FROM THE LAND OF THE POTATO
by Pauline SOLOMON
The potato famine and Irish oppression played a large part in shaping my family history..... (I don't know any earlier history yet), and then the goldrushes in Victoria and Central Otago.
My family names are WHELAN, MARCH, GUTHRIE and MULLINS all from County Clare, andRYAN and DOYLE from County Tipperary.
The exception to this is one grandfather (CHURCHMAN and his mother was a SARGISON), who came from Cambridgeshire England, just before WW1, also looking for a better life.
I had no Southland roots until my father (Percy Whelan) came from Waitahuna and drew a rehab farm in a ballot after WW 2, beneath the Hokonui Hills, in Northern Southland, and I still live in the area.
The biggest thrills in recent times have been meeting "new" relatives.
Biggest brickwall .... I know very little about my g-grandmother Honora Whelan (nee March), except that her obituary says she was "of strong personality and fearless as an exponent of the things she believed to be right"!,
And I can't find a birth registration for my grandfather John Whelan who was presumably born at Wetherstons.
by Pauline SOLOMON
The potato famine and Irish oppression played a large part in shaping my family history..... (I don't know any earlier history yet), and then the goldrushes in Victoria and Central Otago.
My family names are WHELAN, MARCH, GUTHRIE and MULLINS all from County Clare, andRYAN and DOYLE from County Tipperary.
The exception to this is one grandfather (CHURCHMAN and his mother was a SARGISON), who came from Cambridgeshire England, just before WW1, also looking for a better life.
I had no Southland roots until my father (Percy Whelan) came from Waitahuna and drew a rehab farm in a ballot after WW 2, beneath the Hokonui Hills, in Northern Southland, and I still live in the area.
The biggest thrills in recent times have been meeting "new" relatives.
Biggest brickwall .... I know very little about my g-grandmother Honora Whelan (nee March), except that her obituary says she was "of strong personality and fearless as an exponent of the things she believed to be right"!,
And I can't find a birth registration for my grandfather John Whelan who was presumably born at Wetherstons.