In this fifth episode of Series Five, host Andrew welcomes New Zealander professional genealogist Fiona Brooker. He finds out how she got hooked on family history, the challenges on researching within New Zealand with its privacy laws, and Andrew gets her thoughts on how our role in sharing research and thinking about how we’re creating family history records right now, and what that means for the future.

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The Life Story – Thomas Urquhart

Fiona has chosen to tell the life story of her Great Grandfather Thomas Urquhart, who was born as the oldest of ten children in 1882 in Aberdeen, Scotland. He worked as a mason, but became a Police Constable in 1907 in Aberdeen, but in July 1924 he resigned, and he left the UK for a new life in New Zealand.

Fiona has traced his career in policing in Aberdeen through a wealth of detailed staffing records, and has followed him, his wife Ann, and their seven children, as they set off on what was meant to be a voyage of hope and dreams in a new land. Sadly, the family are soon met with tragedy even before they arrived.

Joining his brother Adam, who’d previously emigrated, Thomas changes his career to work with Adam as a labourer, but sadly his time in New Zealand would only last ten years before he died.

The Brick Wall – Jane Richardson

Fiona’s ancestor Jane Richardson is causing her to hit a research brick wall.

Fiona knows Jane’s life backwards, from her death in Palmerston North, New Zealand in 1906, and her marriages – once to Hector Matheson in 1856 in Nelson, New Zealand, and later to Henry Blunt Farquar in 1874. The age at her marriage suggests that she was born circa 1833, and records allude to her birthplace as being Glasgow in Scotland.

However, Fiona’s efforts to find Jane Richardson on the 1841 and 1851 census in Scotland, and the wealth of digitized passenger lists into New Zealand have yet to provide an answer.

The problem is, the records are extremely vague when it comes to Jane’s parents, naming them only as ‘Richardson’ and ‘Richardson’, and she’s also been unable to find a date of arrival in New Zealand.

• Who were Jane’s parents?
• Is the random Downey/Downie name of one of her children following the Scottish Naming Pattern of inheriting family names?
• When did Jane come to New Zealand – was it with her parents or alone?
• Is Glasgow really her birthplace, or was it somewhere else in the UK?

If you think that you can help Fiona with a clue or research idea, then you can head over to her website at memoriesintime.co.nz where you can send her a message, or alternatively you can tell us and we’ll pass the message on to her.

In the meantime though, Andrew’s surprised at just how keen Fiona is to accept his help…

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Resources

A list of resources and websites mentioned in this episode;

• https://memoriesintime.co.nz/collections/digital-scrapbooking – Digital Scrapbooking with Fiona
• https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/treaty/the-treaty-in-brief – The Treaty of Waitangi
• https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/womens-suffrage/petition -Women’s Suffrage Petition database

Episode Credits

• Andrew Martin – Host and Producer
• Fiona Brooker – Guest