This website is a work-in-progress by Pip PECK, descendant of (1) Emanuel FREDERIKSON and his wife, Helena ERICSDOTTER, both from Sweden; (2) Johan Fredrik (Fredrik) MORTENSEN and his wife, Anne Marie (nee HALVORSDATTER), both from Norway; and (3) Christian Leonhard (Leonhard) ANDERSEN and his wife, Elizabeth (nee KING), from Prussia and England, respectively. All of the above were buried at Norsewood Cemetery.
Norsewood Cemetery, in Norsewood, Tararua, Southern Hawkes Bay, New Zealand, is thought to be the largest Scandinavian cemetery in Australasia.
The graves of many of the Scandinavian immigrants — predominantly Norwegians — who were brought to the Norsewood district under the 1870s “assisted immigration” programmes can be found in the Norsewood Cemetery.
Many of the graves in the Norsewood Cemetery are in a serious state of decay with the inscriptions on the headstones almost illegible. Other graves are now completely unmarked, and many graves on the cemetery plan are simply marked “unknown”.
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To photograph and document the graves at the Norsewood Cemetery, particularly those of Norsewood's first and early settlers, before time and the elements cause further disintegration and loss of information; To try to recreate lost cemetery records (most of the records from 1872 to about 1900 — ie, the historically-significant graves of first and early settlers — appear to have been lost); To provide online information for those trying to trace family trees, in either chronological direction, via Norsewood settlers; and To (eventually) publish a book about the graves at, and genealogies of the first and early settlers of, Norsewood which could be useful to genealogists who get stumped at the point where the Norsewood settlers immigrated to New Zealand. |
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Need historic Norsewood photos identified? We'd be happy to post them on our blog.
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Looking for someone you cannot find here? Please contact me. I may have additional information that hasn't been uploaded. |
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Found something useful here? Feel free to link to our website.
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How YOU can help “resurrect” Norsewood Cemetery's lost grave records.
We need your help... and we'd like to help you, too!
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“Show me, O LORD, my life’s end
and the number of my days;
let me know how fleeting is my life.
You have made my days a mere handbreadth;
the span of my years is as nothing before you.
Each man’s life is but a breath.”
— Psalm 39:4-6
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Can you identify these 
“Digging Up” the Dead: