​The weekend celebrations will begin with a few descendants joining a commentated Wellington Harbour tour on Saturday 21 March. Most will join a guided tour of Wellington Museum, Queen's Wharf around midday Sunday before spending the afternoon together in the Loaves and Fishes hall at Wellington Anglican Cathedral.
Descendants will gather from around New Zealand and one couple are travelling from Perth, Western Australia. During the afternoon a book about the backdrop, the voyage, these immigrants and their descendants will be launched. Researched and written by descendant Terry Alve, From Bremerhaven to Wellington: the 1876 Gutenberg European Immigrants to Aotearoa New Zealand, this illustrated text offers 240 pages of information about this group of Europeans and their descendants to 1926.
Registrations to attend are still being received. For more information and the rego form visit: 
https://www.alve.nz/gutenberg150.html

Both of these Museums bordering Whānganui-ā-Tara shores are worth a visit. That's what I have done recently. Part of my motivation was to check their suitability for a visit from Gutenberg descendants on Sunday 22 March 2026 when we are together for the sesqui celebration of the Gutenberg's arrival in the Harbour. While neither has displays about the Vogel scheme or the ships, like the Gutenberg, I think the Wellington Museum displays are more helpful in gaining a better historical understanding of Wellington and its harbour. We plan to schedule a visit to the Wellington Museum on our Sesqui Sunday. Click on the images to visit websites.

The other two activities planned on Sesqui Sunday are a harbour crossing to Day's Bay on a East by West Ferry and Kai & Kōrero, possibly at the Loaves and Fishes hall at Wellington Anglican Cathedral, adjacent to the Parliamentary buildings (tbc).

This is the tentative title of a Gutenberg Sesqui-centennial book I am writing to help commemorate the Gutenberg, its immigrant passengers and early descendants. This project is proceeding apace and it's planned that the book will be with the printers early in January with publication before 22 March.
While it will be nigh impossible to have information about every passenger, particularly the single immigrants, it is hoped that all married couples and families will have a mention.
Draft extracts from this publication are below in a PDF file.

Book sale price will be $30-$40 and orders will be invited before year's end.

This is a final plea to (Wellington Trip) Gutenberg descendants. I am still seeking genealogical, historical, anecdotal and first generation information that may add value to the biographies that I seek to include in the Sesqui Publication. Anything you have (written or pictorial) relating to the Gutenberg immigrants: pre-departure, onboard or post arrival 1976 to 1926. A conveniently accessible passenger list is here for you to check if your ancestor travelled on the Gutenberg to Wellington.: ​

It would great to have your contributions by the end of November.

Many thanks,
Terry Alve
027 600 1926
​[email protected]

I have today published a first newsletter (attached) promoting a Gutenberg Wellington Descendant Reunion. This gathering will run from 10am-5pm on Sunday 22 March 2026. It will provide descendants and associates opportunities to interact, sail on Wellington harbour (Whanganui-a-Tara) and visit the Wellington Museum which features early Wellington maritime exhibits. We will korero and hear some input about conditions in Europe when our forbears left in 1875, receive information about the 100 day sea voyage on the Gutenberg sailing ship and how it was for these immigrants when they arrived in Aotearoa, including where they went. Click on the button to view the newsletter pdf.

Posted by Terry Alve -  Reunion Organiser.
027 600 1926  |  [email protected] ​

You can help by:

1. Providing key contact info for representative descendants who are willing to promote this gathering to their whanau;
2. Providing further info about the life of these immigrant families after their arrival in New Zealand;
3. Indicating your willingness to be part of a planning group who will arrange the 22 March 2026 event.

Watch this space for further posts about this event and these people.

Thank you.
Terry Alve
027 600 1926
[email protected]
Or, use the Contact form on this website.

On Monday 23 March 1876 three Alves - Maria Theresia, Carl Wilhelm and Anna Maria Catharina (aged 1) - entered Whanganui-a-tara (Wellington harbour) aboard the Gutenburg ship as Vogel Scheme assisted immigrants from Germany.

To mark the occasion we envisage Alve descendants and friends, and perhaps some other descendants of Gutenburg immigrants will gather, cruise on the harbour and spend time together in and around central Wellington (Poneke). It is suggested that this gathering be on Sunday 22 March 2026.

Planning is at an early stage and we are forming an organising group to make this event happen. Please contact me if you would like to join the organising group for this gathering. Also, if you would like to offer some accommodation for out-of-towners during this weekend, we would be pleased to know.

​Contact: Terry Alve - 027 600 1926 or [email protected]

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.
​
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!

I have just put up a page on this website with fresh information about the Pahiatua Reunion 17-18 February 2024.

With some staying overnight in Campervans or tents, we can accommodate about 100 people on site. Some may choose to stay in motels or the camping ground in Pahiatua.

Before you come to Pahiatua you may choose to gather together at the old Alve graves in the Palmerston North cemetery 1-1:30pm - Sat. 17th.

Once we are in Pahiatua key Reunion events are:

1. Welcome afternoon tea Sat. 3pm
2. Photographs Sat. 4pm
3. Barbeque tea Sat. 6pm
4. Formal Gathering Sat. 7:30-9:30pm
5. Worship Sun. 9am
6. Eketahuna Tour Sun. 10am-1pm
7. Farewell Lunch Sun. 1:15pm
8. Concluding afternoon tea Sun. 3pm

Terry Alve
​027 600 1926

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....