Monday 25 April 2011

Grand update of the Fitz(-)henry database

The database at FitzhenryDNA has had a major update with about a thousand new individuals added.

If you are not already a subscriber, you can have a mooch around the names and dates by using the generic guest account, using the words USER and PASSWORD to gain access (the instructions are also on the Fitzhenry DNA homepage).
If you want to see more, register for a subscriber's account - then you get to see all the notes and records too. To register, click on "Register for a user account" at the bottom of the red column on the left of the page.

There are no individuals born after 1920. If you have a query about the more recent members of your tree, then email me directly.

My next mission is to get all those lovely photos which people have been sending me on the site without crashing it again...

Why not subscribe to this blog and get the updates sent to your inbox? Or send us an email about your Fitz(-)henry family links.

Tuesday 19 April 2011

Adding in the Fitz(-)harrises

For about a year or so I've been mulling about adding in the occurrences of Fitzharris (not many Fitz-Harris with the hyphen out there) into the Fitz(-)henry one name study.

The surnames Fitzhenry and Fitzharris were used interchangeably in Wexford, sometimes by the same people during their lifetime, although it seems that once a Fitz left Ireland, they stuck with either Fitzhenry or Fitzharris in their adopted country.

Adding the Fitzharrises to the database will hopefully allow me to fill in some of the missing links between families and rediscover people who seem to have just disappeared from the face of the earth. I'll slowly be adding in the Fitzharris references to the Blog and the website over the next few months.

Mrs Betty Walker has done a lot on research into the Fitzharris name and history in Wexford, and her website can be found at http://www.revolutionwow.co.uk/fitzharris/

Unfortunately Mrs Walker hasn't put a contact email on her website, so if she (or one of her friends!) is reading this, I'd be delighted to hear from her.

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Monday 18 April 2011

Fitz-Henry the wolf

In the on-line gaming community, there is a game known as Minecraft. You can read more about it here, but in short it is a game where you dig mines and avoid being killed in a variety of interesting ways by a variety of enemies.

I was intrigued to see the following post on the Minecraft forum posted by a player styled as BZ Anathema:
I want to hear your epic fail stories. Here's mine: I had just made a diamond pick and had 10 obsidian, so I decided to go make a Nether portal. Unfortunately, instead of lighting the portal, I lit the wood floor of my house, and the entire thing (3 stories!) burnt to the ground. I had to rebuild in a day, and in the process both of my wolves died.
R.I.P. Jasper Connigans Fitz-Henry IX and Frederick Winkleheim Collins.
If BZ Anathema is out there, we would really love to know why his wolf was named Jasper Connigans Fitz-Henry IX.

There is also a more serious side to this (well, slightly more serious). In early nineteenth century literature, the name Fitz-Henry was often given to middling nobility - not kings and dukes, but Marquesses and Lords. It had an air of slightly dissolute nobility and the characters reflected this. (see here for my reviews of two such novels)

At least two stage performers took the name. The singer Emily Soldene performed under her own name and also as Miss Fitzhenry.
Augusta Matilda Perrott, the actress and daughter of a baronet also adopted the name Miss Fitzhenry for her stage performances before her untimely death in 1818.
The painter Hugh Lane restyled himself as Fitz-Henry Lane.
If you've seen any more instances of the use of Fitz-Henry or Fitzhenry in more modern literature or as an alias, please let us know.

And yes, we think Jasper Connigans Fitz-Henry IX is a great name for a wolf.

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Monday 11 April 2011

Marty Fitzhenry - a man, his trains and his cat

We like Marty Fitzhenry even though he is probably completely oblivious to us here at the Blog.

Marty is a retired policeman living in Dedham Mass., with a passion for model trains and creating scaled working layouts. Just how much of a passion can be seen from this article here.

He also has a fab cat named Ralph, featured in this video amongst one of Marty's famous layouts. This whole article is in fact a vehicle for showcasing Ralph.
And it's taught me what a catenery is. That's this Blog all over - entertaining and educational.

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Sunday 10 April 2011

Another obituary - Henry Michael Fitz-Henry in New Zealand

Myles Fitz-Henry (1824-1877) the ironmonger in Clapham, South London, had three sons with his wife Frances Colbourn. Both Myles and Frances were born in Westmeath, Ireland. (The back story to Myles and Frances is here)
Two of the children died in infancy, but the eldest, Henry Michael Fitz-Henry born 1859, was last seen by me as the informant on his father's death certificate in 1877.

My mate Phil Hand (who's one name study is the name Hickling) found this for me from the London Standard, 3 May 1880:
FitzHENRY - Feb 17, at Wanganui, New Zealand, from the effects of a gun-shot wound, accidentally received, Henry Michael, only surviving and dearly loved child of the late Myles FitzHenry, of 410 Clapham Rise, in the 20th year of his age. RIP. Friends will kindly accept this intimation. Foreign papers please copy.

I had hoped that I would one day find a descendant of Henry Michael who could tell me why a picture of Myles Fitz-Henry was in the photo collection of the Fitz-Henry family in Chile to this day. However, this is now not to be!

And if you are a Hickling who wants to know more about your ancestors, send Phil an email via our blog address and we will pass it on to him.

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Tuesday 5 April 2011

Database registration - an update

Thanks to everyone who has already re-subscribed.

I realise that I didn't make myself very clear about where to find the subscription page, and for that I apologise.
If you follow this link:
http://www.fitzhenrydna.com/tng/index.php

and then click on "Register for a User account" at the bottom of the left hand column, you will be taken to a form to fill in. I get a notification and then authorise your account.

In the meantime, you can still look at the database using a guest account (instructions also on the home page) but you will just see names and dates and not any of the associated notes.

Why not subscribe to this blog and get the updates sent to your inbox? Or send us an email about your Fitz(-)henry family links.

Monday 4 April 2011

The database is back up again!


After my general ineptness caused the most spectacular crash of the Fitz(-)henry database last week, we seem to be up and running again.

Because I lost the subscriber details in the crash, I've emailed as many people as I know definitely had subscriber accounts as they will now need to re-register.
If I didn't send you an email, my apologies - and I hope you will re-register.
For those who hadn't been a subscriber before, why not see what the database has to offer?

Why not subscribe to this blog and get the updates sent to your inbox? Or send us an email about your Fitz(-)henry family links.