The Story of James Burke

This post tells the story of my maternal Great Great Grandfather, James Burke (1811 - 1878).  

James was born in 1811 in southern County Tipperary to father David Burke and mother Mary Whelan.

Catholic Parish Register 1811

The area shaded in red depicts the Parish of Powerstown

He was baptised on March 10th 1811 in the Parish of Powerstown (also known as Powerstown & Lisronagh) of the Waterford and Lismore Diocese.

This parish is very close to Clonmel and Kilsheelin, both of these places have been mentioned in oral family history as homes for members of the extended Burke family.

My great great grandfather's name was recorded as 'Jacobum' and his sponsers were Michael Power and Ann Rieley.

I have found scant details about his childhood unfortunately, other than the fact I have found evidence that a brother William was born two years previously.  I can find no other records of children born to David Burke and Mary Whelan.


In early 1833, at the age of 22, James married Catherine Crotty in the Newcastle Parish in County Waterford.

Catholic Parish Register 1833

Usually weddings occurred in the parish of the bride and her family, so I'm assuming the Crottys were living in the Newcastle Parish at that time.  Witnesses were Thomas Condon and John Nugent.

James and Catherine went on to have seven children over a period of nineteen years.  I have found records for:

David born in 1835.  James was aged 24 at this time.
William born in 1841.
Tobias born in 1843.
Maurice born in 1846.
John born in 1848.
Bridget, my Great Grandmother, born in 1851.  James was now aged 40.
James born in 1854.

All children, except their last born, were registered as having been born in the area known as Three Bridges, close to Carrick-on-Suir in County Waterford; so it appears that James and Catherine moved there not long after they were married.

Then sometime between the birth of my great grandmother Bridget in 1851 and the birth of their last born son in 1854, it appears that my 2x great grandfather James, then aged 43, his wife Catherine and their six children had moved to farmland in Killonerry, County Kilkenny.  The birth record for their last born son had Killonerry recorded as his place of birth.

My research led me to the 1850 Griffith's Valuation records for Killonerry, County Kilkenny, where I found there was a Thomas Whelan, along with tow other gentlemen, listed as persons holding land in Killonerry in the exact position where the Burke family farm was (and still is) located.

This is where my great great grandfather James Burke and his family moved to just before the birth of their last son.  It appears likely that Thomas Whelan was a relative of James's mother Mary whose maiden name was Whelan.  This may explain the move from Three Bridges to Killonerry, if indeed Thomas Whelan took over the entire holding and then passed it on to a descendant of one of the Whelan clan.

My great great grandfather James Burke and his wife Catherine were to spend the rest of their lives, working and living on that farm in Killonerry.

Their eldest son David, moved away around 1863 to begin his own life.  Second born son William migrated to Australia sometime in the early 1860s.  I can't find any information about what happened to Tobias.

Maurice, the fourth born, appears to have moved away briefly in 1875 when he became a father, but then moved back onto the farm in 1876 when he married.  He went on to have a family and raised them all on the family farm.  Fourth born John married in 1873 and moved away.

In 1873, James's wife Catherine passed away.  They had been married for 40 years.  James was 62 years of age by then.

James himself died just five years later, in 1878, aged 67.

At the time of James's death, it appears that son Maurice, Maurice's wife Anne Prendergast and their two children, as well as my Great Grandmother were still living on the family farm.

My Great Grandmother Bridget Burke remained on the farm with her brother and his family for a period of five more years, and then she migrated to Australia.  Maurice then became the owner of the family farm, worked the farm, raised his family for another 14 years until his death.

The Story of Mary Ann Farley - Part Two

So, this week I'm continuing on with the story of my paternal Great Great Grandmother, Mary Ann Farley  (?1829/1830 - 1910).

Given all the sketchy, yet to be proven, details of her childhood years (discussed in my last post), I'm only really certain about the life story of Mary Ann from the day of her marriage to my Great Great Grandfather.  So I'm beginning her story in her late teens.

