Age: 27 years
Race: European - Dutch descent
Occupation: Businessman
Education: Good education
Intelligence: Above average, highly alert and intelligent
Religious Denomination: Not known
Personality: Energetic, intense, definite go getter
Interests:Yoga, karate, cooking
Family History: Said to be an orphan. Not much known.
Description: 5' 7" light brown hair, blue eyes, olive skin, medium build.
Other information that she learned from her birth mother was that he owned a number of companies, one being called The Auckland Business Man's Club and that he had appeared in the newspapers in the 1970's walking on water in an inflatable Big Ben Pie under the Auckland Harbour Bridge. He also travelled extensively in Australia and the South Pacific.
As James was living in New Zealand at the time of conception using ancestry.com I checked the New Zealand Electoral Rolls, 1853-1981. There was just 1 entry for a James Daemar in 1978, and another in 1981. In both entries, James occupation was listed as a company director. Interestingly this was the only entry for anyone with the surname Daemar in these electoral rolls. A check of a property ownership website in New Zealand drew a blank - no one with the surname Daemar owned property in the country.
An internet search for James gave a few hits - http://www.trademarkalertz.com.au/owner/james-daemar listed a number of patents that he had applied for in Australia and the majority of these were for large inflatable figures or items.
I also found a couple of people on Linkedin in Australia with the surname Daemar - could they be related?
A quick search of The Ryerson Index - www.ryersonindex.org, which is an index of newspaper death notices in Australia done by volunteers, sadly gave me a direct hit. James Daemar had died 4 Sept 1999 and his death notice appeared on 8th Sept in both the Gold Coast Bulletin and the Courier Mail (Brisbane)
I contacted the State Library of Queensland through their online connect facility and requested a copy of the death notice. A couple of days later I received it - giving me the names of 3 children. The informant had been one of his children, there was no wife mentioned.
I made contact with a son on Linkedin and in our subsequent telephone conversations he confirmed he was James' son, and yes his father always said he was an orphan but his mum had actually met 2 of his brothers around the time he was born - their names were William and Rene and the surname was something like "Workhoven". Apparently, there had been a falling out with his father so he had changed his name. He also sent me a copy of the death certificate which confirmed James was born in The Hague and the date of birth. As the informant did not know the names of James parents, this information was left blank.
So if James wasn't an orphan who was he and who were his parents?
A search of New Zealand Naturalisations, 1843-1981, Ancestry.com, has just one Van Werkhoven Family with 3 children emigrating to New Zealand. The 3 children in this family are Willem Carel, Edward Michael and Rene Alexander. Edward Michael Van Werkhoven was born in The Hague on 4 March 1944 - the exact same place and date of birth as detailed in James Daemar's death certificate.
I believe that James Daemar and Edward Michael Van Werkhoven are one and the same - an Ancestry DNA test will hopefully connect M with her Dutch cousins. Her half-siblings have shared photos of James so now some of those gaps about who her birth father was have been filled.
