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....