In the year 1847, in the town of Wollongong, New South Wales, Mary Ann married Adolphus Hukins, an Englishman born in Kent, who had emigrated with his mother, father and siblings some eight years before this.

Given Mary Ann's age as recorded on her death certificate, it appears that she married Adolphus when she was possibly 17 years old.  He was 24.

A map of the Peterborough Estate in 1847

They married in Wollongong, but both stated that were living in Peterborough which was a little township surrounded by an estate known as  Peterborough Estate.  Peterborough later became known as Shellharbour.

Records show a son, Adolphus Crittenden, was born in 1849, when Mary Ann was 19.  As she had married when she was 17, and after the birth of Adolphus she went on to have another 12 children over the following 20 years, it seems likely she might have lost a child in the year or so after her marriage.

After Adolphus Crittenden (known as Chris),
James was born in 1850.
Susannah (my great grandmother) was born in 1851.
John came along in 1853.
Mary was born in 1854.
Thomas was born in 1856.
Adelaide was born in 1860.  By this time Mary Ann was aged 30.
George was born in 1861.
Alfred came along in 1863.
Twins, Eleanor and Cassandra were born in 1865.
Amy was born in 1867.
Arthur came along in 1869, when Mary Ann was aged 40.

It seems that Mary Ann and her husband Adolphus moved from Peterborough to Jamberoo, outside Kiama, soon after their marriage.




The birthplace of their first four children was listed as Jamberoo.  This is where Mary Ann's parents were living at that time, as were Adolphus's father, mother and older brothers.  Historical electoral rolls for the district of Kiama in New South Wales show that for the years 1855 - 1856, Adolphus, his father James and his two older brothers James Jnr. and John, were all the owners of freehold land on Curramore Estate in Jamberoo.

Sometime around 1854 however, Mary Ann and her husband appear to have moved into the town of Kiama.  By 1855, Mary Ann's husband had acquired a publican's licence, and was following in the footsteps of his father and mother, who had both been innkeepers back in the village of Woodchurch in Kent, England.  He still had the land in Jamberoo, but it does not appear as though the family ever lived there.

Photo of the Steam Packet Inn (on the left), which had originally been the Four In Hand Inn

It's likely Mary Ann would have worked alongside her husband at the 'Four In Hand' Inn in Kiama from 1855 to 1859, whilst raising six children and falling pregnant with a seventh.

The next 30 or so years were to be some of the hardest ever years of Mary Ann's life, and I am in no doubt that the insecurities and experiences she must have endured bought her to the absolute depths of despair.

Sadly, Mary Ann's mother Nancy passed away in 1858 back in the small town of Jamberoo.  It was at this time that Mary Ann's husband Adolphus was having creditor issues and was appearing before the insolvency court.  He lost the main source of the family's income - the 'Four In Hand' inn - but he was allowed to keep the household furniture and wearing apparel.

Imagine the uncertainty and anxiety that must have beset Mary Ann during all of this.  The family had to move out of the inn and Adolphus had to find another form of employment.  I'm not entirely sure what the family did.  Perhaps they moved on to the farmland that Adolphus owned on the Curramore Estate at Jamberoo, outside Kiama.  What appears to have happened though is that they set up home somewhere else in Kiama.

Things didn't improve much when it came to the behaviour and conduct of Adolphus unfortunately.  He was up on charges of stealing in 1862, just a mere four year after losing the inn.  In 1873 he was charged with drunkenness and a damages claim had been lodged against him.

When this damages claim was settled, Adolphus had lost everything.  The land at Jamberoo and all its assets were sold.

It appears that not long after this (or perhaps a little before) Mary Ann, her husband Adolphus and most of their children were living in a place around 180 kms to the south of Kiama.

In mid 1874 Mary Ann's second-born daughter Mary Barnes passed away.  The newspaper item in the Sydney Morning Herald stated that she was aged 19 and living with her mother and father in Broulee.  The registration district listed on her death certificate was Moruya, which is not far from Broulee on the south coast of New South Wales.

