THE greatest challenge in life sometimes is in discovering who you are.
And when you do, then it is in being happy with what you find.
Life is such for Josephine Quinn nee Covert, who had been wondering about her origins and traditional ties.
Last month, the Covert family travelled from all around the world for a reunion at Matuatoga estate in Raviravi, Macuata.
Mrs Quinn, who lives in Australia, is the fourth generation of the Covert family that settled in Fiji and has been searching for her roots for many years.
It was through research that she was able to track down her family, beginning from how her great grandfather William Dennis Covert first settled in Fiji.
Mr Covert was the first of the Coverts to settle in Fiji and he was born in New Marlborough, Massachusetts, USA in 1819.
According to stories passed down the Covert generation, he was a whaler who left Nantucket in 1850 on the Paragon for the whaling grounds in the South Pacific and in 1853 they were shipwrecked on a reef in Kosrae in the Federated States of Micronesia.
He remained on Kosrae to oversee the salvage of the ship and decided to settle on the island and later married a Kosraean woman and had children.
After a dispute with the local chief in 1857, he left the island on the Roscoe with his wife and children and later settled on Raoul Island in the Kermadecs, north of New Zealand.
While staying in the Kermadecs, he traded fresh produce from his garden with the whaling ships that called in.
In 1863, he was forced to leave the island after his wife and children died of a disease that was brought in by a blackbirding ship from South America with 250 sick and dying Tokelau slaves.
Mr Covert and his eldest daughter Mary were the only ones from the island who survived and sailed away on board the Emily and arrived in Samoa in 1864 where he later married his second wife, a young Samoan woman named Fa’asala.
He returned to Sunday Island in the Kermadecs and on their return their son Harvey was born.
Seven years later, the volcano in the middle of the island erupted and they ran for the hills, leaving a message in the bottle on the beach asking to be rescued.
Three months later a group of travellers reached the beach and rescued the family and they boarded the Milton and were taken to Norfolk Island.
After a brief stay on this island, they boarded the Zephyr and sailed for Levuka.
His daughter Mary met a man named Adolph Pheiffer, who was the captain of a ship and later married and settled there.
Mr Covert, his wife Fa’asala and their son Harvey moved on to Vanua Levu where he worked on several estates as a manager.
His second son Byron Covert was born in Navoavoa estate and then later moved to Narewa estate where his third child Olive Covert was born. They then moved to Mavuva Island where Dan Covert was born.
Mr Covert and his wife Fa’asala spent their last years at Matuatoga estate.
His wife is buried at another estate called Vunirara and in 1899 when he passed away, he was buried in the family cemetery in Matuatoga, overlooking the sea, according to stories passed down the Covert generation.
Today, Mrs Quinn, who is Harvey’s granddaughter, said her interest in trying to locate her family began more than 10 years ago.
“I grew up in Levuka and we later moved to Matuatoga Estate in Macuata because my grand-uncle Dan was growing old and weak and had sent for my dad before he passed away,” she said.
“We attended an all-European school which was few kilometres away from Matuatoga estate and the school was called the Seva European School.”
She said the hunger to know more about her roots made her search for her closest family and their origin.
“Family was more important to me than anything else and I will go on until I connect all the dots,” she said.
“We also have close family ties with the people of Raviravi Village in Macuata through our grand-uncle Byron Raravitu, whose mother was originally from Raviravi Village.”
Mrs Quinn said her long list of family that stretches to other parts of the world was what made her begin her search for all of them so their children would not get involved with a close family.
“I believe that it is important to know who our relatives are and the last thing we want is to find out that our children are marrying someone who is closely related to us,” she said.
“This was the whole purpose of having a family reunion, so everybody can be familiar with their origin and who is related to whom and how they are related.”
She said she hoped her research would make their next generation’s research on other Covert’s much easier.
The Covert’s first family reunion was held in Suva in 2014.
After the successful inaugural Covert reunion in 2014 and through requests by the whole Covert family in Fiji and abroad, their second family reunion was held at Matuatoga estate in Macuata from August 26-27, 2017.
“At our second reunion, we had all our Fijian side of the family from Raviravi Island present and we count ourselves blessed to have met up with all of them and also families from as far as Kosrae in the Federated States of Micronesia were present,” she said.
“I will not end here and I will continue until I join all the dots and get my family together, even if it means travelling and spending money just to get them together.”
The reunion in Matuatoga had the family visiting their great grandfather William Dennis Covert’s grave on the hill.
