Stories of Agnes Cahill

Thomas John Cahill was born on 26 August 1866 at Black Creek (near Singleton), NSW. He's the eight of the eleven children of James Cahill and his wife, Eliza Dunn. Agnes was the next child born. Cahill family historians have been searching for Thomas for years. In May 2018, twelve trees on ancestry.com.au showed Thomas but none included any details of Thomas's life after his birth. We did think that Thomas was alive at the time of his mother's death in 1890 as he's recorded on Eliza's death certificate as "living" and aged 25.   Genetic genealogy is a tool that I'm using more and more in my family history research. In August 2017, "ER" reported as a match to me and other "Cahill/Dunn cousins" at AncestryDNA. ER's predicted relationship to me was 4th cousin ie predicted that we shared 3rd great-grandparents. I messaged "ER" a number of times but, as is too often the case, no response. "ER" did have a small t

Monday 4 October 2020 was the 150th anniversary of the birth of the last child of James Cahill and his wife, Eliza Dunn.  Mary Ann Cahill was born on 4 October 1870 at Belford, near Singleton in NSW.  She was the eleventh child - although her birth certificate shows that she was the tenth of James and Eliza's children with 3 boys and 3 girls living and a son and two daughters deceased!    As many will recall, I've not been able to find a birth or baptismal registration for my great-grandmother Agnes, the ninth child, who was born about 1867.  I've not been able to locate birth and death registrations for the fifth child, Johanna (know also as Hannah and Minnie).   However, James and Eliza's death certificates both record there were eleven children with three dying as infants.  So here's the information that's been gathered on the children- Catherine was born on 15 April 1856 in East Maitland.  She died in Murrurundi on 21 January 1913.  She was 56.  On 13 May 1

Last year I pieced together the very sad story of Agnes Curry (nee Dries), my grandfather's first cousin, and her family. Agnes was the niece of my great-grandmother, Agnes Cahill, and her namesake.   While I'm sure that members of the Dries family know the full story, this wasn't shown on any publicly available family trees. Over some weeks, I worked on the story of Agnes and her family  which you can read here. Until recently, I'd though that Agnes had two children, Claude and Edna, prior to her 1917 marriage to Robert Curry who became the superintendent of Palm Island in 1919. Their son, Robbie, was born 100 years ago today. Agnes died on 10 November 1929 in hospital at Townsville with pregnancy complications. Her husband was grief stricken and under investigation by the Queensland Government into a range of allegations which were subsequently found to be unsubstantiated.   On the morning of 3 February 1930, he shot his son Robbie and step-daughter Edna and s

You've probably heard how DNA was used to apprehend the alleged Golden State Killer. Knowing that I use genetic genealogy in my family history research, friends and family have spoken to me about how this unfolded. Upfront, I should say that the Police didn't use one of the commercial testing companies like AncestryDNA. They used  GEDmatch.com  which allows people to upload their DNA data from the commercial testing companies to a common platform. Roberta Estes, a US based gene tic genealogist, has published a very detailed article today that some may be interested in reading. Roberta makes the point that there's been little coverage of the same process being followed to identify a murder victim just 13 days earlier. The victim, known as the Buckskin Girl, was found in 1981 and identified as 21 year old Marcia Lenore King earlier in the month. At the end of the article, Roberta details why she's keeping her DNA online. Mine's staying online as well. Plea

On 18 July 1824, Laurence Dunn married Judith Ryan at St John's Parish, County Kilkenny, Ireland.  That's 187 years ago today!  Laurence was known as Larry and Judith as Judy or Johanna.  The alternative spelling for the family name is Dunne.  Larry and Judy were Agnes Cahill's grandparents. There were 10 children from the marriage born between about 1825 and 1846.  Elizabeth (Eliza) was the third child and oldest daughter of Larry and Judy and she was Agnes's mother.  Eliza was born about 1830 in Kilkenny.  On 20 November 1854, Eliza married James Cahill at the Clara Parish, County Kilkenny.  James was born in about 1822 in Kilkenny.  His parents were Richard Cahill and Catherine Hogan. Ruins of old church and graveyard, Clara, County Kilkenny James and Eliza left Ireland aboard the Simonds and arrived in Port Jackson on 12 April 1855 - less than 6 months after their marriage.  They settled in Patricks Plain which is close to Singleton.  James went to wor