Mary Ann was aged 44 at this time.  It would have been heartbreaking losing a child well before her time.  The cause of death was listed as dysentery, which Mary Barnes had apparently been suffering for a period of three weeks.  No doubt it would have been Mary Ann taking care of Mary during her illness.

Her other children would have been aged between 25 and 5.  The oldest boys Adolphus Crittenden (known as Chris), James, John and Thomas were out in the world making a living of their own and appear to have been living elsewhere.  There were all in their early to mid 20s.  Susannah, the eldest girl (my great grandmother) aged 23, was married by this time and living in a home of her own.

The seven youngest children, aged between 14 and 5, were still at home under the care of Mary Ann at the time of Mary Barnes's death.  Mary Ann was no doubt the one who was holding everything together and ensuring the children were housed, clothed and fed, whilst caring for her ailing daughter Mary.  I have no doubt that the loss of Mary Barnes would have hurt Mary Ann deeply.

By 1886 it appears that Mary Ann's husband Adolphus was living in what was then known as Ryde Village, in Sydney.  Sands Directories of Sydney & New South Wales records Adolphus as a store-keeper in Glebe Street, Ryde.  I'm not entirely convinced that Mary Ann was living with him at this stage.

Uncertainty and upheaval still reigned in Mary Ann's life though, as her husband Adolphus was again facing insolvency proceedings just a mere 2 years later in 1888.  At the beginning of 1889, Adolphus was listed as a bankrupt grocer in the Government Gazette of New South Wales.

It definitely appears that by early 1889 Mary Ann and her husband Adolphus were not living under the same roof.  It looks as if Mary Ann was living on her own in Edwin Street, Croydon.  All her children were leading lives of their own and many had families of their own.  Some were living in or around Sydney, and it seems that Mary Ann was still very much a part of their lives.

Not long after the start of 1889 Mary Ann was spending most of her time helping to care for her daughter Adelaide Ann.  Adelaide, aged 29, was married, had two young daughters aged 5 and 3, and was suffering phthisis pulmonalis (pulmonary tuberculosis) for several months.

It seems that the illness and suffering of her third eldest daughter took a toll on Mary Ann, as she attempted to take her own life just days before Adelaide died.  Mary Ann's name appears in the 1889 New South Wales Police Gazette,

NSW Police Gazette 1889

and in a record dated 1889 in the Register of Criminal Cases tried at Sydney Quarter Sessions 1888-1891.

NSW Criminal Court Records - Register of criminal cases tried at Sydney Quarter Sessions 1888-1891

The details written in small newspaper items give a much clearer picture of exactly what happened though.

Evening News, Wed 26 June 1889

According to Doctor Hodgson, who gave evidence at her trial, on the evening of the 20th of June he found Mary Ann on the floor with two deep cuts on her left arm.  It appears Mary Ann had used scissors to inflict the cuts and then collapsed.

The article mentions that Mary Ann had been nursing a patient and had not slept for three nights.  The patient would have been her daughter Adelaide.

The doctor went on to state that it took five or six hours after he had stopped the flow of blood before Mary Ann appeared to show signs of life.


He did not allow her to be removed by the police, and instead arranged for a "watch being kept over the patient."



In another newspaper article it was reported that Dr. Hodgson declared that Mary Ann must have been "suffering from melancholia at the time of committing this act".

Charges were laid a week later, but Mary Ann was allowed out on bail.  She paid the sum of £25, which she apparently paid herself.  Sadly her daughter Adelaide Ann, died on the 30th of June, which was the same month that Mary Ann's eldest daughter, Mary Barnes, had died fifteen years earlier.

Mary Ann appeared before the court on the 23rd of August 1889.  She was 60 years old.

The records show that Mary Ann pleaded guilty.


There were no witnesses appearing before the judge on her behalf, but a man named Charles Septimus Smith paid a sum of £50 as surety and Mary Ann received a sentence of six months good behaviour.

