My name is Lynda Gear. Writing this name as a child, it was just that – the name I was given. In New Zealand in the 1960s there was a chain of butchery shops named after its founder, one James Gear (no relation). At primary school the other kids would tease me by calling me “Gear meat”. I couldn’t wait to get married and change my name. I did get married – twice – and what name do I now use? Gear. For I have come to realise how important the past is for our future.
Charles Gear was my great-grandfather, but was that even his real name? The problem for me, being a Kiwi of British descent, is that several of my ancestors left their homeland for this land way down under and very inconsiderately broke off all ties with the past. Were they forthcoming on documents with their birth details? No. Did they leave a pre-New Zealand paper trail? Of course not, and why would they? They had no idea their descendants would be sticky beaks, wanting to know about their lives, their parents, when and why they emigrated. Possibly they thought a new life in a distant country was the best way to leave old mistakes behind; perhaps they changed their names.
Even in these days of super-fast travel, New Zealand is a long way from Great Britain. I want to know why Charles Gear and my great-great-grandparents Samuel Lintern and Hannah Gibbons left England and sailed eighteen thousand kilometres (twelve thousand odd miles) in a wooden tub to the bottom of the world. Not literally of course, but three months aboard a nineteenth century sailing ship was not much fun, especially for steerage passengers.
As New Zealand was colonised by the British as recently as the 1840s – and I have no Polynesian blood – that is as far back as my New Zealand family history goes. Just five generations. Earlier than that and I must return to the ‘old countries’: Scotland, England, Ireland and the Isle of Man. Researching is difficult. The British Isles are thousands of kilometres away; a visit to National Archives or parish churches is out of the question. To make it even tougher, early New Zealand census forms were destroyed, thus depriving researchers of a valuable source of information.
I caught the genealogy bug in the early 2000s, after reading another family member’s research. That dedicated person had done it the hard way, via post or travel.
We’d just gotten connected to the Internet, which I’d never experienced. At first it was daunting searching the worldwide web. So much information! It was all trial and error. I had no idea what was available or how to find it. One incident still makes me cringe: I remember how excited I was when I first discovered the IGI (International Genealogical Index) and found someone I thought was an ancestor. This person had the interesting surname of Lnu and there were hundreds of them. Imagine how I felt when I realised Lnu meant “last name unknown”.
I joined genealogy mailing lists so I could see how others went about their research, and where they looked. I learnt what to do and what not to do. I posted my family names on message boards. I typed names and queries into search engines to see what came up. In doing so I’d come across transcriptions for a particular church or family, or a page about an historical incident, or even advice on how best to use a search engine. I made a note of them all, whether or not they related to ‘my lot’, in the belief they’d be of interest to someone else.
As I got more experienced and began building my family tree, I became interested in the times my ancestors lived in, and what might have influenced them. I began searching for information by typing a subject into a search engine and following the links. Google became my best friend. Quite often my researching would go off on a tangent as I read about epidemics, wars, protests and famines. It all helped build up a picture of the times: what they’d seen and experienced; perhaps what made them the people they were. I was able to add background information to my ancestors’ lives and write a book for my children.
Eventually I decided to share what I’d discovered. With no previous web design experience, I needed a website design programme – free of course – that I could get my head around. I used Google Sites and created my own genealogy and family history site, including on it a page of interesting links. Eventually the number of links became rather large, so I made another site just for them. Then I thought of all I’d learnt about researching and records, so created a site about that.
At first I was nervous about making my sites public on-line; what if my data was wrong or upset someone? My fears were unfounded. I’ve made contact with several cousins over the years, and the experience has been mutually beneficial. It’s been well worth it.
