IMMIGRANT ANCESTORS
My ancestors, travelling from Scotland, from England, and from Ireland, arrived at their various destinations - Australia and New Zealand – during the 1800s. Some were married before emigration; others married in this country (New Zealand) or in Australia.
Their circumstances varied greatly, - from a Lancashire servant girl who could never manage to supply her correct age, to the son of a noted surgeon in County Durham; from a Scottish cabinet-maker and joiner, to an Irish policeman and ex-Crimean veteran. This last-mentioned ancestor had the good fortune to be sent back to England during the course of his employment with the Police in New Zealand. He was the only one of my ancestors to ever have the opportunity to return "Home".
On these pages you may read of the lives of
- from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire,
- just 17, and all the way from County Cavan,
- from England to Australia,
- the parents of seventeen children,
- a builder from Scotland,
- policeman, publican, and landowner,
- who arrived with but a few borrowed shillings,
- who followed several of his family to New Zealand,
- who married and crossed the Tasman.