Quarter Sessions - Sydney Morning Herald Sat 24 Aug 1889 p8

I was quite disheartened and upset when I first found out that my great great grandmother reached such depths of despair and pain that she thought suicide was an option.

It was terrific to see that the judge expressed an opinion that "from inquiries which had been made it did not appear a serious case or one demanding punishment and he therefore discharged her on recognizances being entered into by two of her friends that she would be of good behaviour for six months."

How heartening it was to see that she had two good friends who would ensure her good health and recovery for at least a period of six months.


Thankfully, Mary Ann lived for quite a number of years after this, and I hope with all my heart, they were relatively happy years for her, although there were to be a number of sad events that happened before Mary Ann left this world.

Adolphus, her husband (my great great grandfather) died in 1892, when Mary Ann was 62.  They had been married for 45 years.

Five years later, in 1897, Mary Ann's son Adolphus Crittenden (known as Chris) died at the age of 48.  Mary Ann herself was 67 at this time.

Her eldest daughter, Susannah (known as Susan), my great grandmother, died in 1910 at the age of 58.  Mary Ann was aged 80 and only survived Susan by a month.

It appears Mary Ann was living with her youngest son Arthur and his family at the time of her death.  The cause of death was listed as broncho-pneumonia.  It does seem strange that she died during the month of June ... the month that had seen the death of two of her daughters and the month when she had attempted suicide.

Thanks to the dedication of my cousin Carmel, we now know exactly where Mary Ann's final resting place is in the picturesque cemetery at Waverley in Sydney.

The rather plain and unadorned grave site of Mary Ann Hukins, nee Farley
(Photo courtesy of Carmel Ryan)

Her rather plain grave site looks out over the magnificent sight of Bronte Beach at Waverley, and as cousin Carmel has noted, she is buried amongst some of Australia's "greatest cultural shapers including poets Henry Lawson, Henry Kendall and Dorothea Mackellar."   An amazing resting place for such a battler!

The Story of Mary Ann Farley - Part One

I'm about to divert from the usual once again.  I'm going to post about one person over two weeks.

This week I'm going to tell the story behind all the research I've done about my paternal Great Great Grandmother, Mary Ann Farley (1830 - 1910), and all the twists and turns along the way ... then next post I'll tell the life story of Mary Ann, as I know it up to this point from my research.

The tale of my research attempts thus far will take a while, so if you're going to stick with it, then I suggest go and get a huge cuppa first and then settle in.  To begin the saga of my research attempts, I should establish that even from the start, things were complicated!

(The extra bits added in blue font are things I've added along the way as readers of this post have suggested helpful hints ... adding even more to this research story).

The first record I collected was the marriage record for my great great grandmother Mary Ann.  That record was easy enough to hunt down as I knew who the groom was - my 2x great grandfather, Adolphus Hukins.  I had a hint though that things would not be easy right there and then when I noticed which name was recorded for the bride and which for the groom!!!!

Unfortunately Mary Ann's maiden name was apparently unclear and hard to decipher on the original marriage record, therefore two possibilities were recorded on two different transcriptions from that original - one transcription used the name 'Farly' and the other used 'Parly'.

Armed with these choices, I then went on to research immigration records for a Mary Ann Farly or Mary Ann Parly.  After a long and exhaustive search, I ended up nowhere!  Not one single record with either of those combination of names.

Then one day I serendipitously paid closer attention to the marriage record transcription and noticed that one of the witnesses to the marriage was a Patrick Farly.  Surely that was a relative, possibly even her father??

The next step was to double check this piece of information with the information on her death record, under her married name - Mary Ann Hukins.  Success!

According to that record, her father's name was indeed Patrick Farley (although there was a slight difference in spelling).  There was no record of her mother's name though, so it seemed that Mary Ann's son Alfred Hukins, who was the person providing the details for her death certificate, didn't know his grandmother's name!  Not very helpful!

