University of Otago research into mixed race World War 2 babies has struck a chord throughout the Pacific and beyond.
Prof Judith Bennett, from the history department, is leading an all-women team on a three-year project to research official documentation about the children of American servicemen and Maori and Pacific Island women, and to interview as many of the children as possible.
An article in the Otago Daily Times earlier this year which was reprinted in newspapers in Samoa and the Solomon Islands, plus radio and television interviews, had resulted in approaches from about 50 children or their relatives, Prof Bennett said this week.
They included several people of mixed Maori-US heritage, as well as Samoans, Cook Islanders and Fijians living on those islands and in this country.
"It was an excellent response. I had no idea what might come out of the publicity."
Two unrelated Alaskan residents also made contact, she said. One was a woman who was trying to trace her cousin, the offspring of the woman's US-serviceman uncle and a Tongan woman.
A New Zealander also contacted Prof Bennett and told a sad story about his Maori mother having twins to an American serviceman and being committed to a psychiatric institution after she was shunned by her family, was unable to cope on her own as a single parent and had the twins removed from her care.
"Every story is different. Some will break your heart and some have happy endings."
The research team had responded to all those who had made contact.
