A related blogger!

The internet has brought whole new ways for people to come together. Last year I was contacted by someone who had found my web page about some of my ancestors. She recognised the Burke family we had in common- and yesterday I enjoyed lunch with Maggie and some of her family. Meet Maggie and her blog- iwiKiwi.

James Lalor & 'Papers Past'

James Lalor, my great-grandfather, mined for gold at South Beach on the West Coast, and was also known as a 'parliamentary messenger'. In the last year I have come to know a lot more about him as a person, by using the excellent Papers Past website.

The most interesting 'find' I had was an article in the New Zealand Free Lance in 1901, talking about his recent service as a parliamentary messenger. I had imagined that this calling was like being a glorified 'postie' who carried messages by horseback along the Coast- but not at all. He did in fact go to Wellington when Parliament was in session to wait on the Members with messages. The article reads: "Yet Mr James Lalor, who came up from Greymouth to wear the livery of Parliament and who has just got back to the Coast this week to resume his avocation as a gold miner could boast of his family connections if he were not far too modest a man to say anything about himself at all." And the article goes on to say he was a 'full cousin of the celebrated Irish orator Richard Lalor Shiel'.

And the Papers Past site was a treasure trove that told me more and more about him, as he was active on the School Committee and various other bodies. His marriage to Catherine Rowland was recorded in the pages of the Grey River Argus in 1871 and then on 4 October 1916, his death is recorded in the same paper, a man who was 'well and favourably known throughout the West Coast.'

Corippo- Village of the Scettrini family

I have made a couple of visits to Corippo, the mountain village in Ticino, southern Switzerland, from whence my Scettrini ancestors hail. Here are three photos taken there in a springtime visit, in April 2006 (scanned from pre-digital film photos...)

To get there I joined a regular "Postbus" service headed up the steep, winding road into Val Verzasca. After thirty minutes you get a breath-taking sight of the village of Corippo, with its stone houses perched steeply against a mountainside. Corippo lies at an altitude of 560m, with mountains 2500m high around it. It was founded in the fourteenth century. I approached, very conscious of the link that I was making with my family's past. 

  

All the houses in Corippo are made of mountain granite, with slate roofs, in a design that is specific to Ticino. The house fronts all look out across the valley, built to face the prevailing rain direction. The buildings tend to have two or three floors with small rooms, plus an attic. Because of the steepness of the terrain, hay and wood were often placed in the attic at the top, from the upper side of the house. 

Locals in the village have always had a hard life with the rough alpine climate, poor soil quality, and steep terrain of the pastures.  In the nineteenth century, the goldfields lured many men away. Hence, the arrival of Giuseppe Scettrini on the goldfields in Victoria, and later on the West Coast...

Eight great-grandparents

Patrick RIORDAN was born in Curraheen, Co Limerick, Ireland, sometime in the late 1840s, the child of John Riordan and Bridget QUANE. He seems to have arrived in New Zealand aged about 21, c1868.

Mary BURKE was born in the Parish of Inchture, Perth, Scotland, on 21 August 1862. She was the first child for her Irish father, Martin Burke, who left Co Mayo around the time of the Famine as a child, and her Scottish mother, Ann PHILP. She emigrated with her parents to New Zealand aboard the "Mermaid" when she was still only a toddler, arriving in Lyttelton on 16 February 1864.

 Patrick Riordan married Mary Burke on 11 April 1882 at the Catholic Church in Lincoln. 

  

Jeremiah MALONE and Margaret RIORDAN (no photo) were the parents of my grandmother, Margaret MALONE, who was born in Ballinadrideen, Ballyhea Parish, near Charleville, close to the border of Co. Cork and Co. Limerick. Another of their daughters, Bridget,  also emigrated to New Zealand.

  

James LALOR was born in Co. Kilkenny Ireland, c 1840, to John and Mary Lalor. He seems to have reached New Zealand c 1866, becoming a goldminer at South Beach. 

Catherine ROWLAND was born 26 August 1845 in Heidelberg, Melbourne, to Christopher Rowland (who was probably a convict from Cork) and Margaret ARBUCKLE. Her younger sister Margaret also later came to New Zealand.

James and Catherine married in 1871 in the Catholic Chapel in Greymouth.

  

 
Francis Davis PAYN was born 1854 in "Les Ruettes", St Martin's parish, Jersey, Channel Islands. He was the son of Thomas Payn and Elizabeth MOURANT. He arrived in Canterbury in 1874 on the "Dilharee" with Philip Payn, and was one of three "Larrikins" who discovered the Larrikins lead in 1878 in Kumara. 

Johanna SCETTRINI was born in Sandhurst (Bendigo) in 1865, the eldest daughter of Giuseppe Scettrini (from Corippo, Ticino, Switzerland) and Catherine HENEBERRY (from Ballyporeen, Co Tipperary, Ireland.) The family moved to the West Coast and after living in Waimea (Goldsborough) for a time, settled in Kumara. 

Johanna and Frank were married in 1886 in Kumara.