Hananui Watson

Ancestors

Contents 1 Introduction for non-WikiTreeing viewers 2 Name; You're Pronouncing It Wrong 3 Autobiography 3.1 Childhood 3.1.1 Baby's first family tree 3.1.2 2012 – 2016: woah, the Internet 3.2 2017 – 2020: asdf 3.3 2021-to-now: seriously researching the Watsons 3.3.1 Most recently 4 Research Interests 4.1 Lineages 4.2 Aotearoa me Te Wāhipounamu 5 Advance Directive 6 Sources 6.1 Autosomal DNA 6.2 Footnotes 6.3 Acknowledgements

Introduction for non-WikiTreeing viewers

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My name appearing on the profile(s) of your ancestor(s) or loved one(s) as a 'profile manager' often only reflects that I have created that profile/those profiles. I would love to transfer custodianship to you if you are more closely related to the person whose profile is in question (being in theory, 'in the know', and more invested in that profile's research). Note that you will have to message me so that I receive your email address, and you should be prepared to be an active participant on WikiTree, at least enough to keep those profiles updated. Until that point, others' changes to these profiles are noted in my Family Activity Feed, and I can tend them as necessary.

If you otherwise feel you have something to add to these profiles – so long as you join up and sign the Honour Code ('upgrade') – you can go right ahead and edit them yourself! Or leave a message somewhere so that I know you want me to make a change. For facts, sources are desired. For unproven and unshaky or even disproven narratives and conjecture, WikiTee allows a 'Research Notes' section.

It's all a collaborative effort and this isn't just 'my' tree or work. There is also a special 'My Cousins' view which shows logged-in members all of our living relations and who our most recent common ancestors (MRCA) are, which I absolutely love!

Name; You're Pronouncing It Wrong

The name given to me is unorthodox to most in the English-speaking world and resultingly many mispronounce the vowels; derived from reo Kāi Tahu, it was first given to a now-inactive volcano on Rakiura (photo) – 'Hananui' is comprised of two words: hana and nui... it becomes evident that the Kāti Māmoe, or whoever came before them, had witnessed the volcano when it was active!

As a child I wanted to be called Hana to – for whatever reason – spite Gregory, who hated shortened names. I am used to being addressed this way but I now feel it is better to speak the name properly.

Autobiography

Childhood

Three of Watson's grandparents had passed before she was born. A diviner told her aunt that Margaret embraced the unborn infant (she was almost to be called Maggie). Her cousin on this side was worried that she would be born on his birthday – she was born just a day before as the smallest, darkest, and sickiest baby of her mother.

Her family moved from their home when she was two years old to a "glorified retirement village", for Gregory's job. She had skin problems early on, a peanut allergy, and asthma. Her early memories include those of her father leaving at eight in the morning and not coming home before she went to sleep, as he was in her understanding visiting one of the small town's several pubs. At some point this ended and he would come home, drinking up to eight cans of beer a night while he texted people, and serving dinner as late as midnight.

She remembers, vividly, sitting in her mother's red car parked outside the local school office, 'What are we doing here?', 'We are registering you for school.', 'But I don't want to go to school.' Watson was present at the Howell Reunion in 2005 albeit she mostly only remembers the helicopter ride across Te Awa o Kiwa and spending time on Raratoka.

At about eight or nine years of age she wanted to 'be a scientist', or historian, and had some particular fascination with archaeology. She was known through some of her school years for her drawings or 'art' and did win some first place prizes in her local A&P show for a 'painted' (permanent marker'd) rock of a gryphon, and a silver spraypaint pasta thing encompassing a 'realistic' (e.g.) depiction of Discord, both projects her teachers had her do. She never seriously pursued any of this as a skill or interest.

Baby's first family tree

Nā wai koe?

Watson's first family trees were written up while she was still in the classroom B2. Her mother helped her with the very first tree on an A4 sheet of paper, and as well helped her with a mihi which the template given to the class was... subpar. Probably what kept the interest was being told that she was descended from 'a princess' and wanting to 'prove that we are all related', to which she was sometimes told that we are all descended 'from Lucy' or 'from Adam and Eve' (not by necessarily religious folk, mind you). One of her classmates also had claim of a papertrail descent from Robert I of Scotland.

Memories of her grandfather show impressions of a strange ('scary') old figure who was always in a hospital bed, moved between three rooms which she was too afraid to enter most of the time. He passed away in 2010. There are old printouts from that year dated to 9 August, 4:27pm–5:54pm, from several websites relating to the mauka Hananui, Captain John Howell, and Captain Paddy Gilroy. A lot of these are from websites that no longer exist; New Zealand Tramper: hiking and w... (IMG_0128.JPG), Capt. John Howell, and The New Zealand Railways Magazine, vol. 4, issue 10.

