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

Family history reunites extended family to share their stories and, if we're lucky, old photographs. Sharing is so much easier with digital images. Multiple copies can be distributed electronically anywhere in the world without the cost of duplicating or the need for the custodian to part with their treasures.  The top digital image was shared with me by my Killion third cousin who'd received it from his Killion second cousin once removed, my third cousin once removed. It's among a group of unidentified photos thought to be Killion family in the possession of cousin Helen. When I shared digital images of photos in my possession, the connection was made with the second image which is a  "carte de visite"  of my great-grandfather, Francis (Frank) Gersbach. So we started looking more closely. Frank married Margaret Killion on 26 May 1885 at the Catholic Church in Kempsey. Frank was twenty four and Margaret was twenty three when they married. We thought that their pos...

Amy Halliday (nee Killion) was born on this day 125 years ago - 2 February 1897 at Smithtown, NSW. Amy married Herbert Halliday in 1922 in Sydney. They had five children. Amy died in 1949 in Marrickville. Amy was my grandmother's first cousin. Being such a big family, I often wonder what contact the cousins had. What I do know is that Amy's granddaughter, Helen, has this photo in her collection as well as a photo of my great-grandparents, Margaret Killion and Francis Gersbach, inscribed "Aunty Maggie and Uncle Frank". While the photo was taken about 1885, the years evaporate when see you read those inscriptions. So it makes me wonder about this photo. Was it a photo taken by a street photographer, perhaps during the war? Where was it taken? We have a clue as it was in front of a Bank of New South Wales and the street number was 155. Is there an inscription? This photo was shared on Ancestry.com by Amy's great-granddaughter.

Ida Killion is the daughter of Thomas Killion and Mary Jane Wood and granddaughter of John Killion and Jane Feeney. She was born in Smithtown on the Macleay River on 16 July 1893; the fifth of Thomas and Mary Jane's nine children.  Her parents moved to Sydney with their younger children between 1913 and the time of Thomas's death on 19 December 1917. They were living at 10 Church Street Paddington when Thomas died.  Ida has two entrees in the 1930 Electoral Roll. One is at 3 Hopewell Ave, East Sydney with her  mother and brother Albert. Her older sister, Annie Lyons was also living there with her three children, Doris, Monica and Kathleen. Annie  moved to Sydney after the death of her husband, Absolom, in 1923 and their son, Absolom, in 1921. The other shows Ida living at 48 Jersey Road Woollahra and working as a postal assistant.  The photo at the right has been taken from ancestry.com. It's held in the collecti...