Tuesday 15 November 2016

James Daemar - man of mystery

M's adoption paperwork describes her father as:

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.

His name is James Daemar and my objective is to find him or find out more about him.

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.



8 comments:

  1. James is or was definitely Edward Van Werkhoven. He was my step brother although I only met him once or twice when I was very young. His mother's name was Molly I believe and his full brother is Rene Van Werkhoven who lives in NZ.

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  2. A James Daemar ran and promoted the Miss Internnational New Zealand in the early 1970's. It was a large well advertised with the current Auckland mayor Sir Dove Meyer Robinson being one of the judges. A huge finale was held in downtown Auckland and I was one of the contestants representing a restaurant who sponsored me. This was how he raised the monet for the competition prizes which were extensive. The girls were also required masses of raffle tickets, thousands of them. However this James Daemar turned out to be a con man who fled to Australia with all the money after the competition finale. I don't know if it's the same man at all or a name sake. This man definitely had charisma and a good line as he convinced many Auckland Companies, who sponsored entrants, that he was left. A bit of a scandal at the time, but long forgotten now.

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    1. perhaps this is the reason why he came to AUSTRALIA

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  3. Sorry this self correct has made it sound jibberish. He convinced them he was legit not left. The contestants sold raffle tickets.

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    1. thank you for this information. It does fit what other information. I know he ran a model agency in Melbourne under another name.

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  4. I met James (Jamie) Daemar, first in Sydney, circa 1971; where amongst other things he operated a "modelling agency" based in Kings Cross. He was a "man about town" in Sydney. Drove a Alfa Romeo spider convertible. We had some fun times.
    For a while we shared an apartment at Upper Pitt Street, Kirribilli. He told he had come to Sydney from NZ to "start afresh". Said he had "done time" - perhaps over a business debt and falling out with his father. He did say he was a orphan. Late 1971, I went to NZ to live. Circa 1972, Jamie returned to Auckland where we re-connected. He drove a GT Pontiac Firebird which was pretty "snappy tom" - in those days - in NZ. he lived at Remuera with his Aussie girlfriend. We spent a bit of time together. He was promoting air inflated marquees which could be used for commercial purposes. He induced a friend of mine to invest. I believe things went belly up ;and the investor lost his house. He also did this in Sydney where some concert promoters were also "touched".I remember attending a function one evening with JAMIE. Some people came up to him and spoke with him. Shortly afterwords Jamie departed.

    He definately was a "ideas dude"

    I returned to Australia in 03/1973...never say "the boy" again.

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    1. Hi ABA, I am Matthew Dunn one of James's 7 children. I am trying to find more info about him? Was the Sydney modelling agency called The Llewellyn modelling agency?
      We all would really like to know about your experiemnces and what you know with our father?

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