WHEN Marion Newman and her two daughters Bonita and Allisa Lyman arrived in Fiji in 1998 from the US, all they had was the first name of their ancestor.
An article published in The Fiji Times on September 16 that year reported they were keen to find out about their ancestral origins and whether they had relatives in Fiji.
The trio arrived on September 10 from Colorado, Ohio to trace the origins of Anare, who left Fiji for the US in 1826.
Ms Newman, 70, from Colombus, Ohio, was Anare’s great-great-granddaughter.
Her grandfather was one of the nine children that Anare had with a woman named Martha.
Bonita said her great-great-great grandfather travelled to the US on a ship after the ship’s captain asked the people if someone wanted to go back to the US.
“He was not a slave, and I don’t think the ship was a black birding one,” Bonita said.
“We know our ancestor came to the US on his own free will because the captain asked the people in his village if they wanted to go back with them, and he wanted to.”
The family had found census records that showed the ship Anare travelled on berthed at Fairfax county in the state of Virginia.
However, the plan to come to Fiji and trace the location of his village and look for relatives took the Newman family two years.
Alisa said Anare was given the English surname of Newman and the family was trying to find out why this was done so it could make the search for their “roots” easier.
Anare, or Newman, had so many relatives that a town formed in Virginia in the early 20th century was named Newman.
The women searched the National Archives, a provincial office and the National Land Trust as they tried to track down relatives.
“We walked around and found the features of Fijian people so similar to that of the people in our family that we are just so sure that Anare came from Fiji,” Allisa said.
“We just want to be able to meet our relatives if there are any still here.”
Although the women did not have much to time to continue their search, they planned to comb through the villages on the coast and look at other historical recordings for information.
