Biography contributed by Bernadette Siebert
Jessie Mckenzie was born in 1849 in Boularderie, Nova Scotia, Canada. Her parents were William and Annabella nee McKenzie, they were first cousins.
William was originally from Scotland, went to Nova Scotia and married Annabella, who was born in Nova Scotia. Jessie and her brother Murdoch were born in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia before the family immigrated to came to Auckland in the Gazelle, via Adelaide, arriving on 18 September 1853. The McKenzies joined other Nova Scotia settlers and settled in Waipu.
Jessie died on 10 July 1913 at Waipu. She is buried in Waipu Cemetery, Northland with her father William who died in 1900 and her mother Annabella who died in 1916. On their headstone it reads, 'Aig Fois' Scottish Gaelic for ‘At rest’.
Sources
Sailors and Settlers – the Migration of Highlanders from Nova Scotia to New Zealand in the 1850s and 1860s by John McLean, Winter Productions, Wellington, 2010