The first of two more British military records now digitised on Findmypast from the National Archives WO97 series.
Corporal Harvey Fitzhenry No. 4881 Royal Artillery seems to have been an exemplary rank and file soldier.
The commendations from his senior officers read thus:
His conduct has been very good. He is in possession of two Good Conduct badges.
In possession of 3rd Class School Certificate
His name does not appear in the Regimental Defaulters sheet
He joined the army at the rank of driver on 29 November 1870, was promoted to Bombardier in March 1876 and was promoted again to Corporal in November that year.
He was discharged from the Army on 8 January 1880 having completed a total service of 9 years and 41 days, of which 5 years and 102 days were on service in the East Indies.
The reason for discharge was a large inguinal (groin) hernia first noted in India in 1878 "when under treatment for Ague" and "his duties as a mounted soldier may have given him this condition. The rupture is controlled by a truss". It's good to note that this "had not been aggravated by intemperance or vice"
The final page of the document describes him thus:
No. 4881 Corpl Harvey Fitzhenry
referred to in the preceding pages, by
Trade a pocket book maker
born in the parish of St Andrews
Near the town of Holborn,
In the county of Middlesex
And attested to the Royal Artilliary regt
At Woolwich in the county of Kent
On the 29 November 1870
Aged 20 6/12 years
His final description this day
aged 29 7/12
Height 5 foot 4 and a half inches
Complexion fresh
Eyes grey
Hair brown
Trade: pocket bookmaker
Marks or scars upon the face or on any other part of the body: considerable prominence of the right hip.
Intended place of residence:
11 Startham Road
Stoke Newington
London
Oh, it should be so easy to find this man back in civilian life.
But no.
This is all I have of him.
He makes one census appearance in 1871 when he was in barracks.
No birth marriage or death records.
No baptism entry at St Andrews Holborn.
No Fitzhenrys living in Statham Road.
A nom de guerre perhaps?
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.
Apologies to all our new subscribers who signed up while I was away on my jollies and then had three weeks of Blogging silence. However my "behind the scenes" correspondents will know that I was collecting new stories and over the next few nights there will be two new British Army records and then a three-part essay from Mrs Josephine Fitzhenry Hodge, her life's work on the family of Enoch Fitzhenry in the United States.
Tonight's post is pertinent as we were holidaying in California. We were driving on Highway 1 just north of San Francisco when the sign for Stinson Beach caused a small flicker of recognition. We made an unscheduled stop at the beach, fired up the laptop and there in the database was the story of Stinson beach and Newman Lee Fitzhenry.
Stinson beach is a quiet town, but in his day Newman Fitzhenry had much bigger plans for the place. The beach was named for the owner of the beach and Newman married Eva Stinson. Here's his biography from his obituary:
Mr. Fitzhenry was born in Illinois in 1881, and had operated the Beach properties for 24 years with his wife, Mrs. Eva Stinson Fitzhenry, daughter of the former owner of the Stinson Beach holdings. He was a graduate of the University of Chicago, and a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He was also a member of the San Rafael Elks Club, and was considered one of the authorities on bridge in the Bay region. He was also a member of the San Francisco Press Club.
Fitzhenry’s chief ambition was for wide development of Stinson Beach, as one of the world playgrounds, but he lacked sufficient capital to carry out his dream. He was always interested in promotional work in the county, but never overlooked an opportunity to let the world know that there was a beautiful beach close by, and that any large development project should not overlook Stinson Beach. He frequently appeared before the Board of Supervisors fighting for better roads to the Beach, and at one time offered the Beach properties to the county, under a long term lease.
He died by his own hand in 1938 on his beloved beach.
There is a small creek named after him which is one of the three creeks which flow through the town and into the sea via the Easkoot creek. This makes a total of three Fitzhenry Creeks which I've found now - this one at Stinson Beach, another in Washington State flowing down the previously featured Mount Fitzhenry, and a third Fitzhenry Creek in British Columbia.
You can have a look at Stinson Beach yourself on Googlemaps, as there is the streetview function enabled on this map and also some attached photos.
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.
Another contribution from a Guild of One Name Studies member, Annie Berman.
Annie is conducting the Boustred one name study.
Annie noted that the writing in this register was truly dreadful, and I've put [square brackets] around words that may be incorrect. The date may be the 8th of July.
Marriage solemnized at the church of St Lawrence in Nettleden, Hertfordshire
[9th] July 1903
Thomas Potton, 25 years, bachelor, a brick layer
Resident in Nettleden
Son of Cabel Potton a bricklayer
married
Florence Fitzhenry aged 28 years spinster
Resident in [Nettleden]
Daughter of Matthew Fitzhenry a [gentleman]
Both parties signed
Witnesses: Thomas Holliday and Bertha Potton.
