This is a heads-up as to my activities for the next 4 weeks. Over this period I shall be blogging with a view to keeping family informed of my adventures and finds, to extend my research network and optimise my use of the social media to form collaborations to build my Family Tree with reliable data covering the lives and times of ancestors.

I have commenced writing this at Sydney Airport waiting the call for the Hong Kong leg of my flight to Heathrow, London to initially join a Victoria University of Wellington, Continuing Community Education, UK Genealogy Study tour. This will place me in London for a week followed by the same period in Edinburgh. The itinerary includes attendance at the Who Do You Think You Are? Conference, Olympia, London, National Archives Kew, London Society of Genealogists, Scotlands People Centre and National Records of Scotland and the Scottish Genealogy Society. Exciting isn’t it!

On conclusion of the Tour I intend to delve deeper into some of the family stories, tentatively, at this stage, in Aberdeen, Norwich, Kings Lynn, Winchester and Dorchester, also to visit in Canterbury, Kent one Francis Victor Peter EDWARDS whose father Sidney George EDWARDS was the brother of my Grandmother, Winifride Annie Vine/Kruse. It is interesting that this contact was established by his daughter Lucy Pienaar who resides in Toronto, Canada and discovered the, unknown to her, Edwards families in Australia and New Zealand on the Net.

My attention at the other sites will concentrate on:
a) Grandfather James Scott Chalmers‘ forebears who resided in the village of Tarves near Aberdeen,
b) in Edinburgh to explore the possibility of finding the means of Christopher Christmas Berry’s passage to Australia (possibly in crew lists of the Orissa Shipping Company which was based at Grangemouth),
c) the history of the two Elizabeth Berry‘s (CCB’s wife and daughter) who were resident in Cramond, Edinburgh at the time of the 1841 Census. Husband and father CCB was in New Zealand at that point fathering another family of 5,
d) to gather further information on the parentage and childhood of Christopher Christmas Underwood/Berry in Norfolk,
e) to sort out the mess, if possible, surrounding the enormous numbers of patently incorrect Tree details of the Crumpliere, Crumpler, Crompliere, etc family, which is the one that I have gone the furthest back on with an entry at date 1457 citing John Crumpliere as a “master archer, with harness” in Henry the 8th’s militia,and
f) to ascertain more of the generations of the Vine family back from John Vine born 1705 in Dorset.

I hit London Town on Tuesday, 19 February with a dinner date with John Sutherland and Kirsty on Wednesday and shall be regularly reporting from there on all those discoveries that I shall make.

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Click here for a rather unlike Peter Jackson type video record of this famous occasion. It’s doubtful that this will compete with the Hobbits Premiere in Wellington tomorrow. However the family milestone and gathering far outweighs anything in the film world.

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Here we are at last, loaded, ready to roll and row:
Boat roof-racked Boat Roof Racked from front
Unlike Bill Falconer I do not have a lake at the bottom of my garden so am compelled to consider options that will make boat and me more mobile and manageable. The set up on my car comprises a roof rack and Kayak T-Load Tow Ball Mount as supplied by Rhino-Rack through Gary Moynan, Autostripes, 13 Wigan Street, Wellington: Email: autostripes@paradise.net.nz

We have achieved the objective of making loading, unloading and launching a one person operation. Viv Haar, the boat builder, has parts under order from Tasmania to equip the rigger with a “clip on” configuration which will further simplify the process by lightening the load and making the boat more manageable for sliding on to and off the roof rack from the rear. The process of screwing/unscrewing the rigger is OK but the time saved by simplifying attachment is of course better spent on the water.

We are not far now from putting the boat into production.

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They say that all good things are worth waiting for. For me proof of this may be found in the long awaited completion and delivery of the prototype of our recreational sculling boat. New Zealand’s Labour Day holiday, Monday 24 October 2011, marked delivery of the prototype by boat builder Viv Haar of Carboglass Mouldings and launching on the Hutt River at Petone.


Viv has a number of modifications in mind already and following testing in various water conditions, carrying and storing will set about producing the first of the developed model. These enhancements will include narrowing the splashboard breadth and designing detachable riggers. All this is aimed at producing a product that will meet the needs of recreational rowers of all ages.

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With kind contributions from Duncan Cameron and Bob Joyce I have collated the Club’s Annual Reports for the above years and placed them online.
The principal reason for doing this is to test the veracity of many of the stories overheard at the Legends’ Reunion last November at Karapiro. We now have the truth here in print in order that we may recall and relate with some substance of reality.
I would be delighted to receive numbers from other years to add to the collection. If you are able to help please email to me at bob.vine@paradise.net.nz

Star BC Annual Report 1957/58
Star BC Annual Report 1958/59
Star BC Annual Report 1959/60
Star BC Annual Report 1960/61
Star BC Annual Report 1961/62 pages 1 – 3
Star BC Annual Report 1961/62 pages 4 – 6
Star BC Annual Report 1966/67 pages 1 -3
Star BC Annual Report 1966/67 pages 4 -6

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Well, Spring has arrived and with it a greater desire to take to the water with my new recreational sculling boat. Today’s check of progress with Viv Haar at Carboglass Mouldings shows that we are nearly there with a positive date for first trials next week, Monday 19 September.
Here is how we are looking Friday 16 September:

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