Kiwi Heritage Tracers

08/09/2025

Here's a short video from Scotland about Crookston Castle, Glasgow. A line of the Crooks family from this castle moved to Ulster in the 1600s. Although I'm not their descendant personally, two of my great-great-great-grandfather's sisters married into the Crooks family and moved to New Zealand; with hundreds if not more descendants here today.

Short video produced for the Village Storytelling Centre, which recalls the true history and origins of Crookston Castle.

20/08/2025

White's Bridge over the Waimakariri river, photo taken in 1865.

The course of the river was different in 1865 to how it is today: it forked into a North Branch and a South Branch; in between those branches were Coutts Island, McLeans Island, and the part of Kaiapoi that lies south of today's Kaiapoi River -- the remnant of the North Branch.

We understand that the photo depicts a crossing of the South Branch at a location now known as White's Crossing - near the current motorway bridge; although the South Branch course was somewhat to the south of the current river bed.