In January this year I celebrated my 70th birthday with closer family and friends at our home in Tawa, Wellington. While I continue to minister as priest with Porirua Anglicans and assist with their food bank; I spend increasing amounts of time doing genealogical research and writing.

My primary assistant in all of this is the 'My Heritage' genealogical research programme I use. Currently I am having my DNA analysed to assist with verifying and extending family links. Please contact me if you would like to know more about this, or if you want confirmation or information about your branch of the family. My database currently records nearly 6,500 individuals. In addition to working with My Heritage, I also regularly refer to 'Ancestry.com' and 'Family Search' programmes to help extend my research.

This year I am focusing on my grandmother Theresa Wagner's ancestry. While several of her family visited Tasmania where she was born and met with relatives there in the 1970's and 80's, I have not had the privilege. I am currently planning to be there for two weeks in late October into November with Margaret my wife to meet descendants of her siblings and cousins - there are many of them. Both of Theresa's parents Philip Wagner and Caroline Hauke arrived in Hobart from Germany in 1855. Grandmother Theresa took the opportunity to visit her uncle William Hauke in Dunedin in 1915 and by the end of WW1 had married Henry Alve in the Manawatu, only returning to Tasmania for brief visits around the times of her parent's deaths in 1920 and 1931.

It is now less than two years before some of us will celebrate the sesqui-centennial (150 years) of the marriage of Carl and Maria Theresa Alve (nee Mollers) - our first New Zealand ancestors. They married on Valentines Day 1874 in St Augustine's Catholic church, Gelsenkirchen in the Ruhr Valley, Germany. We understand that theirs was part of a group marriage ceremony with several couples marrying at the same time - such was the life and busyness of the church and priest Father Schulte at the time. To mark the occasion I propose that we gather in Palmerston North during the weekend of 17-18 February 2024. Carl's and Maria's graves are in the Palmerston North cemetery and they spent their latter years in the Manawatu developing the Rangitane Alve farms. I propose to have written by then a fuller version of their lives than previously published.

Then in late March 1926 it will be time to celebrate 150years since the arrival of Carl and Maria Theresa with their daughter Anna Catherine who later married George Busch in 1898 near Featherston. I think it appropriate that we celebrate this anniversary in Wellington. More about that later.

Interest in Alve-related genealogical facts remains high as younger descendants give thought to their origins and whakapapa. I regularly field requests for information as I am sure some of you older also get. It is a privilege to know a bit about the family and to be able to share that. Occasional gatherings, like we had in both 1995 and 2015 in Palmerston North, keep the flame burning and us all at least a little connected....

Joyce died peacefully in the early hours of Wednesday 12 August at the Julia Wallace Rest Home Hospital in Palmerston North aged 85. Joyce spent her life in the Manawatu. She was the third and youngest child of Thomas and Annie Elcox who lived in Rongotea where her father owned a stock cartage business.

During WW 2 she moved with her widowed mother and siblings to a small dairy farm in Kellows Line, Bainesse. She attended Bainesse School, worked in a dairy at Himitangi and trained and worked as a hair dresser.

She married Val Alve in Feb 1951 shortly before her mother died. Her four children: Terence, Margaret, Gordon and Christine were born between 1952 and 1965. After her marriage she moved with Val to the Alve family farm at Rangitane near the Opiki Suspension (Toll) Bridge. Between 1953-1955 Val and Joyce worked for farmer Paddy Quin living in a cottage at Makerua, before spending a year share milking for Jim Andrews at Bainesse.

In 1956 they moved to the Alve Homestead at Rangitane where Val share milked for his father, before buying the farm around the time the Manawatu R. high stop banks were built and a new house built outside the river catchment area in 1963. They continued dairy farming to 1970 when the farm was sold and they moved to spend the rest of their lives in Palmerston North. In PN Joyce found employment variously at the Longburn dairy factory, PDC tearooms and cooking at the Chiswick Park rest home.

Val died in 1999 and Joyce lived with her son Gordon until she moved to the Julia Wallace Home in September 2013. Joyce is survived by her four children; 9 grandchildren and 9 great grandchildren.

Joyce's funeral service will be in the Beauchamps funeral home chapel at 11.30am on Sat. 15 Aug. at 11.30am. This will be followed by a light lunch. A graveside committal service will be at the Kelvin Grove Cemetery at 2pm.

Yet again the Mighty Manawatu R. in flood. A number of us walked to the eastern tower of the old Opiki toll bridge (picture centre) Easter Sunday following the mini-Reunion. We also visited the flood pumps at Burkes Drain bridge (25% from top and left of pic) over highway 56, which are designed to quickly de-flood the Taonui Basin catchment area (top right of pic).

Just to keep you on your toes, www.alve.org.nz has become www.alve.nz 

In fact if you continue to use www.alve.org.nz it will direct to www.alve.nz for several months, but when the longer URL sub runs out it will be gone. It's all done in the name of simplicity, we hope.
Cheers,
Terry

P.S. We will have online registrations for the Easter Day 2015 mini-Reunion available very early in the new year. This will include pricing info. Watch this space or, better still, join our eList and get news red hot, off the press.