The Bells of Pirongia...Ringing Through the Ages.

Greetings family. Here I go again. This time I hope I have the hang of this blogging thing and have no more problems. The first one stopped letting me get in and I just couldn't get it going again so Candice got me onto a new site. I'll repeat the materials I sent on the first one before it broke down and then add more from time-to-time. As I said before, I'll start with our whakapapa and then move into the other branches of the family. One good thing about the recent interim is that I've spent days (weeks actually) poring over every Maori genealogical table and their accompanying histories that I could get hold of. Fortunately, Mac has been gathering up journals and books over the years and these were treasure troves of information. As a result, I have been able to narrow them all down to those that are specific to our family so that whenever anyone is interested in browsing their Maori roots they will not have to dig them up and untangle them from the roots of every other tribe...and believe me, the old Maoris mixed and mingled freely.

I now have family lines where we can start with our own name and trace our individual lines right back to our principal canoe, the Tainui. We can go back through both the male and female lines. This is handy because females usually follow the female line and males the male line. It's also handy because as a person with Maori ancestry you can apply for educational grants. Miriam just recieved $1,700 towards her nursing degree; the prime requisite being proof of her whakapapa. All she had to do was submit a copy of her whakapapa and be somewhat conversant of it. I think it only applies if you live in NZ but it's an interesting point...I'll enquire about it.

Our Maori heritage is a great one and one we should eagerly embrace. We have some exciting history and I hope I can in some small way bring all our ancestors back to life...figuratively speaking.

And, as I said before, I'd love to have short histories of everyone, living or dead, to add to our family archives. I'll store everything I get for our future generations. Remember, the most important piece of family history is the bit you write about yourself and your own family.

Signing off...Jungdai (short for Jung Dai Wai...Chinese for Bell David. Winnie always uses this name when ordering me to do jobs around the house).