Bernard Joseph Adams was my maternal grandmother's eldest brother. My grandmother was Madeline Burke, née Adams. I met my Great Uncle Bernard in January 1968 when I was in the merchant navy working on board the P&O Orient Lines cruise ship S.S Oriana as a steward. We docked in Auckland and I was met on the quay by Bernard and his son Ted. We then drove in a 14 year old Morris Oxford car to the family home of Ted near Te Kuiti in Aria, King Country, where I met several generations of the family and enjoyed a meal before being returned to my ship. Bernard had not met any relatives from Europe since leaving the navy after absconding from his ship, HMS Powerful, at the end of the First World War.
I have subsequently lost track of all his descendant family in New Zealand.
I would love to learn from any relations and intend to visit my brother in Canberra and another Adams cousin in NSW soon.