Girven Family Homepage

This website is for the Girvan/Girven/Girvin Families. Please contact Peter Girven by email at prgirven@hotmail.com with any questions.

This site is under development at the moment, and in October 2019 I have started updating it. I have converted it to a more modern style and added an easy to find page to see what the recent changes have been , also to add an index to show the content.

In 2013 I had also started a sister website for the Maddren Family, this is located at the following address, this mainly has photos of the Maddren Family:

https://sites.google.com/site/maddren1family

We also have a private Facebook Group called Girven Family NZ. https://www.facebook.com/groups/323627421063490/

Girven Background

There are two different Girven family trees in New Zealand. The family that I have descended from is from Adam Girven. My Great Grandfather Adam Girven emigrated to New Zealand in 1864, he married Harriet Ball and they founded a large family in New Zealand. Adam came from Fivemiletown, County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland, he was born in 1845, his Father was Richard Girven/Girvan, and his mother was Elizabeth McKay.

The second family in New Zealand are descended from William John Girven, they are based around the Birkenhead area of the United Kingdom and they had several members who emigrated to New Zealand and to Australia. William John was born in Scotland, his family tree has been well researched by Malcolm McAlpine. This tree is available onm this web address.

https://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=malcolms&id=I024

I have traced Adam Girvens family tree in Northern Ireland and I have travelled several times to Derrynavogy to where the Girven family Home stood. The name remained Girvan in Northern Ireland but it had changed in New Zealand to Girven. I met a relative of the Girvans (Frank Armstrong - nephew of Margaret Girvan (nee Armstrong) while there and he confirmed that all Girvans have now died out in Northern Ireland, the last one alive was Maggie Girvan.

I have met friends of Maggies and I was given her passport as a keep sake. I was also given a postcard sent by my Grandfathers brother Edward Girven while in occupied France during Work War 1, it was to his Uncle John in Northern Ireland. This had been kept by Maggie and her friends, it was a touching moment to receive this from Maggies friends in Northern Ireland.

Maggie had lived in Canada during the first World War, and later had a Canadian passport (I have a copy of this Canadian passport), I believe that Adams uncles had emigrated to the Peterborough area in Canada in the 1830's. I have found a fragment of the 1821 census for Dernavogey detailing more Girvan names but I need more information to fully tie the Canadian Girvens and the Northern Ireland Girvan family trees together. In Canada the name is also spelt Girven, both halves of the Family had settled on a New World spelling. I have traced quite a lot of the Canadian family from Census information and via the Internet but I have not managed yet to travel their to trace living Canadian relatives.

Recently I have also discovered that Maggies younger brother Adam Girvan (Adam Girven in New Zealand nephew) had also emigrated to Canada in 1913, I have been in contact with his Grand daughter Julie in Toronto and I have added documents discovered for me by a friend Toni on page 59, this is the Canadian Girvans page and it details Adam and his Canadian Girvan family

I have also added a Family Map link to Derrynavogy, it was on Google maps for a while and you could where the Girven house was located. I now have added a map of the area showing the location of the farmhouse at Derrynavogy. From the top of the farm there was a spring with fresh water, the views are excellent from up there down across the valley. The land up above the spring is very barren, they called it "the mountain" there and this means that it was barren and could not be farmed.

Richard Girven signed a lease for this farm of 30 acres in 1840, this means that he was quite wealthy in those days. The lease was for 2 lives, this was normal for those days meaning that it was for the duration of the lives of two young well known children, one child was the son of the Land owner, and the other was a the Reverands son. This lease set Richards family up for life as at least one of those children would be expected to live for at least 70 years. John Girven (Adams brother) farmed this land after Adam left for New Zealand and Richard, Johns son and Adams nephew eventually brought the lease out in the 1900's. Richard, his wife Margaret and sister Maggie lived on the same land for many years, up until the 1970's.

John had dementia in later years and died after he fell down the steep stairs in the farm house, Richard and Margaret later sold the farm on to Mr Kearney who still owns and farms the land today. Maggie the last Girvan (they used different spelling to us) died in Belfast in the 1980's. I am unable to find her death certificate, but a nephew said that a family friend was looking after her in the last year of her life.

Page 15 (I used page number to keep the pages in step) has pictures of Adam Girven, also of Richard and Bethia Girven, Richard was Adams oldest son. We also have a similar picture of Maggie (Margaret) Girven, she is the second oldest daughter of Adam and Harriet. I have also included a picture of my grandparents, Evan is the second youngest son of Adam and Harriet.

I have moved the most of the pictures to the Family Photo Albums, Pages 12, 13 and 14, this makes them easier to view, they are now the top pages on the sidebar (to the left), labelled Photo Albums.

There are three attachments to this home page, the first is a Family Tree produced in the late 1980's for the first family reunion, this was mainly for the descendants of Adams oldest son Richard William Girven, we do also have additional pages available for the rest of Adams children and families. The second is a transcript of a chat with Madge Lee, my Mother and Father recorded Madge Lee in the early 1990's. Madge was the last person to know Adam and Harriet well, she was a daughter of Hannah Wangford (nee Girven) and Madge helped look after them in their last years.

The third is an audio recording of my Dad (Wallace Girven) talking to Madge Lee, unfortunately Google is not making it easy for me to embed this mp3 recording but I hope to find a work around soon.

The link below will play you a recording made by my parents Wally and Irene Girven, the recording is of Madge Lee, Madge Lee was one of the few who still remembered Adam and Harriet Girven. Harriet had died in 1929, the year after Adam Girven passed away so only a few in our family were old enough to remember that far back.. Madge was Sharon Jones's mother, Madge had been born in 1915 and was the 3rd daughter of Hannah Girven. Hannah was born in 1884 and was the 6th daughter of Adam and Harriet Girven, Hannah married William James Wangford in 1902. Madge would have been 14 when Harriet her grandmother died so her memories were very good when she was interviewed at the age of about 80.