First success with Griffiths- Riordan

I am still quite an 'accidental' genealogist. I had looked at pages of Griffiths Valuations before, but they had never made any sense to me. However, armed with "Cullane South" townland and "Ballylanders Parish"  from the 1841 census extract for Patrick's older brother James, I decided to look for a map of the area.

Google was again my friend. It led me to a really useful website by John Grenham to look at Ballylanders Parish. 

When I clicked on Cullane South, it took me to a Griffiths Valuations page.  Clicking on occupants led to list of names. John Riordan was there on the second page. These valuations were done from about 1847 to 1860s or so, so this would be my great-grandfather Patrick's father John. There is also a "Quain" listed in Cullane South. There was a number in the left hand column by John Riordan's name- 20 with an a.

Going back to the first page listing for Griffiths, there was a "maps view" icon. Section 20 was quickly apparent on the Cullane South map.

The maps are incredibly useful because there is a slider that lets you overlay a modern map, and have varying levels of the old/modern maps. So the Riordan farm lies right on a bend on the modern Cullane/Tully road- in fact the farm is bisected by it. I reckon I could find it if I went back to Ireland with a car one day! On the map you could also see that Glenroe/Darragh- where the O'Donnell priest/cousins came from, was right next to Cullane South.

Riordan Quane family via James

There was a time, not so many years ago, when I thought that my Irish family history would remain unknown- but in recent years more and more documents are being digitised and are now accessible from the other end of the world.

Last night. Christmas Eve, I was fiddling around, and made yet another fortuitous combo of words in a Google search. Bingo! Thanks National Archives of Ireland! It led to a census abstract from 1916, that seems pretty certain to have been made by Patrick's older brother James to prove his age for the pension. Down the side of this document, it also has a list of names that must be his siblings. I haven't been able to get Patrick's birth entry- it was too early for the microfilm online from Ballylanders Parish- but his name is listed in the siblings, as are the names of Ellen and Bridget who I had found on the register. It also lists John who came to New Zealand and Margaret who was my great-grandmother via her Malone marriage. The only one I wasn't aware of before was Mary...

Oh- and for some reason I had to use Safari to access this document properly on my Mac- in case that affects some of the rest of you...

Payn Headstone- how things can change

Sometime early in my genealogical discoveries, I found out that the grave of my great-grandparents Frank Payn and Johanna Scettrini, was in Hokitika Cemetery, and I went there and found it.
It was a very simple headstone.

I might yet find I have another photo stashed away- though at the time I took fewer as they all had to be developed and paid for!- but it seems that I may have totally 'ignored' the fact that their son John F Payn, who died in France in WW1, had a plaque underneath his parents. This is visible in this online photo on the Westland Cemeteries site.

At the time I visited the cemetery it took me sometime to find the grave, so I drew myself a little 'map' for future visits. This might help some other visitors, but on a return visit my wayward use of left and right still had me muddled for a while even with my 'map'!

In the last couple of years Maurice Payn of Nelson, Frank and Johanna's grandson, and my mother's first cousin, has taken it upon himself to do something about renovating some of our original pioneer headstones. He arranged to have Frank and Johanna's grave redone to include more information about them, and here is what the headstone now looks like.

(And yes, the Arthur Thomas Payn in the next grave, is another grandson.)

Thanks are due to Maurice Payn for his efforts in taking care that these pioneer graves will still be able to tell their story to future Payn-Scettrini generations.

Next up- I must write some sort of summary of Frank Payn's life. 'Papers Past' has lots of bits about him...

Etaples Military Cemetery

I am nearing the end of collating all the information I have about James Riordan, fourth and youngest son of Patrick Riordan and Mary Burke. I've previously written about where he was buried in France. But I realise it might be useful if I describe how exactly to find his grave site, in case any family members want to visit the grave to pay their respects.

He is buried in the Etaples Military Cemetery, just a few kilometres north of the town of Etaples, south of Boulogne-sur-Mer along the Pas-de-Calais coast.

screenshot from Google Maps

The cemetery is huge- overwhelming. I cried when I saw it.

Luckily I had a map from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission that helped me quickly identify which section of the cemetery to head for.

James Riordan's final resting place in France lies in Section VII, C.1.

We will remember them.

James and Catherine Lalor- Karoro Cemetery

Sometimes someone asks me something about one or other line of the family and I go searching for old info I haven't looked at for a while. In this case a fellow Lalor descendant in Greymouth has become interested in genealogy, and found that the grave of our mutual great-grandparents, James Lalor and Catherine Rowland, had been recently restored. So she asked Rhodes Monumental who had organised it, and they contacted me, and I contacted her...

This is what the grave looked like on the last day of December 2016, with arum lilies growing profusely out of the base, and the lettering mostly quite difficult to read.

I decided to get the grave redone, and Rhodes Monumental masons have done a superb job. This next photo shows what it looked like at Easter time this year.

It was nearly finished...
And just a few days later it was finished, and I was e-mailed this final photo from Rhodes Monumental in Greymouth.

Now the lettering on the headstone of these original pioneers of ours has been renewed for more generations to come to read. Rhodes Monumental have done a great job.

James Riordan

The plan is ... to stick to a plan! I am going to collate all the information I have about James Riordan, who died of wounds incurred near the Somme during the battle of Flers-Courcelette in WW1.

Today I found a map of where the battle of Flers-Courcelette took place, on a NZ History website. James Riordan was wounded in action on 22 September, 1916.

Map produced by Geographx with research assistance from Damien Fenton and Caroline Lord.
It originally appeared in Damien Fenton, New Zealand and the First World War (Penguin, Auckland, 2013).

Malone great-grandparents

Yes, I know I should be more 'disciplined' and should stick to some sort of research plan for doing my genealogy- but..... Sunday afternoons are great for random explorations. And especially now that the National Library of Ireland, and National Archives of Ireland have digitised access to so many more records... So somehow I found myself on the National Archives of Ireland census search page.
And here is the 1901 census entry for my Malone great-grandparents: Jeremiah Malone and Margaret (nee Riordan) his wife. I love that they spoke "Irish and English".

By the time of this census my grandmother Margaret and her sister Bridget were in New Zealand. Also another brother Patrick was known to be in New Zealand- but another day I will have to 'chase him up' to find out more about him.

The family are in house #2 of this house and building return- in Ballinadrideen, the place of my grandmother's birth.

Thanks to National Archives of Ireland for this information. I hope one day to get to Ireland to find Ballinadrideen, somewhere just south of Charleville.