Branches expand on family tree

Genealogy is big business these days, or more correctly an all absorbing pastime for many people who have managed through research to close a lot of gaps in their lives and re-connect with long lost relatives.

So hundreds, if not thousands, of Wairarapa people whose spare time is taken up with compiling their family trees should have rejoiced at news this week on-line information through the Papers Past website is to be extended back to 1879.

Wairarapa Archive is chuffed because the extension takes a little bit of heat out of the archive's always busy workdays.

Although staff at the archive are happy to oblige those who turn up at the door, the on-line extension means genealogists and historians of all ilks will have the option of seeking further information without leaving their winter firesides.

Until this week Papers Past was able to offer up images from the Wairarapa Daily dating back to 1902 but now those who link up will be able to relatively quickly whoosh back almost another three decades.

Having, with the help of my brother Evan, to virtually complete my paternal family tree back to the time of the Norman invasion of Britain, I can attest to the great feelings of euphoria you get when you unearth new information.

You have to be prepared of course to take the rough with the smooth so if a ratbag or two pops up along the way don't fret, enjoy the colour he or she may add to the family tree.

There are still a few gaps in my family tree - a major one that falls between 1876 and 1902 in Wairarapa - so I am hoping the Papers Past extension can help us solve that one.

I thought my family tree was a pretty challenging project but it paled into insignificance when my wife began tracing her Welsh ancestry.

This week she achieved a magnificent win, the finding of her paternal grandfather who had disappeared, seemingly from the face of the earth, in the 1920s.

She has now linked up with long lost and unknown cousins back in the old dart and has even discovered a photograph of the elusive grandfather.

So, Wairarapa researchers, plug in to Papers Past and enjoy yourselves.