I am a second generation New Zealander, of English/Welsh descent.

Although I have been aware of my family's origins for many years, it has only been recently that I have been actively researching and documenting my ancestors' details.

I now know that my great grandfather, Arthur Rogers Watkin, emigrated from Shropshire, England in 1880, and settled with his wife, Mary, and their four children in New Plymouth, on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand.

I visited and photographed their combined headstone in the old settler cemetery (Te Henui) in New Plymouth. There is an enormous pohutukawa tree growing out of the grave, which is on the side of a hill.

In the photo, their headstone is the small white one to the left of the tree!

Roger Watkin
April 2015