Thomas Richard and Annie Mabel Elcox are my maternal grandparents. Annie was a Farmer from Glen Oroua in the Manawatu. Tom arrived in Aotearoa in 1924 after four years serving with the British Army in France, Belgium and India. Annie was born and grew up as the second youngest of a large dairy farming family. They both died young so that my siblings and I, their only grandchildren, never knew them. Their stories are a fascinating study of a very endowed couple serving their families, communities and world. They are told in a new publication, The Grandparents We Never Knew.

Tom (1899-1933) grew up in Areley Kings, Worcestershire, England before offering four years of youthful service in WW1 and on the North West Frontier of India (1917-1921) with the Machine Gun Corps. In New Zealand he very quickly established an agricultural contracting and stock transportation business and fathered three children before he was tragically killed when his truck overturned with a load of sheep aboard in 1933.

Annie (1897-1951) was gifted musically gaining ATCL in 1923.  She worked as a church and community musician and music teacher into her marriage. Living as a widow with three young children, she took on the task of maintainig their family business at Rongotea into WW2 when manpower shortages demaned its sale in 1941. She spent the last ten years of her life raising her children, the second of whom had been born with cerebral palsy. Annie died soon after her younger daughter's marriage at age 53.

Flipbook and a PDF copies of this publication are below.

Recently I was able to access DNA matches from  my Uncle Ivan Alve's DNA sample. At age 94 he is a generation back from me and his matching is throwing up some new insights. In particular he is providing information about a new line of research; that into his and my Spahr=Witting ancestors in Germany.
As below, Heinz-Georg Selbach is a DNA match with NZ Alves. In particular his 3xgreat grandfather Gerhard Heinrich Spahr is brother to the Catharina Elisabeth Spahr who married Bernard Möllers - the parents of Maria Theresia Alve (nee Möllers) who travelled to A-New Zealand in 1876. Gerhard's and Elisabeth's parents Heinrich Spahr=Adelheid Witting are the most recent common ancestors between the Selbachs and the Alves.  Adelheid was born in 1891 (place unknown) and she and Heinrich married in Beckum 1814. Adelheid died 1842 in Beckum.

While to date we know nothing more about Heinrich Spahr other than he fathered (with Adelheid) several children between 1816-1829, Catharina Elisabeth being my, and maybe your, ancestor. This diagram summarises what we know...

So I turned to consider Arnold Witting as the possible MRCA. Arnold (b.1723) had at least four other sons than Wilhelm Antonius:

• Wilhelm Herman Franziskus Christianus Witting (b.1752-)
• Johannes Josephus Witting (b.1754-)
• Wilhelm Anton Christian Witting (b.1756-)
• Joannes  Fridericus Antonius Witting (b.1764-)

There were at least two daughters Gesina and Helena whom I discount because Adelheid's given name was Witting, not the surname of a husband of one of these girls.

For the moment this is where my search pauses until another DNA match with the Wittings, or some other helpful information, is found. As in the above diagram I have Adelheid temporarily attached as a daughter to Joannes F.A. Witting (red). If he is not her father I am reasonably confidant that one of his brothers marked yellow, green or blue is. Once more is known we may also discover the reason for Adelheid marrying in Beckum aged 22-23. A preliminary hunch is that Heinrich Spahr her husband came from Munster, which is about 40 km away....

We're just over two weeks away from remembering our Tīpuna Theresia and Carl Alve's wedding 150 years ago. They were married in Gelsenkirchen in the Ruhr Valley, Deutschland Germany on 14 February 1874. An interesting fact about their wedding was that ten couples were married in the same marriage service. Pfarrer (Father) Schulte the Catholic Priest must have offered a Valentine's Day Special in the midst of St Augustinus Church which was in the process of being rebuilt. And, it seems, Carl had to return to work in the coalmine the next day! The Ruhr Valley at the time was experiencing a population explosion as coal had become 'black gold' and hordes of Germans, Poles, Scandanavians and others were flocking to the mines. The reason that ten young couples wanted to marry on that most romantic of days.
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To celebrate this significant event 66 descendants of Carl and Theresia are gathering at Masters Hall, Pahiatua on the weekend of 17-18 February. We chose this Pahiatua venue because it is near where the Alves settled at Alfredton Road, Eketāhuna in 1880 - four years after arriving in Aotearoa New Zealand as assisted immigrants. During those four years Carl worked for the railways building the Remutaka line and then the line from Featherston to Masterton while he discharged his debt to the Government under the Vogel immigration scheme. A fellow immigrant family the Schormanns who had travelled on the ship Gutenburg to Aotearoa jointly farmed the Eketahuna land in the early years. Part of the Reunion weekend will be a Sunday bus tour to Eketahuna to explore sites of interest, including the original farm block in Alfredton Road.

These, and many other matters relating to Theresia's and Carl's colourful life, are explored in a new book to be released on Valentine's Day. Entitled Valentine's Day 1874 and subtitled, A Ruhr Valley Romance Terry Alve writes of their German background and meeting in Gelsenkirchen. He asks why they emigrated and explores how their life together panned out in Aotearoa New Zealand until Carl's death in 1910. You will find a purchase link at www.alve.nz after Valentine's Day.

To mark the marriage sesqui we have scheduled a Zoom call at 7pm (NZDT) on Valentine's Day 14 February 2024 - an opportunity for brief dialogue (no more than 40 mins.) on the Sesquicentennial of Thersia & Carl’s wedding day.
Join us via this link:
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/4112201146?pwd=fRa0eYclcvqPfx8CnPgXnvTMBi4S80.1&omn=74267779934
There will be a surprise for those of us who tune in!

Many of you know that an Aussie joined the Alve family in New Zealand in 1917. Theresa Wagner was the 12th of 13 children born to Philipp and Caroline Wagner whose families arrived in Tasmania in 1855 from Germany. Transportation of English convicts ended in 1853 and labour was needed to develop what was then known as Van Diemen's Land so many Europeans began arriving. The following year (1856) the state's name was changed to Tasmania.

After a little OE in New Zealand, Theresa married Henry Alve in All Saints Church Palmerston North and they spent the next 40 years together on the family farm at Rangitane, on the banks of the Manawatu River near Opiki. They retired to Longburn around 1963 and died: Henry in 1968 shortly after their 50th wedding anniversary and Theresa in 1971. They are buried on a family plot at Kelvin Grove cemetery, Palmerston North.

Following a visit in October 2022 by Terry & Margaret Alve during which many Wagner cousins were contacted, Terry has produced a 10 minute video about Theresa's life both in Tasmania and New Zealand see: ​https://www.alve.nz/media.html

​A more detailed report of this visit is available in blog posts in our companion website here: ​https://milne-alve.weebly.com/news

​Terry