From Bluff To The USA To Trace Family History

Bluff resident Marama Mako-Fowler is a relieved traveler after an epic whirlwind trip to the east coast of the USA to connect up some missing dots on her family tree.

Marama’s story has been just been shown on the TVNZ show My Family Mystery.

In short Marama along with her now departed mother and sister have been trying to trace the long distant grandfather of a grandfather William Charles Fisher that lived at Colac Bay and then moved to Bluff.

In the programme, Marama says it’s William Charles Fisher’s grandfather that they had little detail on. She says searching and talking to wider whanau revealed that the older grandfather would’ve come to Southland from the US with the early whalers and sealers in the 1820’s to 1840’s.

The mission to connect the dots on Marama’s whakapapa took her on a whirlwind trip to Martha’s Vineyard Massachusetts where a lot of the early whaling fleet left from.

A genealogist traced the name and narrowed it right down to two men by the name of Fisher to one ship, Gratitude that was based in Edgartown at Martha’s Vineyard.

Marama Mako-Fowler along with the film crew and show host Sonia Grey travelled to the US earlier this year to do the research and filming.

She says while she’s a hometown girl and had never travelled outside of New Zealand, it was an easy decision to apply to get on My Family Mystery.

As for the trip, Marama Mako-Fowler says going from small town Bluff to travelling firstly to New York, a city with 20million people really opened her eyes. She says it was all right out of her comfort zone but she knew what she was going for and representing her whanau.

Marama Mako-Fowler says the 8 day trip definitely whetted her appetite for more travel as she has more family tracing to do, this time in the UK as she has traced another side of her family back to William The Conqueror.

Marama Mako-Fowler says she is thoroughly hooked on genealogy now and would be keen to give back by helping others trace their family trees.

Marama’s episode of My Family Mystery is available on TVNZ+

Note: The main photo was supplied to us and mistaken as Marama, corrected after she notified us. Editor.