Well, I do a lot of reading around in old stuff - NZ Beekeeper magazine, minutes of the NBA Executive, PapersPast.
But I caught something today that really makes me sit back and think of the 'archiving' stuff I've been doing, and how easy it is to make mistakes...
The specific issue I was collating, using all those sorts of sources, related to people who were on the NBA Executive through the years of 1913 to 2005, and more specifically, who among them were made Life Members of the NBA.
And I suddenly realised the error of my perceptions relating to the "Tom Pearson" I had in my records. I had it recorded that Tom Pearson was honoured as a Life Member back in 1947. But then again, in 1969 - Tom Pearson was honoured with a Life Membership!
Now, I knew the name "Tom Pearson" from when I was beekeeping in Canterbury, and remembered him as being around Darfield, I think. Through the years he was maybe best known as the NBA representative on the Pesticides Board, so I thought of him mostly in the 1950s through to the 1970s. Ian Berry took his job on the Pesticides Board, incidentally.
But I hadn't realised that there was another "Tom Pearson", who (along with his brother Albert) were commercial beekeepers in the South Auckland/Waikato area. *That* Tom Pearson had been on the Executive for a time in the late 1930s, another generation earlier, really.
When I had encountered the names, I'd always assumed them to be the same person, thinking maybe he moved at some point from Waikato to Canterbury. Ah, well, so easy to go wrong in many ways, but never would have expected there to have been two life members of the NBA with the name "Tom Pearson"...
But I caught something today that really makes me sit back and think of the 'archiving' stuff I've been doing, and how easy it is to make mistakes...
The specific issue I was collating, using all those sorts of sources, related to people who were on the NBA Executive through the years of 1913 to 2005, and more specifically, who among them were made Life Members of the NBA.
And I suddenly realised the error of my perceptions relating to the "Tom Pearson" I had in my records. I had it recorded that Tom Pearson was honoured as a Life Member back in 1947. But then again, in 1969 - Tom Pearson was honoured with a Life Membership!
Now, I knew the name "Tom Pearson" from when I was beekeeping in Canterbury, and remembered him as being around Darfield, I think. Through the years he was maybe best known as the NBA representative on the Pesticides Board, so I thought of him mostly in the 1950s through to the 1970s. Ian Berry took his job on the Pesticides Board, incidentally.
But I hadn't realised that there was another "Tom Pearson", who (along with his brother Albert) were commercial beekeepers in the South Auckland/Waikato area. *That* Tom Pearson had been on the Executive for a time in the late 1930s, another generation earlier, really.
When I had encountered the names, I'd always assumed them to be the same person, thinking maybe he moved at some point from Waikato to Canterbury. Ah, well, so easy to go wrong in many ways, but never would have expected there to have been two life members of the NBA with the name "Tom Pearson"...
