Welcome. If you trawl through Papers Past and search for 'kesteven' and 'kestevern' you will see some mentions in marriage records of people with this surname who were from London, England.

Settlers were in Wellington, Christchurch and the South Island.

Archway - Archives of New Zealand Of interest: see 1987 entry 'Nomination for Appointment as Justice of the Peace - Saxton, Charles William Kesteven'.

BDMs New Zealand

Kesteven from Wikipedia

Familysearch.org has an Individual Genealogical Index for your husband's ancestor Nora Grace KESTEVEN married 25 NOV 1875 at Springston, Canterbury, New Zealand George Henry SAXTON.

RootsWeb - KESTEVENs who died in New Zealand

EDITOR.

Saxton family from Remuera, Auckland, NZ Saxton Family Genealogy Forum

hi janny
One of my cousins has also been researching our family. I am descended from George Henry Saxton and below is what I know of his family tree:
George Henry SAXTON who married 1. 1875 Norah Grace KESTEVEN. 2. 1884, Blandina Ruth KESTEVEN.

George Henry and Norah Grace had 5 children

William Kesteven b, 1876, died 1923

Mary Cotha b, 1878

Percy Henry b, 1880, died 1961

Francis Cardwell b, 1881, died 1952

Charles Thomas b, 1883, died 1956, who married Hulda Augusta Maria JOHANSON,



4th Generation
Charles Thomas and Hulda Johanson
Charles Thomas migrated to Australia where he married Hulda Johanson.These were my grandparents, parents of my mother Esther Cotha Hulda Saxton who married my father, George Harold Wolfe Gummerson in Sydney in 1938.Esther was the first of 4 children and born in 1916.
I married my late husband, Kenneth Slack in 1970 in Sydney and we had 7 children, 3 girls and four boys. My second daughter died of a cot death. Two of my sons are engineers, two are teachers as is one daughter and one daughter is a housewife. Currently I am also teaching
My grandfather came from a farming family in NZ and they originally came from England. An ancestor or relative was Rev Solomon Cadman Saxton who was an Anglican minister in Derbyshire in the nineteenth century.
What is your husband's connection to the family?
Regards Hulda.

Thank you for your response. My husband is a Grandson of Percy Henry.
Arthur Cresswell was Percy Henry and lillian Williams eldest son and he was my father-in-law, he had 2 brothers and 5 sisters as well as a half brother as Percy Henry remarried after Lillian Died.

Thank you for filling in the gaps on the Australian connection
If you would like to correspond privately i will send you my email address
Janny

That's a better idea. My email address is countrycynthia@gmail.com. I could not use my first name as my user name as it was already taken so I used my grandmother's name.
When I was younger we were visited by a relative who was a great aunt or cousin and her name was Ethel Saxton- I can't remember much more about her unfortunately.
Regards
Hulda.