The Killion, Quinn and Hand Family Blog a year on......

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, has identified the people in some photos with our help.  There are still many to be identified and, hopefully, found....maybe even photos of Edward, Thomas and Jane Feeney!
Identified just 2 weeks after our first post is this photo of Edward John (Jack) Killion with his daughter Mary Josephine Killion and nephew William (Willie) Ryan

Identified in June 2017 is this photo of Francis Gersbach and Margaret Killion taken in Sydney in the mid 1880s

 Last week, I was researching my Gersbach family at the Society of Australian Genealogists in Sydney when I came upon this 1983 letter. 

Researching family history and connecting with family has become so much easier over the last 35 years!  Let's keep telling and growing the Feeney, Killion, Quinn and Hand family story....

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Our Family Blog

The central person in this blog is our 2nd great-grandmother, Jane Feeney.  When we commenced in early 2017, we were focussing on Jane, her husbands - John Killion, Thomas Seward and Charles Moran - and their children and descendants.  After a DNA breakthrough later in the year, we reunited Jane with her mother, Jane, and four siblings - Eliza, Ann, Edward and Thomas - and the scope of the blog expanded. Are you a Killion, Seward or Feeney descendant?  If so, why not join our blog to share information and find out more about our families. John Killion arrived in Sydney on 19 January 1834 .  He was transported from County Westmeath, Ireland.  John received his ticket of leave on 10 July 1848.  On 29 September 1851, he married Jane Feeney in what is now the Port Macquarie Historic Museum. John and Jane had five children before John's death on 21 July 1864.   Jane arrived in Sydney on 4 April 1849.  She left the South Dublin Work House for her new life as part of the Earl Grey Famine
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"An Irish Famine Orphan in Australia" - Jane Feeney, "My woman of importance"

Today I again "virtually" joined other members of the Society of Australian Genealogists.  With Mothers' Day on Sunday, the topic was "Women of Importance".  You might the interested in reading about Jane Feeney, our many times great-grandmother and great aunt. Jane Feeney came to Sydney in 1849 on board The Digby.  She was part of Earl Grey’s Famine Orphan Scheme.  So many of us are descendants of these young women that I consider they are truely women of importance. We owe a lot to Trevor McClaughlan and Perry McIntyre for the work they’ve done to bring the stories of these young women to us.  Over 4000 “famine orphans” came to the Australian colonies during 1848, 49 and 50.  Most were teenagers.  They were from workhouses in all 32 counties throughout Ireland. All were destitute and many had lost their parents and families. Others were simply unable to support themselves within the family. In a male-dominated society, these young women
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From Feeny to Feeney - Our DNA discoveries!

You may have noticed that we've changed the spelling of Jane's family name from Feeny to Feeney and welcomed descendants of Edward and Thomas Feeney in a recent post..... Genetic genealogy, commonly referred to as DNA testing, is one of the new tools being used by family historians.  Quite a few of the Killion cousins have tested and we're looking forward to Quinn and Hand cousins testing!  So it's been a busy few months on the DNA front following matches between Killion cousins and descendants of two brothers, Edward and Thomas Feeney.  We've been working hard to piece together the story.  With all the evidence that we've gathered, we're confident that Edward and Thomas were Jane's brothers!!  We also appear to have found Jane's mother, also named Jane, and two sisters, Eliza and Ann.   The search continues and the DNA matches keep coming.  However, it seems a good time to share an overview of the Feeney family.... Jane Feeney snr arr
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