Our Pedigrees.

The family tree is said to be a matter of uncommon interest to many New Zealanders just now. They are giving librarians here and there a trifle of trouble in turning up records and handbooks on pedigrees of noble families, with the object of ascertaining how far back their genealogies extend, and whether there are any worth-while connections in the dear old Motherland, as Mr. Seddon was fond of calling it. This is natural; most people would like to know that their line could be traced back a little farther than their grandparents. When on furlough many New Zealanders in the Great War looked up the old homes of their forebears in Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man and other places, and took pride in discovering family-tree links, particularly in Church records and churchyard tomb inscriptions that helped to lengthen the chain of ancestry.

It is a very rare pakeha genealogy that can be traced back for as long a period as the whakapapa that is the proud possession of the great majority of Maori families. Every Maori of any importance at all in his tribe can recite the list of his ancestors back to the days of the Hawaikian immigrants, the men and women who formed the crews of the sailing canoes from Tahiti and Raiatea and Rarotonga. That was six centuries ago. A Rotorua man or woman can trace back to Tama-te-kapua, or to Tia or some man of family who came in the pilgrim ship the Arawa. So with the Tainui, Mataatua, Aotea and the other canoes. The well-born of the tribes descended from the Polynesian crews can name Hoturoa, Turi or Toroa as the founder of their house.