Two Turua residents have discovered their shared roots and formed a close friendship, thanks to results from a DNA kit.
When Colin Wilson moved to Turua around five years ago, one of the first things he did was find a local seamstress.
He got in touch with long-time resident Doreen Douglas, and over the next year the pair became acquaintances.
But when Colin turned up to the Turua Market one Sunday morning, it wasn’t to get his pants mended.
“He came up to me and said, ‘I know you’re Doreen. Are you Doreen Douglas?’ And I said yes,” Doreen said.
“He said, ‘I’m your cousin’. And then he mentioned Anna Petrina (née Sanvieg), who was my great-grandmother, and Eliza, who was my grandmother.”
“I got on that Ancestry DNA years and years ago. And then out of the blue comes this: you’ve got a second cousin,” Colin said.
“It blew me away, actually. And then we got around to my great-grandmother, Eliza, and that sealed the deal then.”
Colin and Doreen are a generation apart on what is quite a complex family tree.
Their common link is Eliza Wilson – Doreen’s grandmother and Colin’s great-grandmother.
Eliza was a colourful woman who lived a tough life, Doreen said.
“I didn’t know her very well – I only remember visiting her once.
“She was only in her 60s when she died, [but] she would out-survive one lover and three husbands,” she said.
“[Her first husband] died in the first World War. And she was only in her 30s when her second husband died… I don’t know how she survived.”
Eliza’s first child was Les Wilson, born out of wedlock to an unknown suitor when she was 18 years old.
Les – Colin’s grandfather – was raised by Eliza’s mother, Anna.
“[Eliza] was forbidden to marry the guy who got her pregnant,” Doreen said, adding that they never knew who the suitor was.
Meanwhile, Eliza went on to marry three times. Her first marriage resulted in three children, while her second marriage, to George Ernest Thornburn, produced five children.
The eldest of those five was George Thomas Thorburn, Doreen’s father.
“So Les Wilson is my father’s half-brother,” Doreen said.
“And you know, we always knew about him, but we never met him.”
Since discovering their connection, Colin and Doreen have compared family trees and filled in a few gaps. Theirs is the closest match they’ve found through DNA testing, they said.
“[When] I got a DNA test for Christmas from my grandson, I did it, and then that was it,” Doreen said.
“You get matches all the time from different people, but I never get names I recognise.”
Meanwhile, Colin, who did his DNA test around a decade ago, said he has had between 400-500 matches.
“But some of them are sixth cousins… a lot of it is quite distant, but that’s the whole ancestry idea of it, really.”
Which makes their connection that much more special, the pair said.
Living in the same small town means they’ve also been able to get to know each other well.
“Colin does such a lot for me,” Doreen said.
“He does jobs for me, if there’s heavy lifting, he does it. I can just call on him and I say, ‘oh, Colin, can you come down?’”
In return, Doreen bakes for Colin, and teaches him to garden. She still mends his clothes. But mostly, they simply sit and chat.
“He’s become a really, really, really good friend.”