The witnesses were themselves married in 1907.
Who was Florence? She was a long way from home as she was the fourth of seven children born in Liverpool to Matthew and Mary Fitzhenry. Matthew was a blacksmith born in 1829 in Wexford Ireland, and he was the son of Edward Fitzhenry and Ellen Kavanagh of Wexford.
To view the whole of this large family group (which has a large offshoot in Australia too) follow this link
to the Fitzhenry database.
In the 1901 census Florence had been living with her widowed older sister Josephine Kelsall (nee Fitzhenry) and her four chidren, and was supporting the family finances as a dressmaker. Any information as to why she found herself in Hertfordshire 2 years later would be gratefully received.
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.
This marriage information was also contributed by Susan Atkins from the Guild of One Name Studies, who is researching the Scotchmer name:
Marriage solemized at St John the Divine in the parish of West Derby in the County of Lancashire.
26 March 1861
Edward Henry Fitzhenry of full age, bachelor, doctor of medicine
Resident at Waterloo
Son of Samuel Fitzhenry, a gentleman
and
Mary Bowen Forwood, a minor, spinster
Resident at Edge Lane
Daughter of Thomas B Forwood, a merchant
According to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Established Church, in the presence of
C B Forwood
L B Forwood
C Snood
Alfred Crosfuld
Just as luck would have it, Janet Long from the USA wrote to me this evening from the Fitzhenry DNA and database website, so I was able to append this information that she sent me:
Hello! So glad to see the site. I have info on #12 on your chart regarding Fitzhenrys – Samuel Fitzhenry of Wexford and his wife Mary Graham (who is related to me), who were married in 1817 in the Rossdroit Church of Ireland, Wexford. Their son, Edward Henry Fitzhenry’s info is as follows:
Edward Henry Fitzhenry, M.D., born about 1830 in Castleboro, Wexford married Mary Bower Forwood on 26 March 1861 at St. John’s Fairfield, Lancaster, England.
Their son Claude Bower Fitzhenry was born November 1862 in England, married a Edith Jessie, born Feb. 1872.
Claude and Edith had two sons:
Edward Graham/Grayham FitzHenry was born 6 November 1893 in Mhow, Bengal, India and christened 6 December 1893 in the same place.
Noel Brittain Fitzhenry born December 1906 in England.
I believe that this little family was in British Columbia, Canada in 1911 (census records).
Hope this helps. I should add that I know that Samuel F and wife Mary Graham had at least one more son, per Debrett’s House of Commons and Judicial Report, , 1878, but cannot find the book to see the full reference. Mary Graham’s family lived on Lord Carew’s estate and at one time, I believe, Mary’s brother, John was the steward of the estate. They also ran the mill there and are ancestors of mine. (Shapland Carew’s estate books mention this family several times.) Also, if anyone is interested in this family, please let me know. I’d love to share info.
Claude also used the middle name Brittain, and it was as Claude Brittain Fitz-Henry he married Edith Jessie Violet Bird in Litchfield in 1890.
If you have information about this family, then drop Janet a line via this Blog's email address, or add a comment to this posting.
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.
I'm very grateful to Susan Atkins from the Guild of One Name Studies for the marriage information in this posting.
Marriage solemnized at St John the Baptist Toxteth Park in the parish of St John the Baptist in the County of Lancaster
9th August 1879
Charles Fitzhenry aged 24, bachelor, a mariner
Residing at 9 Prophet Street
Son of John Fitzhenry a labourer
Jane Henry aged 26, a widow,
Residing at 9 Prophet Street
Daughter of William Williams (deceased), a rigger
after Banns
In the presence of William and Elizabeth Poole.
Charles and Jane seem to disappear for 20 years, but turn up again in the 1901 census. They are still living in Toxteth Park in Liverpool. Charles is a marine fireman. Both give their birthplace as Liverpool. They have no children.
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.
Tracy Keenan Lloyd saw our postings about the marriages of Charles Dunfoy and Eliza Fitzhenry and Samuel Plummer and (another) Eliza Fitzhenry in Arklow. Both these marriages were notable for having a William Heath as a witness.
She wrote:
Greetings from Portland, Oregon in the US,
I am so happy to find your site, as just this morning in my research I learned of my connection to Sibella FitzHenry, who, in 1834, married William Heath, a doctor in Arklow. I am descended from William’s younger sister, Eliza Heath. Our line emigrated to the U.S. in 1886. I know you’re not charting the Heath name, but I am trying to find any descendants of this Heath family who may hold letters, journals, photos or documents to help me put “meat on the bones” of this interesting family. I have plenty of circumstantial information to share on the Heaths, if anyone is interested, and even some copies of photographs of some of William’s siblings.
