Hi all. I have been my family's genealogist now since 1996, 28 years so far. I originally got into it because I wanted to find out where the Scottish line of my family came from. Well that was the beginning of an absolute adventure in genealogy, and I have not only found out so much about my Scottish side who moved to Taranaki, (and I haven't too much of their info as yet, except that my gt, gt, grandmother, Christina Pillance Campbell Bowie, born in Scotland, moved to Australia with family as a small child, and then onto New Zealand after a few years. CPCB married in Australia and my gt grandmother Frances Davis was born here in Bathurst, NSW. Frances was a child when they moved to NZ. Frances married James William Burrows Hughes, originally from Staffordshire, England, and they had 10 children, 2 dying in infancy. They had 4 boys, 4 girls and my grandfather, Nelson, was the eldest of them.
All those of my forebears have long since gone so I can't ask them for information and the fact that many of them never talked much about family history, then it just makes my searching so much harder.

As a child I lived with my 3 brothers in Maxwell in our own house on grandfather's farm. We went to the local Maxwell School along with 10 other Hughes cousins and we made up the bulk of the school roll.

My problems are many as I really know nothing about what they did after they arrived in Taranaki, except that they settled in Waverley. Dad took us to meet an Uncle 'Puck'(Henry I think) Reed/Reid/or Hughes....I don't remember the exact name but the Reeds/Reid's'are also related to me. Puck was not his real name, just a nik. I was only 8 and that was more than 60 years ago so memory is a little jaded.Apparently Puck was well known around the area.

Anyway, this is a bit of a start....and yes, it is a hard road we travel in genealogy isn't it.

Thanks for reading.
Cheers, Susanne Mardi Hughes