Could this be Myrtle Evelyn Segar of Timaru?

• Subject: Unknown perhaps M Segar
• Date: 1902-1919 ?
• Photographer: Robert Mahan, Timaru & Oamaru
• Found: South Island, NZ

Today's photograph came with just these few details written on the back:-

• M Segar
• 1½ Heavy Mat Green
• 2/6

Not much help there but I was pleasantly surprised to find that SEGAR was an unusual spelling for a fairly common surname. The photograph was taken in either Timaru or Oamaru and there was only one family with that spelling of their surname in the early NZ records.

So presuming it is M Segar and not Mr Segar - there doesn't seem to be an R after the M but one never knows - the only Segar with an M initial is Myrtle Evelyn born 1896 to Arthur Edgar & Isabella (née Harkess) Segar of Timaru. Myrtle married Walter Joseph Whitehead in 1919 so that just fits with the time the photographer was in business.

The bridesmaid looks like she's the bride's sister of which she had six, Arthur & Isabella had fourteen children. Myrtle had a younger sister by two years, Ivy May Vida, perhaps she is the bridesmaid but she had two older married sisters who might have been matron of honour, Eleanor Eliza or Anne Louisa, three other sisters had died by then.

I found this nice little bit of information about Myrtle in Papers Past:-

Myrtle Evelyn Whitehead died in 1969 aged 73.

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Arthur Edgar Segar married Isabella Harkess in NZ in 1877. Arthur was employed with the Timaru Harbour Board from 1882 to 1913 and in 1890 his sister Amelia was looking for him:-

Timaru Herald, Volume L, Issue 4801, 28 March 1890, Page 2
Inquiries are made in Lloyd's Weekly of Feb 9th for the following:-
Arthur Edgar Segar was last heard of 20 years ago in Princess St, Timaru. Sister Amelia asks.

It seems Arthur was born in Tendring Essex in 1848, the son of Arthur Edgar Segar and Elizabeth née Phillips. I wasn't able to find him, his parents or his sister Amelia in any census in England or Wales though.

References:
ancestry.com
Cemetery Links to Online Databases
FreeBMD
IGI
NZ BDM Records
Papers Past

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If anyone knows anything about or is connected to the Segar family please do contact me, I would love to hear from you & it may be to your advantage. All the information on this family may also be seen on WorldConnect here.

Dawn Scotting
pandora@kc.net.nz