Payn-Mourant headstone

Switching tack here- going back to tidying up the folders of papers I already have about the Payn line of my family, from Jersey.

Just as a 'taster'- this is the headstone of my maternal great-great-grandparents, Thomas Payn and Elizabeth Mourant, in the graveyard of St Martin's parish on the Island of Jersey in the Channel Islands-  Again I am thankful to Maurice Payn, without whose help I would probably not have found this headstone.

One of the interesting things on this headstone is that their young child, Francis Davis, who died on 18 November 1854, is buried here. My great-grandfather was born the very next day after his death, and was also named Francis Davis Payn.

The accidental road to the ancestral Riordan farm

It was an accidental and fortuitous road that led me to finding the ancestral Riordan farm in Co Limerick, Ireland. I was really looking for the birth/baptism/ any evidence of my great-grandfather, Patrick Riordan.

1) Pre-knowledge: From Patrick's death registration, I knew his parents were John Riordan and Bridget Quane, and that he was born in Curraheen, Co Limerick.

2) Wrong assumption: I assumed from a list of townlands, that this Curraheen was up near the River Shannon- but it seemed odd even then, as it was so far from Glenroe where O'Donnell priest-cousins were known to come from.

3) Parish registers online: When the parish registers came online -thanks NLI-  I searched this area diligently. Not many likely looking names at all- distinct lack of Riordan, Quane, O'Donnell, Malone families. Hmmmm.

4) Google is my friend: Plugged in "Riordan Quane Curraheen". Bingo! Turned up entry in 1829 tithe applotment books for Curraheen. There was a widow Riordan, and a John Quane. This Curraheen was in Ballylanders Parish, and it was significantly close to Glenroe.

5) Searched Ballylanders Parish register: Found two births to John Riordan and Bridget Quane- Ellen (June 1850) and Bidy (Jan 1855). This register transcript started from 1849, and I never found my Patrick- but I was sure I had the right parish.

6) Turned to Google again: Bingo again- hugely significant find! Found a census extract from 1916 for a James Riordan from Ballylanders Parish. This would have been used to find evidence of date of birth from 1841 census to obtain the old age pension. Official had written in names of parents- John Riordan and Bridget Quane- and listed the siblings down the side- Margaret, Patrick, Mary, Ellen, John and Bridget. Finally evidence of my Patrick... It also listed the Parish- Ballylanders, and the townland- Cullane South.

7) No Curraheen? Hmmm. There was a Curraheen in 1829 tithe applotment books in Ballylanders Parish. But by the time of Griffiths Valuations it seems to have changed its name to Cullane- North, South... Same parish, but a Cullane instead of a Curraheen...

8) John Grenham to the rescue: Google again- this time looking for a map of Cullane South. Found invaluable links on John Grenham's site. It led to...

9) Griffiths Valuations: I can't give you the link here as it is time-limited one to askaboutireland.com But use Grenham's Cullane South link to take you to a list of Occupants, and a map... John Riordan is farming there and section 20 is the land. Use the slider on the map and you can alternate between modern and old maps. (And there is a Carheen Fort on the edge of the Riordan land as it happens...)

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.