I would be very interested if anyone in your family may have any surviving information. I am working to tell the story of this family and its descendants to be compiled into a book for future generations.
So if anyone wants to contact Tracy, leave a comment to this posting or send an email to the Blog.
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.
And here's the first Eliza Fitzhenry's father getting remarried in 1845 to her stepmother:
Registrar's District of Rathdrum
Marriage solemnised at Rathdrum Church in the Parish of Rathdrum, in the District of Glendalough
Fifteenth day of May 1845
Wm. Fitzhenry widower of full age, a shopkeeper
Residence Arklow
Father "not alive"
Mary Jenkinson spinster of full age, a shopkeeper
Residence Rathdrum
Father "not alive"
Married in the Parish Church according to the Rites and Ceremonies of the United Church of England and Ireland by license
Both parties signed
Witnesses: John Jenkinson and Wm. Manning
Once again, thanks to Bev Kronk for searching out these marriages and sharing them with us.
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.
When I saw this one, for a moment I thought we had another bigamous marriage, until I saw that this Eliza Fitzhenry had a different father... although the two marriages have the same witness in William Heath
Registrar's District of Rathdrum
Marriage solemnised at the Parish Church in the Parish of Arklow, in the County of Wicklow
May 3rd 1859
Charles Dunfoy bachelor aged 26, a school master
Residence Bray
Father William Dunfoy a farmer
Eliza Fitzhenry spinster aged 18,
Residence Arklow
Father Robert Fitzhenry a farmer
Married in the Parish Church according to the Rites and Ceremonies of the United Church of England and Ireland by license
Both parties signed
Witnesses: Wm. Heath and W. J Dillon
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.
The second of Bev's Irish marriages, also from Waterford.
1867
Registrar's District of Waterford
Marriage solemnised at Cathedral, in the Parish of Trinity, in the City of Waterford
July 27th 1867
William Henry Taylor, bachelor of full age, a seaman
Residence Queen Street
Father George Taylor, an Inspector of Works
Mary Fitzhenry, spinster of full age
Residence Stephen Street
Father Thomas Fitzhenry, a slater
Married in the Cathedral according to the Rites and Ceremonies of the United Church of England and Ireland by license
Both parties signed
Witnesses: Ellen Fitzhenry and George Hamilton.
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.
We've moved up the East coast for this one:
Marriage solemnised at the Parish Church in the Parish of Arklow, in the County of Wicklow
February 29th 1860
Samuel Plummer bachelor of full age, a shopkeeper
Residence (Looks like Limerick)
Father Wm. W. Plummer a farmer
Eliza Fitzhenry spinster of full age
Residence Arklow
Father Wm. Fitzhenry a shopkeeper
Married in the Parish Church according to the Rites and Ceremonies of the United Church of England and Ireland by license
Both parties signed
Witnesses: Wm. Heath and John Plummer
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.
Wendy Rutter sent us a newspaper cutting from the "The Mercury" (Hobart, Tasmania) from Tuesday 8th April 1913. We're not sure whether it was a slow news day to have to fill the paper with a story about a man encountering a snake.... in South Africa ... you can come to your own conclusions!
The Sidney Fitzhenry mentioned in the story is very likely to be Sidney Cawood Fitzhenry, son of John Arthur and Kate Fitzhenry and brother of Daisy Aletta Fitzhenry, the WW1 nurse.
Anyway, here is the whole article on the anniversary of its publication.
SOUTH AFRICAN NOTES
(From Our Exchanges)
Mr. Sidney Fitzhenry had rather a strange experience with a snake one day lately, records the Jansenville paper. He was driving with a cart and a pair of horses to the graals, when he saw a big cobra crossing the road. He pulled up the horses, jumped out and attacked it with stones, whereat the snake turned on him. He got quickly out of the way, and the snake quietly went and coiled up under the horses, with its head up “ready to strike”. He was afraid to move the horses, fearing that the snake might attack them, when, to his surprise and consternation, the snake quietly climbed up into the cart and started to make itself comfortable on the seat. Now, whether the snake picked up the reins to drive, or just what did happen, is not quite clear, but it is a fact that the horses started off with only the cobra as driver. Mr. Fitzhenry ran to their heads, and, after bringing them to a standstill, spanned out, keeping one eye on his passenger all the time. After the horses had been secured, he attacked the snake again, and managed to kill it. – This story is vouched for as being absolutely true.
Perhaps someone who speaks Afrikaans can translate "graals" for us. The best meaning I have come across so far is corral or animal enclosure.
