Government records are always accurate - yeah right!

Great granddad William HENDERSON has been getting some attention of late as more of the dna several of us inherited is identified.

It occurred to me however that I'd never actually looked at his official immigration records.
After all, I have the ship board diary he wrote and knew he arrived in Port Chalmers on the 8th July 1872, and travelling by steamer "Golden Age" to Dunedin the following day, going to the barracks.

With FamilySearch having digitized the assisted immigration records from our National Archives off I went to check the images.
Couldn't find him!
When the obvious fails, start looking at the less obvious.
The voyage has been identified, and thus indexed, as having arrived in Wellington.

Examination of the papers associated explained why.
Although the cover of the file shows the "William Davie" as "for Otago",

 the next page shows it as arriving Wellington.

Newspaper reports

do confirm that great granddad wasn't lost, and his diary does not show the ship landing anywhere at all other than Port Chalmers after it left Greenock.

William recorded most of the daily lat/long values during the voyage.
See the William Davie voyage for more details, click on the voyage link for the map, and the markers on the map for the dates and any notes.