Home-Personal migration stories
- Our team
- Research process
- Learning outcomes
- Journey from Germany to New Zealand
- The Mitchells
- From India to New Zealand
- Story of my life
- Around the world in 70 years
- Big and small
- My family migration
- First settlers in a new country
- Around the world in 121 days
- The Pakeha
- From Great Britain to New Zealand
- Coming to New Zealand
- Clogs, kilts, tikis and leprechauns
- From Holland and Scotland to New Zealand
- References and acknowledgements
Coming to New Zealand
My name is Luke and I am a student at Wellington High School. My family history revolves around many cultures most of which consist of various European countries. This story will focus on some English and Irish ancestors. These ancestors came New Zealand as it was a very good solution to the problems they faced like the scarcity of jobs and the amount of food, and land.
New Zealand was good news for Frederick Legatt as he had a hard life and New Zealand was a great solution with all of the available jobs. In the 1800s Fred was having a hard life in England because of the scarcity of jobs. Fred had been earning little money and while looking for a nice job he heard about New Zealand and went there by sea. While Fred was in New Zealand he became a farmer after arriving in New Zealand. While in England he was a soldier. He fought in wars in England though it is not known which ones. Frederick also got married to a woman named Mary and they had two sons.
Young George Simon’s family had no money and food was scarce so when he was young he and his family moved to England in the 1800’s because of famine in Ireland. After running out of money in England the family then moved to New Zealand as they had no jobs and most likely lived on the streets or with relatives in England. After saving up money they immigrated to New Zealand with the help of the English government and they came over on a ship. The ship's name is unknown. George stayed in New Zealand. He got money through the hotel he and his family built which was called Duke of Marlborough. The family made a company called Menzies lemonade in which they sold bottled lemonade in a factory in Paeroa. This resulted in them becoming quite wealthy. He was a Christian ancestor.
Thomas Black came to New Zealand because he heard of all of the money opportunities.
He came in the 1800s and died in the 1910s. He was probably born in the 1820s. He was probably born in England. He was a Christian and was my grandmother's grandfather. After hearing about New Zealand and all of the money and gold he came to New Zealand on a ship. Thomas married a woman named Mary Sanderson Lyons. When he was in New Zealand he was the captain of ships and did trading on those ships. He had around five children and died of old age in his nineties. He had a family business to do with ships. He had a very happy life.
What you just read about was three of my ancestors and their reasons for coming to New Zealand. Most of my ancestors came because there were more opportunities available for their lives in New Zealand. The discovery of New Zealand was a great event for the people who have been starving in other countries. Perhaps if New Zealand hadn’t been founded then I wouldn’t be here writing this conclusion. History would change more and more the further back in time you go. It is interesting how if one thing had been slightly different or if someone had died or never met someone that I would not be here right now. Of course those are not my only ancestors who came to New Zealand and they did not all come from the United Kingdom. They came from all over the world.This essay is just the select few with the easiest stories I could get about my ancestry.
By Luke
Here you can find some more information about some of my ancestors: