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

Mother's Day is appropriate to mark the first anniversary of our blog and Facebook group.  Jane Feeney, our many times great grandmother and great aunt, is the central person in our story.    We've made contact with more "Feeney cousins" than we expected - descendants of Jane from her marriages to John Killion and Thomas Seward and, more recently, descendants of her brothers, Edward and Thomas.  Thank you for your generosity in sharing photos and stories along with your comments and queries.   A special thank you goes to the "cousins" who came on our "DNA adventure" which allowed us to reunite Jane with her birth family and take our family tree back a further generation. There are still many mysteries to be solved:- Where and when was Jane Feeney born? Where's John Killion's birth family? Where and when did Thomas Seward die? After many years of collecting "likely" family photos, Martyn, our family historian,

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