Colourful family past uncovered
By AMY JACKMAN
Stuffconz | Thursday, 25 August 2011
LOOKING BACK: It took Alistair Hardy 10 years to track down information on his great-grandmother.
[CHRIS SKELTON/Dominion Post]
A Lower Hutt man's decade-long search for his ancestors revealed more than he expected, including a sheep-rustling granny.
Alistair Hardy, of Normandale, has been researching his family history for more than 10 years and says searching for your ancestors can be frustrating and rewarding.
Sheer luck saw him stumble across a vital clue in his decade- long quest to track down his great- grandmother Ann Naulty.
"It took me 10 years to track Ann Naulty down and purely by chance on the internet one night I was feeding names in, seeing what might be around in Australia on the same surname, and just happened to pick it up. I was absolutely thrilled."
Mr Hardy says part of the reason it took a while to track her down is there is no shipping record for her.
"Shipping lists of arrivals in Australia in the 1840s were not kept as a matter of record," he says.
"Local papers would sometimes print a full list of passengers, others might only list saloon passengers and mention that 200 steerage passengers also arrived on the ship."
His great-grandmother was associated with seven different surnames in Australian records. Her death entry had her down as Ann McNulty and six of her children had different surnames.
When he confirmed he had Ann Naulty's records, Mr Hardy discovered she had married an Irish-born Australian farm worker, had 12 children - number nine being his grandfather - and 34 grandchildren.
While researching his family, Mr Hardy discovered three convicts on his mother's side, which he says was a bit of a surprise.
"As far as we can tell, two of the three were probably forced by circumstances to get into stealing.
"My great-great-grandmother was convicted of sheep stealing and the other one was done for stealing a small sum of money."
Mr Hardy says the next thing he hopes to do is track his family back further in Ireland.
"I am hoping for the day when all the church records for County Waterford come online," he says.
"My grandmother was born in County Waterford and I would very much like to find more on her people."
Family Finds
August is Family History month. For a list of events visit the National Library of New Zealand's website.
- The Dominion Post
