Researching the Kells of Palmerston North, New Zealand

 

 

Over the last couple of days I decided to jump down the rabbit hole and look at one branch of my family tree to see if the information I had was correct. There is always the possibility I have started following the wrong family line. I tend to use the resources I have and with research in New Zealand I start with the website searches through the New Zealand National Archives and the BDM websites.

 

The Archives I can find people’s wills if they have one and usually link them with the Births Deaths and Marriages. The New Zealand BDM gives you certificate numbers up to certain dates. The wills usually give you the names of family members, and other archive records including if someone contested the will. I have found several so far, but outside of the wills or probate I have to visit the Archives in person. The best part of the BDM search is the results give you the name of the parents, which is helpful.

 

The other sources I use are Ancestry as they have access to more records and even Familysearch, although I always see what I can find in Paperspast through the newspapers to see what other information they have.

 

The family line I have been looking at is a family from Palmerston North as that’s one of the places my main branch had been living. The Milverton family are known in the area and I decided to sort out the information or lack of through the Kells line as they are linked with the Jorgensen family. I hadn’t done much research into the Kells, but I can always see my notes I have written on them and the certificate numbers.

 

The direct line of Kells is the funeral director William Roger Kells, whose father John Foster Kells came to New Zealand and had some involvement in the conflict between the White settlers and Maori known as the New Zealand Wars, but didn’t seem to end up in the Waikato area. John had arrived with his brothers according to a news article and I have not traced them through shipping records. The newspapers say they came from Ireland. John was married in New Zealand in 1852. That was when I realised that was one of the earliest finds I had in New Zealand so far.

 

 I decided to have a look at John’s wife, whose name seems to change. She was Rose Hannah, Roseanna, Rose Anna in several records. Her name before being married was Rose Hannah Tonks. A look on Ancestry gave me the name of the ship and names of her parents, but no record. The familysearch website gave me the name of the ship, her age and the year she arrived in New Zealand. The earliest arrival so far I had come across was the Tonks family arriving in 1841. Rose’s father was listed as a bricklayer and they were a family with young children. I havnt looked into any of that side of the family yet.

 

So far with the Kells family I have found that several were involved with the Salvation Army. One ended up living in Australia and is buried in Brisbane. Others have stayed in the Palmerston North area. I have to look into the records more and see what else I can find especially through the electoral rolls and the Archives, especially the newspapers as they have some good information including gossip. I will be interested to see where the Tonks family end up and what other information I can find.

 

Sources and links

William Roger Kells, past blog

https://tangaroa81.blogspot.com/2020/05/william-roger-kells-undertaker-of.html

 

Births, Deaths and Marriages New Zealand

https://www.bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/search

 

Paperspast

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/

 

Archives New Zealand

https://www.archives.govt.nz/

 

Ancestry

www.Ancestry.com.au

A Caricature in Palmerston North Archives

 

Sometimes while researching your family members within Archives, you will come across little hidden gems that an archivist will point out to you. Something I had never considered before until I entered the Palmerston North Archive centre in New Zealand. You never know what you can find in an archive centre especially when you are talking to an archivist, who might come out with something pretty much random.

 

I knew my family member Percival Amos Milverton was a public figure as he was the superintendent of the Palmerston North Fire Brigade around 1935, and had been part of the brigade for many years before that, but I had not realised he would have a caricature of him drawn within a book held by the archives centre. A caricature according to Wikipedia is a drawing to represent a public figure to look either insulting or complimentary.[1] The uses of caricatures range from anything like political cartoons featuring politicians or celebrities as good example.

 

I was shown one book that had been created by Pat Studio around 1934 and the archivist bought the book out to me to view amongst other records of interest. There are a few other people within the Palmerston North area that had pictures created of them. I would call this another source of information that can be used for family history research. Within the book some of the names of the people had been written in pencil to identify them

 

 

 

Sources

Studio, Pat Just For Fun: Personalities at Par, Pat Studio, Palmerston North, 1934.

 

Caricature, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caricature, accessed 14/08/2026.

 

Ian Matheson City Archives Palmerston North

https://www.pncc.govt.nz/Services/Ian-Matheson-city-archives

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[1] Caricature, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caricature, accessed 14/08/2026.

Family tree research – Process of elimination

While researching a family line, I became a little bogged down in the research. I had a family line that I was following within New Zealand and I would include the certificate numbers so that I know I have the right dates.

