Pru Cameron and her father, Colin Sharp, came all the way from Australia for their family reunion. Now all they have to do is find their relatives.
They brought pages and pages of their genealogy, color-coded and organized with index tabs. Among the relatives they’re hoping to find are names like Kamakele, Wong, Fevela, Borthwick, Poepoe — all of them descended from Joseph Sharpe and Sarah Elizabeth Burdon, who came to Hawaii from England around 1895.
“There are probably about one or two thousand relatives,” Cameron said, though she isn’t trying to reach them all.
Colin Sharp’s father, Cyril, was born in Hawaii in 1897. Cyril’s father, Augustus, dropped the “e” from Sharpe when he moved his family to Australia. Augustus left behind three siblings in the islands but brought with him connections to Hawaii. When he started his farm in Donnybrook, he named it Haleakala. Colin continues to run the Haleakala cattle operation on 860 acres in western Australia.
Cameron, 49, always had an interest in her family’s history. As a teenager she spent hours listening to her great-aunt’s stories of the Sharpe family’s world travels. Then an aunt they didn’t know existed died, and the process of finding her heirs uncovered more branches of the family — many pages to add to their genealogy.
The Sharpe family has a rich history in Hawaii. They were masons and helped build one of the stone buildings at Bishop Museum. They also were connected to the Waldron Shipping Co. One descendant married renowned hula dancer Emma Farden. The family tree is racially diverse and stretches from England to Hawaii to the mainland, Australia and Tasmania.
Cameron, who owns a bookkeeping business, has scoured the internet to connect with relatives.
“My message on Facebook is usually, ‘Hi. I think your mum (or dad) is so-and-so and your grandfather (or grandmother) is so-and-so. If this is right, we’re your Australian relatives and we’d love to meet you!’”
She has reached out to dozens of possible relatives. Some never replied. Some, Cameron imagines, may have thought she was “a bit stalker-ish.” But many others wrote back and said, “Yes, I always knew we had Australian relatives! Nice to meet you!”
One Hawaii cousin was so excited, she came to the airport to greet them with lei when they arrived. They had never met but there was an instant connection.
The day after they arrived, Cameron and her father went to a cousin’s house in Waianae, which turned into an all-day party at the beach with about 50 relatives.
Their three-week visit to Hawaii is filling up with visiting relatives, sorting through boxes of pictures, sharing stories about what they know about past generations.
Cameron is hoping more relatives will reach out to her and come to a reunion she’s planning for April 15 in Waikiki.
“Information — photos and birth certificates and stories — it’s no good if you’re just keeping it to yourself,” Cameron said. “The best value is in that being shared. It’s part of who we all are.”
Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
