Hundreds of people will converge on Central Otago this weekend as descendants of two well-known families, both early settlers in the district, hold reunions.
The Dundass family will gather at Ophir, with its reunion focused on the Ida Valley, while the Mee family will get together at Becks and also visit St Bathans.
Both reunions began with a get-together last night and continue today and tomorrow.
The Dundass reunion involves descendants of John James and Jane (nee Renwick) Dundass and his cousin, William Francis and Catherine (nee Edwards) Dundass, who came from Scotland and Ireland, via Australia, and took up a mining claim at Ophir in the 1860s. The families settled in the Ida Valley, farming at Moa Creek and Oturehua.
More than 100 people are expected at the Mee reunion, with descendants coming from throughout New Zealand, London and Sydney.
"It's going to be a pretty low-key weekend, with a drive past some of the old family farms and a general get-together of two branches of the family, with the fourth, fifth and sixth generation of the original settlers gathering," Marie Tomkins (nee Mee), of Alexandra, said.
She is the great-granddaughter of Hinkson and Jane Mee, who came from Ireland and settled at Becks in 1874. The reunion mostly involves descendants of two of the couple's eight children, Thomas Hinkson and James.