With fascination regarding that 'princess' thing, Gregory used to tell tales of said ancestress being a daughter of Tūhawaiki, and Kāi Tahu attacking another tribe that being Kāti 'Moimoi' – as he pronounced it^[2] – who themselves had done the same to Waitaha. He believed that the Moriori, 'which you might be descended from' [???], were an offshoot of one of these – and generally believed some very strange things about his wife's heritage to which he once told their daughter that 'you only have as much Mayeu-ree blood as is in your big toe', and insisted that they were all more Scottish. On the other hand, a teacher had said that the Moriori completely missed Aotearoa me Te Wāhipounamu and went straight to Rēkohu.

In any case Watson's trees eventually expanded to the just out-of-date A2 posters from her parents' business and then would be transported around in tube rolls which those posters originally arrived in. Initially these only had first names so there would be a Margaret shown as daughter of Margaret daughter of Henrietta daughter of Margaret. Watson vaguely remembers meeting a handful of her great-(half)-aunts and asking them about relatives' first names while in a local pub, as well as her great-uncle and his family between the two big earthquakes In Christchurch.

2012 – 2016: woah, the Internet

One day she tried to set up an Ancestry tree and was told off by Stephanie for putting her name into a website. It was not until she was 13 that she tried this again, this time asking for permission (also note, terms of service do exist). Just before this, digital versions of the tree had existed on LibreOffice Draw... this was when she started adding last names. She was also experimenting with HTML as was broadly taught to her at school, which she used to list off her relatives and create unpublished profiles for some of them. She can still use (very) basic HTML and adores 'old website design', frequently sharing discovered gems with Chris when she stumbles across them (the likes of Mariners and ships in Australian Waters, Hilton Pond, and Tom's Whakapapa). His taste in metal also rubbed off on her, developing into an enjoyment of mostly alternative metal and rock.^[3][4]

The first time a tween-aged Watson found the user-generated trees linking her Watsons to the Boyds of Kilmarnock and further back to various mediæval rulers she had thought 'no, that's not real, that's made up, we're not royalty'. Nowadays, she has a better understanding of how she would be descended from European royalty a hundred times over, even if that particular connection is not necessarily correct.

2017 – 2020: asdf

"From the Moment I Understood the Weakness of My Flesh..."

Gregory's work (after he had been demoted from his managerial position) forced him to get his diagnosis for motor neurone disease (or, 'the thing that Stephen Hawking had'). Stories of DNA testing shared to the 2017 West reunion at the Bluff inspired Watson and her mother to look into it, and per the diagnosis Chris briefly shared an interest in their genealogy as well with WikiTree becoming a part of his toolkit.

Several DNA tests were ordered for Gregory as he was dying the fastest and would soon be cremated; AncestryDNA and National Genographic, both being transferred to Family Tree DNA and an mtDNA Full Sequence then being ordered, but sadly as the kit arrived Gregory was in the very active process of dying and the sample captured was limited enough to have a replacement kit sent, leading to some demotivation and fear around ordering a Y-DNA test for several years.

2021-to-now: seriously researching the Watsons

"But, alas! these conquests of science must be purchased at a costly price. each stage of progress demands a sacrifice;"

In 2021 a fellow Watson who had been in the town since 2016 shared her family tree with Hananui, showing a descent from John Watson (Jnr) of Laurens County, South Carolina, although it had a perceived inaccuracy linking back to Yorkshire through Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and another inaccuracy involving von Der Burgs and Oldenburgs through this person's mother.

Inspired to actually, properly research her own family line – as up to this point she had merely copied what she had seen with exception only to when things were pointed out as making no sense, and she was aware of several badly inaccurate linkages back to and through Richard Watson of Saughton and his 'match' Richard Watson (see also), all of this originating from Ancestry.com's user-generated trees – so, deciding to work seriously on her own Watson line in 2022, she ordered a Y-111 per advice from customer support that Gregory's sample was indeed not volumous and by then probably too old to capture enough information for a Big-Y700. The results came back showing theirs to be the only kit that had tested this high, and it returned a Y-DNA match who was a fourth-cousin through Joseph Wiley Watson to the other Watson who she already personally knew!

Cooperation with several of these matches led to four kits, even Chris's and eventually Gregory's (with one run failure), being upgraded to Big-Y700, revealing two major branches descending from an ancestor born about 1475. As far as Watson's been able to work out, this would make their family the second of three earliest-known lineages (according to biology) which originated in the 1400s with continual 'Watson' usage into the present day.

Watson was told that her Watsons were a sept of Buchanan, but also that it was a clann itself with no chief, and that she should take a lot of pride in being Scottish or even Celtic. The Buchanan part probably isn't true, and the R-FTD38441 lineage descends from R-U106 (also its descendant R-DF98), which is more-or-less Germanic, and associated with Anglo-Saxons when looking at the British Isles. Current Y-DNA matches are giving a vague picture that recorded ancestors came from further south in, say, Lanarkshire, and before that they split off around the Border with those Robsons.

Most recently

In mid-to-late 2023 she finally, properly, noticed WikiTree and the way it attaches potential DNA matches to closely-related profiles. Her first move was to connect Stephanie in order to share their mtDNA haplogroup and facilitate interest for curious cousins in the future. Eventually, she realised that a huge collaborative project with accurate citations was exactly what she wanted when she was about 14 – to connect with relatives and just have a tree that they all worked on – and WikiTree exceeds her expectations.