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.
The wonderful Bev Kronk has sent me details of four more Irish marriages.
(That's one a night for the next four nights, you lucky people. Except for tomorrow night, when we bring you a South African news story on the anniversary of its publication in 1913.)
1867
Registrar's District of Waterford
Marriage solemnised at the Wesleyan Chapel in the Parish of Trinity Within, in the City of Waterford
September 18th 1867
Samuel Foster bachelor of full age, a farmer
Residence Tonduff, Parish of Abbeyleix, Queens County
Father William Foster (deceased) a farmer
Elizabeth Fitzhenry spinster of full age
Residence The Mall, Parish of Trinity Cathedral, Waterford
Father Samuel Fitzhenry (deceased) a "valuator"
Married in the above Registered Building according to the Usages of the Wesleyan Methodist Church by license
Both parties signed
Witnesses: Richard Boate and Frances Jane Fitzhenry
(Abbeyleix is about 65 miles north of the city of Waterford and can be found on Googlemaps.)
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.
This tale comes with permission from Mr Richard van Pelt who runs the Van Pelt Heritage website. This traces the Van Pelt name worldwide, and the Fitzhenry and Van Pelt names coincide in Arkansas.
Joseph Miles Fitzhenry was born in Kentucky in 1825. His father, Edward Fitzhenry, was born in Ireland and his mother was Julia Ann Jarboe whose family from France were some of the first settlers of the Maryland Colony.
In 1848 he married a cousin Rose Ann Jarboe and they had a total of 10 children. Their daughter Minnie Corinth Fitzhenry was born in April of 1862 when Capt. Fitzhenry was at the Battle of Shiloh near Corinth, Mississippi. A family story says that during the battle his horse was shot out from under him and his saber slashed his leg.
As Kentucky was already occupied by Union troops and his house and property were confiscated, Capt. Fitzhenry resigned his commission and returned to Kentucky to rescue his wife and child. He was captured and taken to Fort Delaware. After a prisoner exchange in April of 1863, he was able to return to Kentucky and later moved his family to Arkansas
In Morrilton, Arkansas, he built the Catholic Convent, some business houses, and many of the finest residences. He was the owner and proprietor of the Fitzhenry House Hotel. His daughter Minnie Corinth was 19 years old when she married James Alexander Van Pelt, a hardware store owner, tin smith, and inventor. A year later (1882), Herbert Newton Van Pelt was born. Sadly, Minnie Corinth died at only 23, leaving 3 year old Herbert to be raised by the Fitzhenrys.
The picture of the Fitzhenry House hotel is reproduced with Mr Van Pelt's permission, and a larger version of the picture is on his website.
The picture of the Fitzhenry House Hotel & Boarding House was taken about 1886. In the center of the porch is young Herbert Newton Van Pelt standing between his grandparents, Capt. Joseph Miles Fitzhenry and Rose Ann (Jarboe) Fitzhenry. The building was torn down sometime after Capt. Fitzhenry died in 1907. Herbert moved to the fine home of his uncle, Dan Fones, in Little Rock, Arkansas.
If you have any further information about the Van Pelts anywhere in the world, please email Mr Richard Van Pelt
If you have any more information about Captain Fitzhenry or the Jarboe family, please contact us!
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.
When Dave Paddington from Australia asked us about his forebears William Fitzhenry and Mary Cronin, I thought that we had found a link between the Australian and Welsh branches of this family.
No such luck. It looks like we have two William Fitzhenry - Mary Cronin couples!
Not only has Dave added some colour to this family history, but he's also sent some wonderful old photos.
This is the one of William in his Sunday best, but there are also photos of Mary Cronin, and their daughters Alice and Emily. I'm putting these on the new website.
Dave writes
William Fitzhenry came out to Australia on his own and headed for the goldfields in Victoria. His first known address was Woods Point where Princess Alexandra Mining Company were mining. He had shares in the company and from his photo attached you can see he didn't look like the type to get his hands dirty. He then moved to Melbourne where he met Mary Cronin. They owned several hotels in the South Yarra / St Kilda area of Melbourne.
They had 5 Children:
Ellen Mary Fitzhenry ( My Great Grandmother )
William Edward Fitzhenry
Alice Maud Fitzhenry
John Thomas Fitzhenry
Catherine Fitzhenry
I have a whole lot of other information and newspaper articles featuring William if you want to add extra to your blog. Stuff like him being charged with assault over a card game; fined for selling liquor on a Sunday etc....
and we said "yes please!" so hopefully we will hear more about William's exploits.
