to start again. Awesome story, I hope to uncover some of our own as I get into it more... thanks for sharing!!
Posted by: Louise Williams | October 24, 2009 at 03:53 PM
Awesome story, I love how your 10yo grasped the meaning of his ancestor not being on that first ship.. got to admit got watery eyes there. Good luck finding the grave, that would be a wonderful completion to this bit of your history!
Posted by: lorry | October 25, 2009 at 01:10 PM
Must be genealogy time. Kids love it.
Mr9 has been studying 'the olden days' at school. He had to make a family tree last week. He loved talking to my Mum about this (Gran is taking him to a cemetery afer school this week to look for her great, great grandmother!) But his paternal grandmother's family wins. They have a book which traces their family tree back to 911AD - how amazing is that?
Posted by: Mel | October 25, 2009 at 03:00 PM
good luck :) What a great story!
Posted by: Petrina McDonald | October 26, 2009 at 12:45 AM
Amazing story Nic! I have dabbled in a little bit of geneology too - it is very addictive though searching for information, and sometimes a very slow process. I want to put the inforamtion together in a book type scrapbook for the kids so that they can understand their heritage.
Posted by: Mich | October 26, 2009 at 09:08 PM
Family history is such fun. Addictive. Frustrating. Time wasting. Interesting. Fun. There are brick walls to be knocked down, family legends to investigate, astonishing things to be found. Not only do you learn about your family but you learn a mountain of history along the way.
Posted by: Nancy | October 27, 2009 at 02:36 PM