This particular family member had the name of John Cross with no middle name and the only date I had was the marriage to his wife Inez Fuge in 1915. At the time I didn’t have the name of his parents or when he was born, or even his death.

His wife Inez had passed away in 1979 leaving a will listing the name of her children and was a widow. The New Zealand Births Deaths and Marriages had 8 John Cross’ between 1926 and 1979 of various ages. The New Zealand National Archives had several probate records with John Cross and I had to read the wills to eliminate all of them as the names of the children didn’t match. The reason for 1926 was when his last child was born so I had some dates. I had no birth or death date for him yet.

Paperspast wasn’t helping too much as there were plenty of people with the same name. I decided to use Ancestry to see if I could search through the electoral roll in New Zealand for Inez Cross. She had an unusual name and would be easy to trace. I thought I would start with 1954 and found she was a widow, 1941 and 1938 both listed her as the same. The next one in 1935 listed him as alive and occupation Butcher.

I jumped onto the death records and ended up with two deaths after I changed the search queries. Then I went back to Ancestry wit the marriage date and tried one of the death dates and the record came up with the cemetery details. The funny thing was his age and the name of his parents were included with the cemetery records including his wife’s maiden name. Sometimes you can get real lucky if you know where to look. John was a little older than I had expected him to be when he passed away, but I got there in the end.

Links

Paperspast

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz

New Zealand National Archives
https://www.archives.govt.nz/

New Zealand Births Deaths and Marriages
https://www.bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/

Postcard about a strike in New Zealand

 

The back of the postcard

 

Several years ago when my grandfather, Claude Williams passed away I received quite a few postcards with several that were really interesting. These group of postcards were from his mother, Ada Williams nee Delaney who had passed away in 1941. These postcards were from around the time of World War 1 with two written by one of her brothers and several other postcards about life in New Zealand.

 

Front of the postcard

Outside of the two Postcards about World War One, was another one that stood out. I couldn’t work every word out. At the time I didn’t know which strike the letter was about. The text of the postcard is below.

 

Saturday 6.30am

Dear Ada

Just a card in (unknown, hast?) to let you know I received your very welcome letter. How are

you hauping? To out these times. We have been having a great time here with the strike /

strife?. Nearly all the boys here were going to town as special constables. They aren’t in their names, but they have not been called for yet. We don’t know when we will be having the ball now. Did you see nats mack? In Whangarei. He was laid up for a day with a (unknown) kick. It kicked him on the leg as he was getting in the gate and he couldn’t go to school that day.

Good bye

Mrs. W?

 

 I was unfamiliar with the New Zealand strike actions and had to do a quick search online to see what might have been mentioned. Two strikes that were considered during the possible time period of the postcard would have been the miners strike in the Waihi area in 1912 and the other was the strike that involved the union strike on the various wharves in New Zealand beginning in 1913. Only one of them involved the use of what was considered to be ‘special constables. The timeline of the post card was slightly earlier than World War One, and to me remarkable since Ada had been married in 1922, and also her son Claude had held onto these postcards until his passing in 2024. People move and time marches on, but I was lucky to have these insights into the past.[1]

 

The strike started in Wellington and moved to other areas in New Zealand. The time period of the strike action took place between October 1913 and January 1914. Special constables also known as Massey’s Cossacks were recruited by the New Zealand government at the time under Prime Minister William Massey. The recruits the government sourced were farmers from rural areas of New Zealand and there were other volunteers from the city. Ada lived in Whangarei north of Auckland so I would have to guess the writer was talking about Auckland and not Wellington.[2]

 

 

Sources and further reading

 

Derby, Mark Strikes and labour disputes – The 1912 and 1913 strikes, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/strikes-and-labour-disputes/page-5, accessed 31/03/2026.

 

Ringer, Bruce Massey’s South Auckland Cossacks, Auckland Council libraries, https://kura.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/digital/collection/localhistory/id/4327/, accessed 31/03/2026.

 

King, Michael The Penguin History of New Zealand, Penguin Books, Auckland, 2012.

 

 

The 1913 Great Strike, ‘NZ History’, https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/1913-great-strike, accessed 31/03/2026.

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[1] Michael King, The Penguin History of New Zealand, pp. 312 – 313.

[2] The 1913 Great Strike, ‘NZ History’, https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/1913-great-strike, accessed 31/03/2026.