I’ve got two ancestors who jumped ship in NZ, one changed his name (but passed on the details to his family of his real identity), and the other never bothered. I can’t believe a governor would involve himself… Was he Royal Admiralty or Merchant Marine? The former might end up with him facing disciplinary action, and being offered an alternative. There is (was) a book on Deserters in NZ waters, (sorry mental blank on it’s proper title) but the records for RA are now online, so if you haven’t yet you should be able to find your man readily enough. Jools On 3/08/2018, at 4:10 PM, new-zealand-request@rootsweb.com wrote: Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2018 09:40:13 -0400 From: gilliedog@aol.com <mailto:gilliedog@aol.com> Subject: [nz]Jumping Ship to immigrate and Auckland Naval Volunteers To: new-zealand@rootsweb.com <mailto:new-zealand@rootsweb.com> Message-ID: <164fade09ca-c86-a1da@webjas-vac188.srv.aolmail.net <mailto:164fade09ca-c86-a1da@webjas-vac188.srv.aolmail.net>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 My gggrandfather, according to family lore, jumped ship in NZ in 1853 and changed his name from Charles Short to Charles Stephenson. I have DNA matches with Short cousins so that part is OK but the next part of the story is that the NZ Governor at the time offered him immunity from prosecution for jumping ship if he joined the Auckland Naval Volunteers - which he did. My question is - has anyone heard of this "arrangement" before? I have heard that "jumping ship" was not unusual and one way of immigrating to New Zealand. I look forward to your comments and assistance. Thank you Angela