Highs and Lows

#52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

#37 HIGHS AND LOWS

There have been many highs and lows during my decades of genealogical research. The highs are wonderful and often result in me doing the genealogy dance. For me, the lows tend to happen when I receive some sad or tragic information – typically on a death certificate.

One of my best highs came about in 2009 when a wonderful and generous Co. Down researcher, Sheila Phillips was able to use her intimate knowledge of the resources of PRONI, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland in Belfast to find the townlands (a vital piece of information to enable your Irish research in small towns) and marriage and baptisms of my gg grand parents, William LENNON and Margaret MAGEE and their children. You can read all about it in this post below.

Help comes in many forms

One serious and very tragic group of deaths in my LENNON and MAGEE families that upset me greatly is as follows. I realise that it is silly to empathise, after all it can’t help the family I’m reading about.

My LENNON and MAGEE families arrived in Melbourne from 1864 from Co. Down but life must have been very difficult for them as they suffered many tragedies in a short period of time.

The first one was GG grandfather, James (1802-1876) MAGEE who came out first in 1864 with 2 of his adult children, Patrick (1842-1863) and Susan (1840-1912). They had only been in the country a few months when Patrick’s dead body was found in the Avoca river north of Melbourne. His other daughter, Margaret (1837-1880), my GG grandmother arrived with her 6 children in 1870 (see my blog post A is for Alumbagh). I haven’t been able to confirm exactly when my GG grandfather, William LENNON arrived but Margaret’s entry on the passenger list has the notation, “husband in the colony”, so he did come here.

Within a year, Margaret was admitted to the Yarra Bend Asylum, a week after giving birth to John Alexander (1871-1874) suffering from what we now call Post Natal Depression and it was several months before she was released. Goodness knows how William managed with all their children; I guess the older ones had to step up. John didn’t live long as he died of Croup when he was 3 years old( while they were living near Mitcham and was buried at the Air Hill Cemetery at St John’s Catholic church in Mitcham. The first Agnes (1874-1875) was born while they were living in Doncaster but died of Scarletina after they had moved to Bendigo in what was called Sandhurst at that time.

In 1878, James MAGEE died in the Melbourne Benevolent Asylum and Margaret was the Informant on that death certificate. By 1880, the family were back in Melbourne in Lothian st (now in North Melbourne). While there, Margaret was admitted again to Yarra Bend Asylum and judging by the details in the Admission book, she was in a very bad way, presumably very ill with depression. She wasn’t out on leave long before she died of Cerebral Disease (perhaps a Stroke) and Phithis (now known as TB).

Then followed a number of very difficult and distressing years for William – when Margaret died, their children ranged from 23 years to 4 years. In May 1883, Mary (b. 1866) died of Phithis Pulmonaris (TB) at home?? Only one month later, Susan (b.1863) died of Fibris Entrica (Typhoid Fever) in Gipp Ward at Melbourne Hospital. Then 4 years later in 1887, Rose (b. 1864) died of Typhoid Fever. How ever did he cope with such huge tragedies?

The only good things that happened in that decade was the eldest daughter, Margaret married John COX in 1884 and my G grandfather, Thomas LENNON (second son) married Mary Therese PRENDERGAST in 1888.