Thomas Eustace GREEN / Tame Eutahi KIRINI 1840-1917 - New Zealand
linswad
In January 2022 I received an email from a 4th cousin, Kate, related through Catherine Delaney/McLaughlin. Kate descends from Susannah Bambridge, a child of Catherine’s second relationship. I sent her a copy of the story of Ann Catherine GREEN, to let her know of my recent findings on this Green family.
Kate replied with scanned copies of letters written to her grandmother, Blanche, from relatives in Kaiapoi, New Zealand, in the early 1900s. She also told me that the NZ electoral rolls had listings for Thomas Eustace Green and William King Green at Kaiapoi in the 1870s, which looked relevant.
These letters were apparently dictated by a Thomas Green to his nephew, as Thomas had poor eyesight. The writer stated that he was born 23 Jul 1879 at Kaiapoi (but not his name), and gave more details of his own family. I looked at the NZ birth records, and found a Rewi Bernard Green born on that date, son of William King Green. This established that the two mentioned above (Thomas and William) were brothers, and that ‘uncle Tom’ was in fact Thomas Eustace Green. Their father was also a Thomas GREEN.
A search for Thomas Eustace Green on Paperspast, NZ’s version of Trove, turned up many references to him, and his Maori name, Tame Eutahi KIRINI. His brother was Wiremu Kingi KIRINI. Tame was very well-known in NZ as a keeper of Whakapapa, the history and genealogy of the Maori people. A man after my own heart!
So these letters provided the connection between 'my' missing Thomas, son of Thomas GREEN and Catherine DELANEY, and this family of GREEN/KIRINI in NZ. Thomas was apprenticed as a sailor, and ended up in NZ where he married a Maori woman. Their three children were Tame Eutahi Kirini, Wiremu Kingi Kirini, and Katarina Kirini. Their father apparently died about 1848 in NZ, according to a descendant I have been in contact with, but does not appear in the NZ death records.
Still investigating this branch!
