What a small world!!!.. .. As you know, Australia is a very large continent … with a relatively small population, (in relation to most countries), but it still amazes me when I find connections to my small home town of Tenterfield …with a population of a little over 3,000.. and this figure has altered little for over a century.

I had been really thrilled recently, with the help of Kate and Shona, to finally track my late husband’s maternal grandmother, Ellen McDonagh nee O’Connor. We proved conclusively that Patrick and Bridget O’Connor/Connors, nee Kennelly/Kenneally and variants, were of Glenaster townland, near Ardagh in Limerick Country, Ireland and they had a family of eleven children, eight of whom migrated to New South Wales, Australia. This really shocked me, as while I had previously found that Ellen and two her sisters migrated, but eight of the family!!

What shocked me even further was, that while six of the family settled in inner Sydney (Surry Hills, Chippendale, Waterloo, Alexandria, Mascot, Carlton, Bexley to name a few places), the older sister who Ellen came to Australia with, Annie, married Jeremiah Patrick O’Sullivan,( originally from I believe Adrigole on the Beara Peninsula of Cork) but where did the O’Sullivans settle .. in Ben Lomond, Northern NSW, a tiny rural village, now hardly in existence, where the McDonagh family lived and where my husband grew up.

The RC cemetery is located around the little church and I have walked around that cemetery looking at all the Irish names many times and we never knew that Ellen’s sister and brother-in-law have a headstone there too.

I have a Ben Lomond Centenary School book and there are school photos which include my mother in law,(born 1900) with O’Sullivan children, who are her first cousins. I suppose by the time I knew Nell in the 1970s her memories were of her father’s family, as her mother had died in 1932.

I have been finding more and more about the family in Australia through using Trove (the National Library database), which includes Newspapers and the Sydney Morning Herald up to 1954. Another great resource is the Ryerson Index, which is a death and funeral index up to the current date. There are some restrictions on our free NSW BDM index and we cannot access births past 1912, unless it is in the newspaper database. There is one problem with Trove, in that it has been electronically transcribed and there are many errors, as old print bleeds, but you can a view the newspaper and correct the transcription. (You need to make lots of time!!)

John O’Connor and Annie Ryan, his wife, have been the hardest and final brick wall to demolish. I was happy with the other seven siblings and I should have been satisfied, but John kept niggling away and I now believe I have the right couple. Living the longest, I haven’t been able to access their funeral notices. I have now sent off for a number(!!) of marriage and death transcriptions to put the icing on the cake, so to speak. There are transcription agents in NSW who are much cheaper than using the BDM Registrar. You need to obtain the reg. No. from the BDM Registry first.

Now my amazing find (drum roll please !!) .. John and Annie O’Connor’s oldest daughter was Florence May and I found reference to her marrying Eric Bailey. Hmmh I thought that name is familiar?.. Tonight I went looking .. married Eric George Bailey .. hmmh .. why is that name familiar?! … I thought I would look on Ryerson .. death at Blayney in 1945 of Constable Eric George Bailey .. hullo hullo .. trying to get the brain cells to work .. Why is that so familiar? .. so I went and Googled him .. Constable Eric George Bailey .. born Tenterfield …. Arrested his own murderer !!! … and was awarded the George Cross .. Read all about it folks!! …. But isn’t that amazing?… I think we were talking awhile ago about how it was possible to arrest your own murderer .. and he was born in Tenterfield and married my mother in law’s first cousin!! Don’t you love family history. Julie