There was however, mention that Mary Ann had been in the colony (Australia) for 74 years.  Using the age recorded at the time of her death, that would mean she had come to Australia around the age of 6, and possibly in 1836, and her year of birth would possibly have been 1830.  The record also stated that she had been born in Dublin.

Off I went again to research the immigration records for a Mary Ann and a Patrick Farly or Farley who might have landed in Australia in 1836.  That was a dead end!

Okay, what about baptism records for Dublin in 1830?  Off I went to RootsIreland.ie   Again, I hit a brick wall!  Did that mean that Mary Ann's son was not in possession of correct details about his mother's life?  I've found over my years of family research that can indeed be the case, but there seemed to be so many other correct details given by Mary Ann's son!!

I widened my search on RootsIreland and found a Mary Ann Farley born in 1830 to a Patrick Farly and Mary Reilly, but in County Cavan and not Dublin.

I then went back to Ancestry.com to search for a baptism record for a Mary Ann Farley baptised in 1830.  Nothing came up for 1830, but there was a listing for 1829 for Mary Ann Farley.  Excitement built once again ... only to be dashed!

Baptism Register 1829 St. Paul's, Dublin city, Dublin, Ireland 

The record was simply a listing of all the children baptised at home in the parish of St. Paul's Church in Dublin City in 1829.  It included those with the surname of Farley.  There was a long, long list of Mary Farleys and two Mary Ann Farleys.  Hmmm!  Could one of them be my 2x great grandmother?  Unfortunately there was no information about parents at all!  So frustrating.

At this point I went to ancestry.com to search other family trees that included a Mary Ann Farley who married an Adolphus Hukins here in Australia.  There were several of these trees, and many of them showing an immigration fact which raised my hopes once more.  At last, I thought I'd be discovering exactly when Mary Ann emigrated and details about her family.

Excitement abated pretty quickly and confusion set in!  The details on the assisted immigrant record listed on these other family trees, had her parents' (and obviously her) surname listed as 'Farlane'.

Was this really my Great Great Grandmother Mary Ann, recorded as migrating to Australia as Mary Farlane with her parents Patrick and Nancy Farlane and her sister Bridget?



How was it that her family name was recorded as Farlane when coming into the country, but then her maiden name was recorded as Farley on all other important records here in Australia after that?  Not only that, but wasn't Farlane a derivative of the Scottish surname McFarlane?


I know the person recording the information at the time in this book could have misheard or misunderstood the surname, and recorded it incorrectly for Patrick, Nancy and the daughters Bridget and Mary; but I was still not entirely convinced that this was my 2x great grandmother and her family.

Assisted Immigrant Passenger List 1840 - Crusader

Upon closer inspection of this assisted immigrant passenger list, I found two young ladies on later pages with the surname 'Farley' - completely different parents though  or so I thought!

A reader of this post has reminded me that Nancy was sometimes used as a nickname for those named Ann.  One of those other young ladies on the 1840 immigrant passenger list was an Ellen Farley and her parents were recorded as a Patrick Farley and Ann Smith.  Could those parents be Mary Ann's parents?  Was this another sister of Mary Ann?  If so, then why was her mother recorded as Nancy on one page and Ann on another ... and why the two different surnames, Farlane and Farley?  

On another point ... if a young girl is travelling with her parents, but because of her age is recorded as an unmarried woman and not included with the married mother's details, usually there's an added note that the young girl is travelling with her parents.  That was indeed noted for the second young Farley girl travelling on the ship in 1840, but not added to Ellen Farley's entry.

So many questions.  Did the person recording the names of the single women aged 15 and over, hear and correctly record the surname of Farley for those two young ladies, but was unable to hear and correctly record the surname Farley for an entire family?  Perhaps there were two different people recording the details on this passenger list, one person with great hearing and one person who had difficulty understanding the Irish brogue????

If that was so ... and it was all just a matter of incorrect details, then this might indeed be the family of the 2x great grandmother, but where to from there?

Well then I decided to check out other records for this name Farlane.

