OK...here we go.

H.M.S. Queen Liliuokalani.

As a three year old my grandmother, Annie Maikai Miller, told me and 4 siblings that our ohana was somehow attached or a part of the Iolani Palace history. Ever since, I felt an obligation to understand that relationship as far back as it may go.


Liliuokalani, born Lydia Liliʻu Loloku Walania Kamakaʻeha, was the natural daughter of  Analea Keohokālole and Caesar Kapaʻakea, both are 4th and 5th cousins of mine, several times removed. But it is from her hānai adopted mother Laura Kanaholo Kōnia, that my ohana relationship begins to unfold. Laura Kōnia is the granddaughter of Kānekapōlei, my own 3x great grandfather Mela's wife and mother of his two children, a girl named Kahinu (w) and a son named Alika (Alexander) Mela (Miller) Jr.^[2]