Another "deviant" spelling and hello to the Volante family.

I was very pleased last week to get an email from Michael Volante, the son of Mrs Betty Volante, the lady who had contacted Bev Kronk all those years ago.
Mrs Volante herself is not on email, so we're conversing via Mike at the moment (thanks Mike!) but she sent me an entry from the 1851 census that I hadn't already got.
The reason I hadn't got it is due once again to the notoriously bad transcription on the Ancestry site.

So at 9 Griggs Court, St Mary's Whitechapel London we have:
Mary Fitzhenry head widow aged 60 laundress Ireland Kilkenny
James Fitzhenry son married aged 32 gunmaker St Georges East, Middlesex
Caroline Fitzhenry daughter-in-law married aged 30 Bishopgate Street
Thomas Fitzhenry son of head umarried aged 26 cigar maker Wapping Middlesex

Source Citation: Class: HO107; Piece: 1546; Folio: 24; Page: 42

If you want to see the census sheet for yorself on Ancestry, you have to search under Fitchenny and poor old James is transcribed as Jane.

But at least that clears up where Mary was in the 1851 census - I had speculated in a previous post that she may have been the unmarried house-servant in the house of Rebecca Loosnig, lodginghouse keeper and claiming that she was 53 years old. But this is definitely the right Mary, my great-great-great-great - grandmother.

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More Irish-Australian links

I've three reasons to be eternally grateful to Bev Kronk in Australia who has sent us several emails over the last week.
Firstly she's sent us lots of good stuff, which she has given permission to reprint here in the hope that she will discover some more links to her family.

Secondly there's some fantastic Anglo-Irish items which I've added to our database.

And thirdly (which made me jump up and down in a very un-English sort of way), she found one of my very own strays - Thomas Fitz-Henry, my great-great-great grandfather's brother, who emigrated to Australia in 1852, worked as a shepherd, and ended up being committed to the Woogaroo Lunatic Asylum in 1881. Up until now I had no idea that I needed to look for him in Australia.

Back to Bev's family. Here's what she wrote, starting with her great-great-grandparents:

James Andrew Dobbin FITZHENRY and Frances FITZHENRY. Not sure if this couple would have been related or not. They appear in the index to the Marriage Licence Bonds for Ossory and Ferns – LDS Micro Film No. 0100870, for the year of 1818. Frances died in Ballickmoyler in 1879. I have not found a death for James as yet.

I have been able to trace 7 children from this marriage, all born in Ballickmoyler, Queens County, Ireland.
Frances [c1851-1921]
Maria [1852-1920]
Daniel [1854-1924]
Samuel [c1855-?]
James [c1860-1940]
Susan [c1862-1934]
Henrietta [1864-1867]
The six surviving children immigrated to Queensland at various times in the 1880’s.

Samuel FITZHENRY married Margaret Jane NELSON in Manchester in 1881. Their daughter Jeanetta FITZHENRY was born in 1886 on board ship in Australian waters near Thursday Island close to Cape York, the most northern point of the state of Queensland. She was registered as Jumnetta FITZHENRY, named after the ship “JUMNA”.

Jeanetta/Jumnetta Fitzhenry is Bev's grandmother. Bev would be very pleased to hear from any other researchers linked with this family, especially if they knew any family link between her great-great-grandparents James Andrew Dobbin Fitzhenry and Frances Fitzhenry (apparently nee Fitzhenry). You can leave information in the comment section below, or send an email via us and we'll pass it on to Bev.

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The boxer - Thomas Fitz-Henry, my great-grandfather

The picture is of my great-grandfather Thomas Fitz-Henry, whose older incarnation can be seen in the photo in the first post I made on this blog. It's a scan of a "tintype" photo, the original instant snap. More about tintypes can be found here at Wikipedia
I think Thomas must have been in his late teens or early twenties here (he was born in 1870), and I'm told that this would have been taken outdoors in natural light against a white background. So he was either standing outside during a competition or it might have been at a bout at a fair where traveling photographers were popular.
In February 1894 he won a silver cup at the Sydney Club Open Boxing Competition weighing in at 7 stone 10lb (108lb) or flyweight. The trophy was never engraved with his name as it was more valuable at the pawn shop unnamed (family legend) but thankfully it was safely redeemed so I now have it.
The picture may have been taken at that event as this is the only photo we have of his boxing career.