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Off to the Northland

No doubt about it — The Legal Genealogist is having a ball here in the Land of the Long White Cloud.

I was honored to be one of the speakers at this past weekend’s 50th anniversary celebration of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists — a gathering of hundreds of avid genealogists from around New Zealand and beyond to review issues of genealogical ethics, copyright, methodology, tools and techniques and so much more.

But now… now I’m just off playing. I mean, seriously, you can’t come this far as an American and not spend some time sightseeing, right?

So… with Australian genealogist Helen Smith I set off this morning for the north of the north island. We may not have gotten all that far, seeing as how we were stopping every few minutes to sightsee… but oh my… can you blame us?

I mean there are all those bays and beaches out there…

And we met a couple of new friends…

Then we headed inland for a bit…

We ended up at the Kauri Museum. The kauri is a tree roughly the size of some of the redwoods or sequoia of the United States, with a lifespan of thousands of years. Its wood is simply gorgeous, which made it a prime target for logging, and — sadly — there are nowhere near as many remaining as there were (we hope to see one).

But it also produces a resin much like amber — and it’s gorgeous. There are many kauri gum pieces in the Kauri Museum close to where we ended up for the night.

Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings…

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