MacEwans: The New Zealand Cousins

After close to 50 years I have re-connected with our MacEwan cousins who live in New Zealand.  The first connection was made in England and occurred under one of those rarest of coincidences.  Here is how it happened. In the Fall of 1967 after I graduated from university I travelled to Montreal, toured the Expo site and then flew to London, England to have "some new experiences".  Since I didn't have much money I immediately began looking for work and within a week I had a job teaching in a Junior School on the huge Dagenham housing estate in Essex, east of London.  Shortly after I began working in the Matthew Arnold Junior School, the Head Master mentioned that he had had a recent contact with a family from New Zealand who had the same last name as mine.  Coincidentally, Ian MacEwan from New Zealand a distant cousin of my father was at that time staying with my parents while he attended a conference in nearby London, Ontario.  Ian was able to confirm that, indeed, the family in England was his son and daughter-in-law and their children. I visited the MacEwans and the first link was established. After that visit I went off travelling on the continent, the MacEwans returned to New Zealand and after three years I came back to Canada. In the meantime my parents heard that Ian had had a stroke and then everything went silent.  That was until recently when I noticed that Callum MacEwan was managing a genealogy web site on which he has created an extensive family tree which includes some of the Canadian ancestors. Callum has expressed an interest in hearing more about the Canadian McEwans particularly stories of why three young men chose to travel across the globe to begin new lives in New Zealand.  I know a little about that history and I will write down some of the stories which I have heard.  In the meantime and to begin the narrative, I am attaching a picture of the brothers - George (I believe), Arthur and James

who left Canada in the early 1890's and who emigrated to New Zealand.  The second picture taken in my parents' home is of my father Gordon McEwan and his New Zealand cousin  Ian MacEwan in about 1968.