First I searched to see if there was a death record for a Patrick Farlane (the possible father) who had emigrated in 1840 and had apparently come from Lurgan in County Cavan, Ireland with his wife Nancy (nee Smith) and daughters Bridget aged 10 and Mary aged 9.  He was apparently aged 44 when he arrived in the colonies, so that sets a birth date around 1796.

I went on the BDM New South Wales, searching for a death record between 1840 (his arrival year) and 1900.  Nothing!  Alright ... so then I tried Patrick Farley, assuming that for some reason the family name had been recorded incorrectly.

There was a Patrick Farley who died in 1843 in Australia, but he was aged 60.  Not a match!  There was another who died in Sydney in 1898.  He was only aged 48 and the record stated he had not been married.  Again, not a match!  He was far too young for a start.

This date of death had been listed on those other family trees for the father of Mary Ann, but if Patrick's age had been correctly recorded on the immigrant passenger list, then the Patrick who died in 1898 would have been aged 102.

So then, I tried BDM in Queensland, thinking he might have moved north, as some of my relatives did!  There were two.  One died in 1977 ... so that was a definite no!  I doubt my ancestor would have lived until the age of 181!  The other Patrick Farley died in Queensland in 1899, but again the age was out and the parents' details did not match those recorded on the immigrant passenger list back in 1840.

Slam!  Yet another brick wall!

The next step ... I thought why not search for a death records, between 1840 (supposed year of arrival) and 1900, for a Nancy Farlane, whose maiden name was Smith.  Nothing!

Okay ... then I tried Nancy Farley.  There was one!!!!!  Excitement built again!  Checking the record, I found out that her father's name was recorded as Pat, and on the immigrant passenger list (under the name Nancy Farlane), it had been recorded that Nancy's father's name was Pat Smith.  Hmmmm???  Could this be the mother of my 2x great grandmother?

The year of death had been listed as 1859, which was a possibility.  Following on from the age given on the immigrant passenger list record, Nancy would have been around the age of 57 in 1859, the possible year of death.

I purchased the death record of this Nancy Farley - possible mother of my great great grandmother Mary Ann Farley.

Here's where it got interesting.  Given that the surname was not Farlane (as it had been on the immigrant list), the record stated that Nancy was aged 66 at the time of her death.  Now that wasn't really a great match if she has supposedly been 38 years old back in 1840 when she emigrated as Nancy Farlane.  There's almost a ten-year difference there!

Not looking good.

Fingers crossed, I now checked out the name of her husband and possible children of the marriage.  Yes ... her husband's name matched (if Patrick starting using Farley upon arrival!), but then disappointingly, there were no children's names recorded, just numbers!

The record stated that this Nancy Farley had given birth to seven males who had already died by this time; and three other females who were still living.

That was food for thought!  The immigrant passenger list of 1840 had only 2 daughters listed as daughters of Nancy and Patrick Farlane.  Nancy was apparently 38 years old when she arrived in Australia.  Had she really gone on to give birth to another 8 children after that?  Not impossible, but highly unlikely.

I went back to BDM New South Wales to check and see whether a Patrick Farley and a Nancy Smith had registered any births after their arrival in 1840.  Nope!  What about a Patrick Farlane and a Nancy?  Nah!

Perhaps the 7 sons had died before the family had arrived in Australia.  That seemed highly unusual as well!  As there were no names listed, I didn't have enough information to start searching for death records here in Australia or in Ireland, which was a possible birth place for all those boys.

I was now in the depths of disappointment and utter confusion!

But ... hold your horses!!!





Something on the death certificate popped out and took my notice!

What the ...?  One of the witnesses to the burial was an Adolphus Hukins.  Now surely that must have been my great grandfather, married to Mary Ann Farley?  Was this the son-in-law to Nancy Farley?

This is where I had to stop, take a break, and break down everything I'd found out so far!

