When did Ernest go to New Zealand?
QCan you help me find out when the person we have always thought to be my husband’s grandfather emigrated to New Zealand? Ernest Davis was born on 12 July 1880 in Marylebone, London, and married Ada Burrows on 4 December 1898. I had always assumed that he was the father of Ada’s eight children (born 1899–1919), as he is declared to be so on their birth certificates.
However, I recently discovered that Ernest died in Wellington, New Zealand, on 17 October 1931, with his death certificate stating that he had been in the country for 30 years. Other records suggest that he was in Wellington in 1914, served in the New Zealand Rifle Brigade between 1916–1917, and married Lily Jane Bevan (bigamously) on 28 March 1916. This has led me to suppose that he wasn’t really the father of Ada’s last two children.
I have searched passenger lists from 1901 to 1914 in vain. Hazel Harland
AOne of the challenges when ancestors emigrate is looking at records in the country of arrival. Ernest probably travelled to New Zealand on the Assisted Emigration programme, which resumed in 1904. When leaving the UK, passengers were listed in register books and checked against them upon entry at their destination. The records were then transferred from the shipping companies to customs officials when the ships arrived.
Most New Zealand immigration records are held in the archives of the Social Security Department (which would use them to validate pensions), but thankfully you can search digitised copies of the register books for free on FamilySearch at bit.ly/NZpassengers.
Recently indexed, the books can reveal a wealth of information about passengers including their country of origin, port of entry, date of arrival, age, occupation, total cost of passage, method of payment and the name of the ship.
Crucially, the books cover ships registered in all countries, whereas other outbound passenger lists will only cover UK-registered ships. Assisted-passage schemes often used New Zealand Steamship Company vessels, which weren’t UK-registered.
More guidance can be found on the free Archives New Zealand information sheet at
bit.ly/ANZmigration. As a general rule, it is always important to research in an emigrant’s destination country first. You may need to use an independent researcher, although it is worth sending an enquiry to the New Zealand Society of Genealogists ( genealogy.org.nz). Ian Waller