Baby Tayla is great, great and great again

KELLY SCHICKER/Waikato Times

GIRL POWER: Two-week-old Tayla Daley, in the arms of Margaret Gringles, is the atest in a six-generation family of females. Also pictured, from left, are Violet Stevens, Vivian, Amber and Leonie Mead.

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Tayla Daley caused a stir, just by being born.

The two-week-old Cambridge girl has become the sixth generation in an unbroken line of women.

They are Margaret Gingles, 94, Violet Stevens, 74, Vivian Mead, 54, Leonie Mead, 34, Amber Mead, 18 and Tayla, born on November 16.

All live in Cambridge except for Vivian and have done so for up to 40 years.

Vivian Mead, who moved to Papamoa three years ago, said the women were excited by the latest addition to the family. "They think it's very rare."

"People say to me at work, `God, you're a great-grandmother now'. I don't feel like it."

Hamilton Genealogy Society life member Val Wood said having six direct generations alive at the same time was "something quite rare and special".

In her 25 years' studying genealogy she had never come across such a long, unbroken family link. "Five generations yes, but not six."

Tayla's birth is particularly special because her mother Amber was diagnosed with leukaemia when she was just 18 months old and had chemotherapy until she was three-and-a-half.

Her childhood was dogged with illness and Mrs Mead said the family was lucky to have her with them.

"When she was very young a virus nearly took her life because of her immune system with the chemo. We had ups and downs with her but she came through and has a clean bill of health."

The women got together for the first time to meet Tayla last week and to celebrate Vivian Mead's birthday.

Although Tayla's birth makes Mrs Gingles a great-great-great-grandmother, she still lives independently and cooks and cleans for herself.

And while Mrs Mead's mother, Violet Stevens, is now paralysed down her left side due to a stroke in August, she can still communicate and was overjoyed to meet her great-great-grand-daughter.