Mary Ann could have had the surname Farly, Parby, Farley or Farlane.
She could have been born in Dublin around 1830.
She could have migrated to Australia in 1840 under the name Mary Farlane, along with a Patrick and Nancy Farlane and sister Bridget Farlane.

There appears to be evidence that her mother (if she was the Nancy Farley who died in 1858 aged 66 and whose burial was witnessed by Mary Ann's husband Adolphus) had given birth to 10 children - 7 sons and 3 daughters.

There was no evidence that any of the 7 sons migrated with their mother and father, and I could find no trace of a third daughter ... if the Bridget and Mary recorded on the 1840 immigrant passenger list were in fact my 2x great grandmother and her sister.

Mary Ann might have experienced living with a very large family when she was quite young, but then some great tragedy might have occurred which resulted in all her brothers dying before she was 9 years old!

I could find no evidence of a Patrick Farley's or Patrick Farlane's (possible father of my 2x great grandmother) death and burial in Australia ... although if the death certificate details for Nancy Farley (possible mother of my 2x great grandmother) are correct, then her husband was still alive in 1859 as he was the informant.

There was no mention of a mother on Mary Ann's death certificate, and if the details about her birthplace are correct (Dublin!), then that doesn't match the place of origin details on the 1840 immigrant passenger list for the Farlanes ... it had been recorded that both parents originally came from County Cavan.

All clear as mud!

Now throw into that mix another surname .... Farrelly! 


Why, you ask?  I'll tell you why.


On some of those other family trees I had mentioned previously, there was a date of death recorded for Patrick Farley / Farlane (possible father of Mary Ann).  The record attached to this showed this man had died in 1866, but his name was recorded as Patrick Farrelly.

Now at this point I wasn't quite sure why there was yet another surname difference, especially given that Mary Ann's record of marriage and death certificate clearly had her father's name listed as Patrick Farley.  Why would he then be buried as Patrick Farrelly?

I ordered the record for this man named Patrick Farrelly, who had died in 1866.

The informant for this death certificate was a W. J. Whitfield, who was apparently Patrick Farrelly's son-in-law.  The name of Patrick's wife was recorded as Ann Smith.  Hmm!  The Patrick Farlane who had arrived in Australia back in 1840 had a wife named Nancy, and her maiden name was Smith.

It could be the same woman, but why would her son-in-law be calling his mother-in-law Ann, when clearly her name was recorded as Nancy on the immigrant passenger list and her death certificate?  Odd!  Although referring now to the reader who mentioned that Nancy was often used as a nickname for those named Ann, perhaps this was Mary Ann's mother!

More questions popped into my mind.  It was recorded on this death certificate that Patrick Farrelly had been in the colony (Australia) for 26 years, which meant he had arrived around 1840.  That was a match for Patrick Farlane's arrival date, but it was also recorded on Patrick Farrally's death certificate that he had 1 male child and 3 females from his marriage to Ann Smith.

Where were these children?  When was the son born ... and where?  The family that came in 1840 with the surname Farlane, didn't have a son on board with them, and only had two daughters.

I went back to BDM New South Wales to see if I could find a record of a Patrick Farrelly and Ann Smith having a son or daughter after their supposed arrival in 1840.  Nothing!  I went on to check using the surnames Farlane and Farley, with an Ann Smith.  Still nothing!

All this time, while researching this Patrick Farrelly, there was something niggling me.  It took me a while to remember and make the link.

It was the surname of the informant - Whitfield.  Finally, I remembered where I had seen that surname before!

Yes ... there was a Mrs. B.E. Whitfield who acted as a witness to Mary Ann's marriage back in 1847.  Coincidence?  Was this Mary Ann's sister Bridget, who had come out in 1840 as Bridget Farlane?

It was unusual for a married woman's name to be recorded using the first and second initials of her own name though.  It was far more common for her name to be recorded using the initials of her husband.  

Oh ... my ... word!!!!  Could this whole story get any more complicated and confusing?

I think you've already guessed the answer to that question!



I went back to Ancestry.co to have another look at those other family trees to see if they had a Whitfield related to Mary Ann, and to the Farlane family who had arrived in 1840.

