Australian man Luke Cornish made his first trip to Port Chalmers on Saturday, to locate the grave of his great-great-grandmother Eleanor (Ellen) Cornish.
She was buried at the Port Chalmers Old Cemetery in a plot with no headstone and listed under the name "Helen".
"That’s probably why it was so hard to find her," he said.
She died in Port Chalmers on March 20, 1878, after arriving from Australia a couple of years previously with her husband Samuel Cornish, and their children.
They were following the gold rush.
"She was probably quite malnourished early on.
"It would have been a pretty hard existence."
She died aged 42 of "dropsy" — now known as oedema or excess body fluid.
"I found that she was buried in this grave by herself, because she died young.
"I’d always felt kind of sorry for her, being in this graveyard all by herself on the other side of the world, but this is a pretty sweet resting place."
Mr Cornish said he wanted to pay Mrs Cornish respect, so he made a plaque with her correct name and death date, as well as the words "never forgotten".
"She probably never had a headstone — they were quite poor — but this is just a way of saying, you know, you’re not forgotten."
He started digging into his family history with the help of a genealogist who helped crack the New Zealand connection.
Mr Cornish had no idea anyone in his family had ever lived in New Zealand.
Eventually, two of Mrs Cornish’s sons — one of which was Mr Cornish’s great-grandfather — had headed back to Australia.
Her daughter married in Dunedin and eventually moved out of the city.
"You think of your two-times great-grandparents as being like old people, but she was five years younger than me when she passed away — it’s interesting to think of it in that way."