As of the August 2023 update, AncestryDNA thinks that Hananui Watson inherited nearly all of her parents' Irishness, thus currently appearing twice as Irish as either of them and Chris.^[5][6]

Research Interests

Lineages

"Ignorance brings chaos, not knowledge."

Aotearoa me Te Wāhipounamu

I grew up with my mother telling me that one of her professors in the University of Canterbury used to talk about Aotearoa never referring to the entire archipelago until the immigrant population said it did. Tangentially, they also used to discuss – like, throw around ideas – such things as reo Kāi Tahu possibly being a remnant of an earlier Polynesian language in some way as opposed to "standard Māori" (as I have seen it referred to...)

From the whole political song-and-dance phase of 2020–2021 around changing the country's name I have collected these... 'totally scholarly articles' from Stuff (and Otago Daily Times) on the matter:

• Should New Zealand be officially renamed Aotearoa?
• Historian's fancy, or widely used name? The battle over Aotearoa
• What's in a name? Aotearoa-New Zealand debate continues to simmer
• Ngai Tahu leader: Let’s not rush name change
• Aotearoa, Nu Tireni, New Zealand — it's a complicated issue

Advance Directive

"Anything not saved will be lost."

To aid WikiTree in the administration of my account should I be incapacitated by any means, I have been thinking about the handful of private profiles that I am managing which need to be transferred to the following WikiTreers, whether or not they are currently on the Trusted Lists:

1. To H Nicholls – all ancestors and relatives of himself.
2. To Chris Watson – all who are ancestors and relatives (and their spouses), of himself, and as well for Fearn and Hammill. Any and all unrelated Watson profiles.
3. To Michael Goodyear – all who are ancestors and relatives of himself.
4. To Andrea Brownridge – ancestors and relatives of Brownridge. Please add her to the Trusted Lists of Sandra's ancestors also. Add Chris instead / as well if this is not a viable pick.
5. To Mum – all who are ancestors, descendants, and relatives of herself (and their spouses).
6. To Wayne Woonton – descendants of Fanny Woonton, and their spouses.
7. To Charles Watson – descendants of William Watson.

These individuals are in my understanding active enough on WikiTree to be aware of updates and respond to queries about their managed profiles. With these picks I feel the affected profiles would be in safe hands if there are double-up managers. If in doubt, just add Chris.

I don't care how my own profile is edited once I'm dead. Just make sure to remove heaps of technical stuff and simply be objective. Keep the research going on whatever I was working on.

Sources

Autosomal DNA

Paternal relationship is confirmed by an AncestryDNA test match between Gregory Watson and his second daughter Hananui. Predicted relationship from AncestryDNA: Parent/child, based on sharing 3,434 cM across 33 segments; Confidence: 100%.

Maternal relationship is confirmed by an AncestryDNA test match between Stephanie Gilroy and her daughter Hananui. Predicted relationship from AncestryDNA: Parent/child, based on sharing 3,447 cM across 29 segments; Confidence: 100%.

Footnotes

1. ↑ Tūhawaiki (1843) Shortland, Edward (ed., Jun 1851); The Southern Districts of New Zealand; A Journal, with Passing Notices of the Customs of the Aborigines. Paternoster Row: Longman, Brown, Green, & Longmans. Chapter V. Table F, unpaginated (between pp. 94 and 95).
2. ↑ To be fair, this is apparently how everyone in my great-grandmother's whānau were saying it until they realised it's incorrect, but Gregory kept referring to it like this even after everybody else stopped.
3. ↑ According to Spotify, Watson listened to Lacuna Coil's "Intoxicated" the most in 2023 CE, with alternative metal being her top genre.
4. ↑ According to YouTube, Watson listened to Everyone Loves A Villain's "Empty Mirrors" the most in 2022 CE.
5. ↑ cf. AncestryDNA FAQ
6. ↑ cf. (11 Apr 2017). Native Affairs – Full Blooded Māori. Te Ao Māori News.

Acknowledgements

Ko Hananui rāua ko Tākitimu kā mauka

Ko Aparima te awa

Ko Te Ara a Kiwa te moana

Ko Kāi Tahu rāua ko Kāti Māmoe kā iwi

Ko Kāi Tahu, Kāi Te Rakiāmoa, Kāi Te Aotaumarewa, Kāti Matamata kā hapū

Ko Joseph Gilroy me Margaret Parker āku tīpuna

Ko Stephanie Gilroy tāku kōkara

• Tēnā koe tāku whaea, for trying to raise her tamariki to the best of her abilities, and putting up with some of my antics.
• Thank you Mrs Wright and Mr Burke for helping with me with my usage of English, even though this profile probably makes you grimace.
• Tēnā koe S Panapa for helping me with a basic pronounciation and understanding of te reo Māori and the structuring for all of its kupu, which was super helpful in making it 'click' inside my head, and the invitation to visit your marae.