My great grandfather, George James Kent is believed to have spent time at sea from a young age before arriving in New Zealand in the 1860s, probably as crew on a ship as his name doesn’t seem to be on any passenger lists.
He was working as a fisherman here when, in 1876, he married Harriet Heath, who came to Dunedin on the immigrant ship Allahabad in 1873.
Death records give his age as 79 when he drowned at Otakou (near Dunedin), in May, 1909.
Other details were :
Place of birth - Plymouth, England.
Parents - George James Kent and Helen Kent, formerly Mitchell.
His father’s occupation is given as seaman.
I have not been able to find anything to verify his parent’s names or that they
married or lived in Plymouth.
The closest to those names in Plymouth I can find are James and Ellen Kant in the 1841 census whose children include James, age 14, George, 12, Frederick and Elizabeth, and in 1851, James and Elenor Kent, who have several of the same names among their children. In both entries the senior James is described as a fisherman.
The name Helen Mitchell has me stumped, I would be grateful if anyone could shed any light on her connection with the Kent family, or indeed anything that might help me to sort out who might be who among my great grandfather’s English family.