a thoroughly sucessful morning

I've just spent the morning at the Auckland University Special Collections. I haven't found William Morrison, but I did find his brother, Robert - who would be my great great uncle.

Robert applied for a passport in 1920 (5 years after Morrison died). He is aged 44 which matches exactly with the family I have been following in Scotland.

Robert lists his occupation as an accountant and has applied for a British passport to travel to Samoa on business. He was born on 26 May 1876 in Edinburgh.

The photograph shows a rather dapper gentleman wearing a white jacket and sporting a bow tie. I was particularly impressed with the waxed moustache. His physical description is entered as 5 feet 8 3/4 inches in height; forehead - normal; eyes- blue; nose- normal (although it looks quite long and straight in the photo); Hair - fair; complexion-fair; and a long face.

That's quite a contrast with William Morrison Sutherland Junior (born 9 June 1902), who is dark with brown eyes and black hair.

I'm quite taken with how short these men are, considering my father is 6ft 4 and my grandfather was also tall - I was expecting a clan of behemoths. I mentioned this to my mum, who said that Naomi Mahe (Mrs Sutherland) was no midget. Apparently she travelled to New Zealand when my father was young and he remembers her as a giantess of a woman.

I also trawled through the Weslyan Baptismal and marriage records - no marriage (although there's nothing sinister about that, it just means that the marriage wasn't recorded on the fiches I was looking on) but I did find baptisms for Robert (1901) and William Morrison (1902). I was interested that the names were listed in Tongan:

Lopeti and Uiliam Molisoni Satalani, with parent lists as Uiliam and Neomai. I'm not sure whether they identified as Tongan or this was just the form for registering the baptisms. The labels are in Tongan as well so while I'll can decipher a little - it's a language very similar to Te Reo Maori - there is a column which gives a name and I'm not sure what it is. the name corresponding to my two entries is S or J Mahe (Mahe is Naomi's maiden name).

It was so exciting coming across Robert's passport application - particularly with his photo. I can begin visualise my people now. I can't wait until I've heard back from The Solomon Islands with more information!