The Killion, Quinn and Hand Families of Port Macquarie and Kempsey and their Feeney Family

Introduction William Kay’s origins have been the subject of careful documentary research; this post builds on that foundation and, for the first time, tests those conclusions against autosomal DNA evidence. William was the father of Ethel May Kay, who married George Killion. My own connection to this story is indirect — George was my paternal grandmother’s first cousin. While the relationship is distant, the research question is not. The uncertainty surrounding William’s origins has persisted for decades and has been thoughtfully explored before. In November 2016, William’s great-grandson published a detailed investigation titled  “The Mysterious William Kay or Kirkpatrick.”  Drawing on family tradition, cemetery inscriptions, newspaper reports and Tasmanian convict records, he constructed a coherent documentary hypothesis explaining William’s identity. [1] This post does not replace that earlier work. Rather, it builds upon it. Since 2016, five great-grandchildren of William ...

Using Autosomal DNA evidence at scale Scope and purpose This post is intentionally written as a  proof statement . Its purpose is to set out, in a concise and methodologically explicit form, the reasoning by which the birth family of  Jane Feeney  has been identified using  autosomal DNA evidence derived exclusively from AncestryDNA , together with relevant documentary sources, and to explain  why chromosome-level or segment triangulation analysis is not required  to meet the standard of proof in this case. It is  not  a full presentation of the underlying evidence. The complete documentary record, detailed match analysis, descendant-line structures, and supporting tables are presented in a companion post:-  When DNA changed Jane Feeney's story That longer post should be read as the  evidentiary foundation  for the conclusions summarised here. This proof statement draws directly from that material, but is structured for a different ...

From immigration assumptions to genetic proof of her birth family This updated account builds on the story first told in early 2018 by Martyn and Christine, both descendants of Jane Feeney. It incorporates the pivotal AncestryDNA breakthrough of October 2017, when new evidence finally linked Jane to her birth family and transformed our understanding of her early life. The narrative has now been further revised to reflect the additional insights revealed through the dramatic growth in AncestryDNA testers since that time. Jane Feeney, our Killion, Quinn and Hand matriarch, arrived in Sydney on 4 April 1849 aboard  The Digby  as one of 234 young Irish women known collectively as the “Earl Grey” Famine Orphan Girls. Although years of traditional genealogical research allowed us to reconstruct much of Jane’s life in New South Wales, her origins, parents and siblings remained elusive. It was only with the advent of DNA testing that we were finally able to reconnect Jane with her bir...