Yes!  But this is where it got extraordinarily crazy!  A number of these family trees had a lady with this name - Amelia or Emilia or Emma Whitfield (nee Farley or Farlane or Farrelly or Farraly) listed as the sister of Mary Ann and daughter of Patrick Farlane and Nancy Smith.

Sometimes the extra Christian name of Bridget was thrown into the mix - obviously because there had been a daughter Bridget on the ship in 1840 and there needed to be a connection to make it all fit.

I still couldn't let it go though and so I dug a little deeper into this Amelia or Emilia or Emma Whitfield (nee Farley or Farlane or Farrelly or Farraly) person.  Perhaps she really was connected to Mary Ann, even if I couldn't pinpoint a christian name!

After much hunting, the records I found and purchased show ...

An Emma Farley married William J. Whitefield (perhaps the person recording the details added that extra 'e' in Whitefield.  It's supposedly Whitfield) in 1845 when she was supposed to be 19.


That didn't match the age of Mary Ann's supposed sister Bridget who was 10 years old when she arrived in Australia in 1840.

The death certificate for a Mrs. William J Whitfield has her name listed as Emilia Whitfield.  Her father's name was recorded as Patrick Farley and she had apparently been in Australia since she was aged 5.


That didn't match with the details of Mary Ann's sister, supposedly named Bridget, either!



None of this seemed to prove that she was Mary Ann's sister, if I was to believe that my 2x great grandmother was the child who came out in 1840 under the name of Farlane.



This is the point where it finally dawned on me that I'm probably not going to get a clear picture of my 2x great grandmother's childhood or history before her marriage.

The Youngest

Continuing with a slightly different post format again this week, I'm looking at the life spans of my great grandparents this time, following on from last week's post about the life spans of my great great grandparents.

In last week's post, I looked at the respective ages that each of my 2x great grandparents reached, and discovered they mostly had very long life spans.  This was a little out of the ordinary, given they were all born in the early 1800s when the average lifespan was around 50 to 55 years of age.

For this week's post, I thought I'd look at a younger generation of direct ancestors - my maternal and paternal great grandparents.  I wondered what sort of interesting facts might come to light.  In particular, I wondered at the difference between the majority of lifespans and the which was the shortest.

Out of the 8 great grandparents ...
3 lived into their 80s
2 lived into their 70s
1 made it to the age of 60
1 lived until her late 50s
and 1 only survived until the age of 30.

Quite a spread, but as it turns out it was a great grandparent that had the shortest lifespan out of the two different generations of direct ancestors.  His life span was quite short indeed.

The 3 great grandparents that lived into their 80s included:

died aged 89

died aged 86

died aged 86

The 2 that lived into their 70s were:

died aged 79

died aged 70

The 1 great grandparent that lived until the age of 60:

died aged 60

The great grandparent that lived to her 50s was:

died aged 58

The great grandparent that died at the youngest age (out of great and great great grandparents) was:

died aged 30

Strangely, Edmond O'Donnell, the great grandparent who died at the youngest age, was the son of John O'Donnell, my 2x great grandparent who lived to be the oldest in that generation of direct ancestors!

Another interesting set of facts I garnered from the life stories of my great grandparents were the ages they all became parents for the first time.

On my paternal side:
Thomas Connors and Susan Hukins became parents when they were aged 24 and 23 respectively.

Richard Brown and Ellen Cusack were aged 23 and 22 respectively when they had their first child.

On the maternal side however, the facts were a little different and they were mostly older:
Owen McCane (Muckian) and Margaret Farrell were aged 33 and 27 respectively when they became parents for the first time.

Whilst Edmond O'Donnell was only aged 22 when he became a father, his wife Bridget Burke was aged 33.

Interestingly, all my paternal great grandparents were born in Australia.  Indeed, they were all born in New South Wales.  My maternal great grandparents were from Ireland (that's the case for 3 of them) and from England.