Admiral William Bleigh

I learned something very interesting today. We had the Elders over to visit tonight and Lisa was sharing with them the Family History 21 day Challenge that she is doing. That conversation eventually led to us seeing if we were related to them. My genealogy is so extensive that I am related to pretty much everybody but this time it was a bit of a surprise because one of our Elders is Tongan. Well actually is mother is from New Zealand and he was raised in New Zealand but his father was Tongan.

I was very interested to see how our genealogy would connect. Our common ancestor is thirteen generations back but in the late 1700’s one of his lines jumps back to England through Admiral William Bligh. You may have heard of Bligh since he was the Captain of the Bounty in “Mutiny on the Bounty”.

So the story, as Elder Langi tells it, is that cousin William was set adrift by the mutineers along with his loyal followers. Miraculously they eventually made 3,600 miles to Australia, in this small 20 foot launch loaded with 18 men. Only one of the 18 men died at the hands of a some native on one of the islands they stopped at. 

At some point in his career Bligh ended up in Tonga with a woman named Lesieli Taufa Tofua and they had two kids, a boy and a girl. Both of these kids were born while Cousin William was married to Betsey back in England. Elder Langi, my thirteenth cousin, descends from one of Lesieli’s kids. For some reason I found this story fascinating.