This site has been the longtime passion of my brother Peter Harman, who sadly passed away in  Auckland on 30 June 2016. 
 To ensure that this wonderful resource is not lost, his daughter Fiona and I have taken on the  responsibility for maintaining it henceforth. We would really appreciate being informed of any  additions or alterations that occur within your branch of the family.

Robert Harman P O Box 54 143, The Marina, Auckland 2144. harman.tribalpages@gmail.com

This site began life as a tool for an ungrateful daughter who wanted to make sure  that the information I had in shoe boxes was not destroyed after my passing by our  equally ungrateful son who intended throwing my precious possessions into the rubbish  tin. Since that beginning it has sort of grown and in no small part thanks to the  efforts of cousins, family and fellow travellers on the internet who have built it.  One just hopes our grandchildren and great grandchildren will get to use it and  expand it.
 Since it started we have managed to build a pretty convincing case built on  compelling circumstantial evidence that those of us with Meredith blood racing around  our veins are indeed the rightful heirs to the Kingdom of Corsica and further more  will, if asked, take up our rightful place at the King's side when our great great   great and lots more greats cousin William Wales takes up the throne of England. Of  that whole saga the most poignant and tragic story is the life and times of  Honora De Burgo(Burke) who was the mother of Mary Sarsfield, wife of our good friend  the King of Corsica. 
 This is also the life and times of a number of pioneer families in New Zealand of   John Guilford who arrived just after the first four ships into Christchurch and his  sons' whose legacy are the settlements of South Canterbury, Inland Taranaki and the  Wanganui region. You won't find too many multi millionaires here but you will find  the folk who populated the heartland of New Zealand, built the infrastructure, raised  their families and gave their sons for the Queen's and King's wars. You will meet the  descendants of a number of people who came to New Zealand as soldiers to fight in the  New Zealand wars. Theodore John Meredith to the Waikato, Alexander Golding to  Taranaki, and William Higginson who came with Meredith and wound up marrying his  sister. George Lovett, Meredith's father-in-law came to Auckland as a fencible, these  families were the backbone of the Auckland settlement. This is the story of the main  trunk railway line and Alexander Whisker who drove the first train over the central  high country viaducts and the Merediths who built the bridges and tunnels. You will meet Thomas Blick who is regarded as the father of New Zealand's wool  weaving industry who came in almost as a refugee from unbelievably difficult times in  the Gloucestershire wool weaving mills. He brought a significant sized family, his  sister and her husband Thomas Harman who has outperformed all these supermen  producing the largest (and brightest) descendants listed here. He arrived in Nelson  just after the settlement was established and his children married into just about  every pioneer that arrived there. If you took his descendants out of the Nelson and  Motueka cemeteries there would be no reason to keep them open. You will meet the  Schwass family that married into both the Harman and the Guilford families and the  Cross family who did exactly the same thing. The Bouzaid family from Lebanon went to  the Wairarapa as the poorest of poor immigrants. prospered and married their offspring  into the local families including the Guilford's. Then there is Kate Lynch who came to  New Zealand as an indentured servant girl, wound up married to James Guilford a few  weeks later and died in childbirth with her twelfth child in her early 30's. She had  been in the old Wanganui cemetery, in an unmarked grave until she was discovered by  her grandchildren who gave her the headstone featured on this site. Everything you  want is here, drama, pathos, human tragedy, comedy, and perhaps a sprinkling of good  old fashioned bull's excrement.
 That makes us genuine sons of the pioneers and if you, yes you, have an untold story  to tell or a photograph to contribute, don't hesitate do it now.

Keep Well

Peter Harman
 formerly of Massey, Auckland