Ray Ahipene-Mercer - Family Background

Family Background

Ahipene-Mercer is of Māori, Welsh, Swedish, and Scots descent. He descends from the ancient Wellington tribes of Ngai Tara and Ngati Ira. Direct ancestors were members of the Ngati Ira people displaced after conflict in the Wellington area in the 1820s to the Wairarapa. Ahipene Mercer's closest Māori links now are at Pirinoa, and Kohunui Marae, the people of his maternal grandmother. His mother's father, from whom the name "Ahipene" was passed down, was of the Ngati Kahungunu, tribe from the area around Porangahau, and also of Ngai Tahu descent. This grandfather was also of Scots descent, through James Wybrow, a whaler. There is a strong family link with Ruapuke Island, between Stewart Island and the South Island.

Ahipene Mercer's mother, Ramona Ahipene, married Eugene (Gene) Mercer, a seaman of mixed Welsh and Swedish ancestry who arrived in New Zealand after World War II. Both parents were both active members of the celebrated Ngati Poneke Māori club in Wellington City, and later the famous Hutt Valley Mawai Hakona group. The whole family was closely associated with the urban Orongomai Marae. Eugene Mercer was a staunch trade unionist.

Ahipene-Mercer married Christine (Chris) Viggars in 1972. After an extended overseas experience in the UK they returned to New Zealand, where Chris died, suddenly, in 1981.