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Hi all,
I wonder if anyone can help with a problem we have struck finding this girl's emigration from Ireland to New York. Her parents James Doyle and Bridget Brennan (my 2nd great aunt) were married on 7 Aug 1881 at St Michael's, Kingstown, Dublin. It was Bridget's first marriage but James had been married before. His first marriage (from 1875 until 1880 when his first wife died) resulted in three children -- a boy who died as an infant and two girls. One of the daughters from the first marriage, Katharine (b 1878), also emigrated to New York, marrying in Manhattan in 1895.
Annie was born 3 May 1883 at 23 Bolton St, North Dublin. (Her sister Bridget Cristina was born 2 Dec 1884 but died 10 Sep 1886). Then her parents set off for New York.
James caught the Furnessia from Glasgow at Moville and arrived in New York on 5 Sep 1887. We have him on that list.
Bridget caught the Britannic (1) from Liverpool at Cobh (it says Queenstown) and arrived in New York on 1 Jun 1888 (not iceberg season, thankfully, since the Britannic and Titanic were sister ships). We have her on that list as well.
But we have not been able to find Annie, and perhaps Katharine. It makes sense that James would have gone on ahead and to set up a base, but I would have thought the girls might have followed with Bridget. In 1888 Katharine would have been about 10 and Annie about 5.
There are other children listed individually on the Britannic passenger list so if the girls were with Bridget there should show up.
I haven't found Katharine and Annie on other ships, although I'm not an expert on using the ship list indexes.
Katharine married George Worden Keefe in Manhattan in 1895 and died in 1965. Annie married James Floyd Sloan in Manhattan in 1900 and died in 1936.
Several of Annie's descendants are DNA matches of mine. Their trees say Annie emigrated when she was 6 years old. I am in Australia and can't access many US records.
If Annie was 6 when she emigrated that makes it about 1889, which is close to the 1888 emigration of her mother on the Britannic (1).
Have we just missed the girls on the Britannic? Or is there another explanation?
We would be grateful for any suggestions.
Thanks,
Geoff Turner. 
 

Hi all,

I am seeking information about these people and their families. The Tipperary Clans Archive has Dennis Brennan Esq buried in Coolbane, County Kerry on 24 Apr 1844. We have a Maybury family history (https://sites.rootsweb.com/~mabry/kerry2.html) which says "Catherine (c.1817-1862), married Denis Brennan, a Catholic, and, after his death, the brother of David Moriarty, the Catholic bishop of Kerry".

From online trees (unconfirmed) we have Brennan born at Coolbane about 1810 and marrying Catherine Maybury on 27 Jan 1842. Their daughter Bridget was born at Coolbane in 1843. She married James Doyle in 1881 and they emigrated to New York, where she died in 1916.

(Online trees have Catherine Maybury b 22 April 1819 in Cleady, Kerry, marrying Samuel Geary after Dennis Brennan dies -- not the brother of David Moriarty. But they also have Catherine dying in 1899, which is based on a reference to a woman named Catherine Maybury, but of course that would not have been this Catherine's surname when she died.)

Meanwhile, in Country Westmeath, my great grandmother Catherine Brennan was born. At the time of Catherine's marriage in Australia in 1876 she said she had been born at Mullingar about 1854 with her parents Dennis Brennan, a schoolmaster, and Catherine Newman. When she emigrated to Australia in 1875 the Kapunda ship list has her birth year as 1850, and her death certificate has her birth year as 1848. (She may well have wanted to make herself appear younger to her new husband, and to qualify for free passage on the ship to Australia.)

However, those of my family who have had their DNA tested have a cousin or half-cousin relationship with descendants of Bridget Brennan, making us think the Dennis Brennan in Coolbane and the Dennis Brennan in Westmeath might be the same man. He may have been a Kerry native who got a job at the Mullingar school.

We have found a marriage between Dennis Brennan and Catherine Talt on 22 May 1835 at Rochfortbridge, near Mullingar, and we think this might have been our Catherine's parents. We have a baptism on 14 May 1844 at Rochfortbridge for Catherine Brennan, daughter of Dennis and Catherine. If that is our great grandmother, that would make her 44 when the last of her five sons was born.

The obvious conclusion is that these were two different Dennis Brennans. It is a common name. But that does not explain our DNA link to Bridget's family.

If the two Dennis Brennans are the same man, he died in Coolbane about the same time that Catherine Talt was having my great grandmother in Westmeath. For this to work, he would have to be born in Kerry, take a job in Westmeath, marry Catherine Talt, perhaps start a family, go home to Kerry for some (perhaps family) reason, meet Catherine Maybury and get her pregnant with Bridget and marry her (bigamously), then go back to Westmeath, get Catherine Talt pregnant with my great grandmother, then shoot through back to Kerry where he dies, a suspiciously young man (perhaps the Maybury family caught up with him!).

At the time of her own marriage in Australia to my great grandfather William Turner, Catherine Brennan said her mother was Catherine Newman, not Talt, so I'm not sure how that fits in (but my great grandfather got his mother's maiden name wrong, too!).  I suppose it's possible Catherine Talt married a man named Newman after her first husband died, but we haven't found that.

I tried posting in the Westmeath section in the hope that would bear fruit, but while I got some helpful responses, the puzzle remains, so I thought I might have more luck approaching the problem from the Coolbane end.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Geoff Turner
(in Australia)

Hi all,

Is there a way of accessing basic probate details for a man who died in Gosnells, Western Australia, on 15 Nov 1998? I know some other states have index cards that show the amount of the probate and the tax paid. I am interested to know how much his widow, my cousin who died in 2011, would have received, as her wealth caused ructions within the family (she had 15 children from her first marriage).

David Bruce Alger, who was her second husband, was born at Katanning in 1916 and seems to have lived all his life in WA.

Thanks,

Geoff Turner

My cousin Bill Turner is on the Australian War Memorial POW list, but his unit is just given as "8 Australian Division". The nominal roll has him as a driver at 8 Div HQ at time of discharge. He was in Singapore when it fell and died in 1963. In a letter home from Malaya in November 1941 my father, then in Malaya, described him as being in Singapore and "a driver at Base". I have been wondering if Bill should have a specific unit, such as 2/3rd Transport Company or something, and how I would find that. Or was being assigned to headquarters the same as being in a unit, such as my father's 2/19th infantry battalion? Thanks, Geoff Turner