North Island Strays

Having fun swapping information with Julie at the moment.
She was all excited as her husband didn't think he had any relations until she found my web pages.

The MEIKLE branch of the HENDERSON tree is one of the North Island strays that few of the Southeners knew much about when I started documenting HENDERSONs  back in the 1970s/1980s.  And so it mostly stayed.
Without purchasing certificates, I'd always been puzzled by the 37 year age gap between Grace and the most likely candidate for her husband in the records.
Grace ROBERTSON in my HENDERSON tree turns out to have been the third wife, with the second having the distinction of having died in 1906 as the result of a motor car accident - yes 1906 - check the photo of Janet MEIKLE's headstone online in the Timaru cemetery records.


Inspired by the contact, a couple of shared certificates and trusty Papers Past, quite a bit of meat has been put on the bones now.  Bruce's grandfather John MEIKLE built the Grosvenor Hotel in Timaru, was a coach driver between Timaru and Christchurch, and appears to have driven the Vice Regal party of Sir James & Lady FERGUSSON in 1873.

Wonder what Grace thought about his ashes being buried with the first wife back in Timaru?
Grace seems to have travelled around the country quite a lot, playing croquet.

Sep 26, 2007: Two for the price of one

More HENDERSON/McGREGOR activity today. Linda found the elusive Susan HUTTON, she'd inconsiderately moved to England and married a JONES. I found more SHEPHERDs, inlcuding two for the price of one. Acted on a hunch and ordered a likely looking marriage certificate for John SHEPHERD, one of the witnesses was a Margaret SHEPHERD of the same address, so went looking for her birth. She was a twin, Margaret McLean SHEPHERD and Christina Johnston SHEPHERD (talk about getting in all the family names with economy of effort).

Anyone with Timaru connections might be interested in the Timaru District Council web site - has a well indexed burial register for the Timaru District Cemeteries, ie not just Timaru but also Geraldine and Pleasant Point (at least), linked to photographs of headstones and plots. Which meant a brief sidetrack and several people with dates updated now. (That info came courtesy of the Canterbury Branch newsletter).