It seems this could be one of two women called Eliza McKenzie who were sisters-in-law. See community contribution below for the other biography.
This Biography was written by Alisone Cleland for the He Tohu exhibtion.
Eliza Fox McKenzie was born in Nelson in 1861, the daughter of Henry and Mary Clouston. Eliza’s paternal grandmother was a slave on Henry’s family estate in Jamaica. Henry came to New Zealand in 1849 but in no official documentation is there any suggestion that he was part Jamaican Creole. However it is significant that he called his second daughter Eliza Fox, the name of his Jamaican mother.
Eliza married Alexander McKenzie, the sixth son of Thomas Urquhart and Margaret McKenzie, a large pioneering family living in the Lower Rangitikei. For the first twenty five years of their married life Alexander worked as a stockman and farmer and the family moved frequently until they settled in Marton in the 1920s. They had five children. Eliza died in 1935.
Click on sheet number to see the 1893 petition sheet this signature appeared on. Digital copies of the sheets supplied by Archives New Zealand.
Community contributions