Dave would like to hear from anybody related to William and Mary and can be contacted be sending a message to the Blog which we will forward.
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.
Dear All
We're back on line again.
Over 3300 individuals for you to peruse - but no-one born after 1910. I thought it better to keep the privacy levels high until I'd got the hang of this.
Do you think that we should have a cut-off date of 1930, a bit like the publicly available US census returns, with the "living" flag enabled for anyone without a definitive death date?
Leave a comment below and let me know what you think.
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.
Yes, the fourth result is in, and he's not a match to any of the previous three testees.
So with two of the previously tested men being genetically from the same family and two having different patterns, it's starting to look like there are distinct "fingerprints" for the different branches.
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.
Dear All
Due to a hitch in the system, I've taken the database off air temporarily until it's fixed.
Thanks to all those who applied for an account and are already sending in their corrections!
Jo
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.
After several weeks of playing about with some new software, the new look FitzhenryDNA website is now up and running.
What's new?
The home page is still the same at present, but just below the page heading is a link to the new Fitz(-)henry database.
The database is the new bit.
Do tell us, why is this a good thing Jo?
- With over 4200 people on it (ok... there's bound to be a few duplicates), this was too big a number to write individual pages for, and I was painfully aware that there was information that people were sending me that just wasn't being shared...
- Using the The Next Generation software, everytime I update someone (or a family) in my master Family Historian database, I can do the same on the website.
- And you can suggest updates, corrections, stories, photos - in fact anything to be added to a family or individual person. Each person's page on the database has a "Suggest" tab above that person's details. You type in your suggestions, and it automatically comes to my inbox!
- There's a way of searching all the variants of a surname at one go, but I haven't get this bit running yet, so Fitz(-)henry is there in all its glorious variations...
What are the limitations?
- There's no details for anyone born after 1910 - not even an acknowledgement that they exist! I may review this cut off date if it looks like it's too prohibitive, but I thought it better to have too much privacy rather than Google finding and making personal information available.
- The casual browser (username: user, password: password) can only see the birth, marriage and death information. If you want some more flesh on the bones, you have to sign up for a user account - click here to apply for one (in the left hand column).
- It's going to need all the photos transferring and linking separately, and a fair bit of tweaking with the layout to make it look lovely.
- At present if I haven't entered a definite death date for someone in the database, the website still thinks the person is alive - I'm going to have to go through and sort that out too...
I'm going to leave all of the existing pages on the website for the time being, until I know that all of the information is transferred.
The DNA study part of the website will be updated in due course.
Hope you like it - let me know what you think.
And lastly, a big plug for Darrin and his "The Next Generation" software - the amount of personal support I've had from this man over the past few weeks has been amazing. Unreservedly recommended for anyone who wants to put their genealogy database on the web.
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.
Ann Furtado has sent me oodles of stuff which she has gleaned over the decades in her search for her Wexford Fitzhenry ancestors and for which I am very grateful.
She has also reminded me that I should really be looking into some of the Fitzharris lines as the surnames Fitzhenry and Fitzharris were often used interchangeably. Some previous correspondents have also raised this issue.
So if any Fitzharrises out there have an inkling that they might once have been a Fitzhenry... then drop us a line. This means that the Fitz(-)henry one name study eventually may have to be enlarged to include the Fitzharris surname but for now I would rather keep them separate, as just doing Fitzhenry is enough to fill all my time at present!
If there is a Fitzharris family history society or one-name study that I haven't found, please get in touch and hopefully we can collaborate.
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.
The third of this series is about Daniel Fitzhenry, a lad from Liverpool, Lancashire. Daniel enlisted in the Kings Royal Rifles in 1894 aged 19, having already served in the local militia.
His next of kin were his father Edward Fitzhenry and brothers Edward and James, all of No. 3 court 5 House, Bolton Street Liverpool.
Daniel seems to have had a more chequered military career than our other two Fitzhenrys. He was docked one to two weeks pay for various misdemeanors on an intermittent basis, and then in 1898 was convicted at a Court Martial of desertion, fined 84 days pay and had all his previous service discounted.
This Court Martial appears to have taken place when he was stationed in South Africa.
More about Daniel:
Daniel was the son of Edward Fitzhenry, a coppersmith and Eleanor Behan.
Edward was born in Liverpool of Irish parentage and Eleanor were from Ireland.
Daniel was born in 1874 in Liverpool and his siblings were John Richard (1868), James (1872) and Matthew (1876).
Eleanor died in 1881 and in 1884 Edward married again to Delia O'Keeffe.
Daniel was a carter before he joined the army and when he left it, he went north to Scotland. The 1901 census finds him in Glasgow, married to Mary, a native of that city.
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.
