Genealogy meanderings from Aotearoa New Zealand

Leaves for the tree

Kia ora, welcome to my family tree repository, a slowly growing place to share information and interesting stories.

The four New Zealand Aotearoa lines are:

  • James arranges assisted passage and Jeanie sails

    In October 1907 James Charteris was living in Epsom and working ‘canvassing for Auckland Orphans Home’. On most weekends he delivered sermons for Primitive Methodists, alongside his eldest son James ‘The Boy Preacher’. It was time to bring the rest of the family over from Scotland, and his correspondence to request their assisted passage is

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  • The Boy Preacher and Mr Charteris – ecclesiastical 1907

    James and James Charteris arrived in New Zealand May 1907 (about a year ahead of Jeanie and the family joining them from Scotland). This is a compilation of newspaper coverage of their first seven months of ecclesiastical engagements – Mr Charteris and the Boy Preacher…. Auckland – Tāmaki Makaurau – June 1907 PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH,

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  • James and James sail from Liverpool

    In early February 1907 the S.S. Fifeshire arrived at Victoria Docks in London with cargo from Australia and discharged: “10,024 carcases of mutton, 11,824 carcases of lambs, and 395 cases of meat sundries from Melbourne, also 15,269 carcases of lamb and 163 cases of meat sundries from Geelong.” Mr Peppard, Agent-General, reported to the Government

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  • Lizzie sets sail on the Orontes

    On a mid-autumn day in October 1902, thirty-year-old Lizzie Whitehead sailed from England to meet her fiance, George Harry Siswick, who was halfway around the world, in Aotearoa New Zealand. It was the maiden voyage of R.M.S. Orontes, the Orient Line’s newest and largest ship completed by the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company of Govan.

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