FAMILY TREE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 206, 1 September 1933, Page 5

FAMILY TREE.

COOK'S DESCENDANTS. ONE LIVING IN TARANAKI. WOMAN OF SIXTH GENERATION (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) NEW PLYMOUTH, this day. The fact that a descendant of Captain James Cook, the famous navigator, is living at New Plymouth, was confirmed to-day. Inquiry had been received from Australia for a descendant of Captain Cook living in New Zealand. The name was given as Glencairn. The common

belief was that Captain Cook's descendants did not survive the first generation. Mrs. J. Ruff, of Roy Terrace, formerly Miss D. M. Piatt, of Taihape, is a great great great granddaughter of the navigator, to whom she traces her relationship through his daughter Margaret. Mrs. Ruff's father's uncle, the Rev. C. H. Piatt, vicar of Seacroft, near Leeds, has in his possession a cocked hat and walking stick which belonged to his famous ancestor. Mrs. Piatt, who now is visiting Hew Plymouth, has a filigree brooch which was brought back from the Sandwich Islands by Captain Cook. The full genealogy of the family is not available at New Plymouth, but it has been established in England. Mrs. Ruff does not know Mrs. Glencairn, but believes she may be a member of the Piatt family in Australia. It is believed that all of Captain Cook's sous died at an early age without issue, some of them being lost at eea.