James Lalor- origins?

I have written before on this blog about my maternal great-grandfather, James Lalor. And I also blogged a little info about him that I discovered in the parliamentary journal New Zealand Free Lance in 1901.

More recently I found an obituary for him that gave more facts about his life that I hadn't known before. He had come to Melbourne at quite a young age, and was a butcher there, soon managing Mr Pettie's large butchery shop. He then sailed in the ship Lightning for New Zealand. He followed the early rushes at Addison's Flat but met with little success.

He was appointed a messenger at Parliament, and filled that position for fourteen years, receiving an address and letter from Sir Joseph Ward when he retired. He was a keen follower of the trotting world, and owned a couple of horses.

His obituary states that he came from Kilkenny, and that was 79 years old at his death in 1916. I know only a few other things about his origins. His father was John Lalor, and his mother was "Mary" but I don't know her maiden name. From the Free Lance article I learned that he was a distant cousin of Peter Lalor of Eureka Stockade fame, and a 'full cousin' of the famous orator Richard Lalor Shiel. It seems clear from various newspaper entries that James Lalor was a clever speaker himself, both literate and educated.

The old Lalor homestead at South Beach, Greymouth, on the West Coast.

 

Photo

 taken 1992

Emboldened by recent success in working out where exactly my Riordan ancestors came from in Co Limerick, I feel I should now put some effort into working out where exactly James Lalor came from. However, for Patrick Riordan, I knew the surnames of both his parents, and I had a townland, Curraheen. I also knew whereabouts in Co Limerick some of his cousins hailed from.
I expect that a search for James Lalor's origins will be more difficult, and since he was possibly born around 1837, his birth is likely not included in parish records. His full cousin Richard Lalor Shiel seemed to be more based in Waterford, which would indicate our James' family was perhaps based more in the south of the county of Kilkenny. But then I think that Peter Lalor, his 'distant' cousin was from Abbyleix, just over the northern border of Co Kilkenny in Co Laois. I will spend some time searching, but this might be a 'brick wall'. Will blog again if one day I learn more.

Martin Burke

Recently we had an afternoon tea- a meeting of the third cousins- Burke-Burton style. I realised then that I had never summarised what I knew about Martin Burke, my grt-grt-grandfather. I have since done that, and this post shares a few bits from the summary. Feel free to contact me if you think you might be another third cousin!

The first reference I found for Martin Burke was in the 1861 Scottish census, when he was living with his family in Perth, at 134 High Street. Martin was described as married, aged 19, a ploughman. There were also five other family members listed at the address- his parents Michael (52) and Bridget(49); his brothers Thomas (19), a ploughman, and John (16), a cabinet maker apprentice; and his sister Mary (9). (Mary was not listed as attending school.)

Martin Burke married Ann Philp in February 1861, at St John’s Catholic Church, Perth (Scotland). Thomas Burke was a witness. Her parents were Thomas Philp, ploughman, and Isabella Philp, whose maiden name was Nicholson.

Martin and Ann’s first child, Mary Burke, was born in August 1862 in the Parish of Inchture.

Martin, Ann and Mary emigrated to New Zealand in 1864. On the passenger list for the Mermaid which arrived 16 February 1864,  from London, Martin Burke was listed as a ploughman, with wife and one child, from Fifeshire. I was once told by Sr Martina Burke that there is an oral story told in the Burke family that Martin Burke hoisted Mary onto his shoulders for the walk over the Bridle Track from Lyttelton.

Martin and Ann’s second child, Ann (Annie) Burke, was born in 1864 at Addington. Their third child,Thomas Burke, was born in 1866.

John Burke, the brother of Martin Burke, died in January 1895 at Burnham. He was 52, a labourer, and was said to have died of cancer of the liver. He had been in New Zealand for 12 years (ie arrival c1883.) He was unmarried, and was buried in the Darfield Catholic Cemetery near his niece Mary (Riordan, nee Burke) who had predeceased him.

Ann Burke, the wife of Martin Burke, died in March 1895 at Burnham. She was buried in the Darfield Catholic Cemetery near her daughter Mary Riordan and brother-in-law John Burke.

Ann Philp, Martin Burke, and child

Martin Burke died in November 1918. On his death registration it said that he was born in Co Mayo, Ireland. He was buried in the Sydenham Cemetery, but there is at present no headstone on his grave. There are currently cousin-plans afoot to erect a small headstone.

Fr John Francis O'Donnell

Recently I was in Queenstown, and visited the Catholic Church there. Fr John Francis O'Donnell, born in Glenroe, Co.Limerick, was parish priest there from October 1896 until his death in May 1917. He was first cousin to my great-grandfather, Patrick Riordan, and his brother (Dean) James Joseph O'Donnell was priest in Ashburton for many years.

Fr John was responsible for the building of the beautiful stone church that sits on a hill above the lake in Queenstown.

There is a wonderful piece in the Tablet in 1897 that describes how the stone was all carted by local people and stacked ready to build the church.
At the opening of the church Fr O'Donnell thanked all those who had helped to build it and furnish it. He himself donated a statue of the Virgin and Child that is still in the church.

Fr O'Donnell is buried in Queenstown Cemetery, in the Catholic section, Block 1, Plot 8, not far off Brecon Rd. 

There is much written about him over the years in the Tablet, and he was clearly a very beloved pastor, who loved and served his people dearly. When he celebrated his silver jubilee of ordination, the address given to him spoke very warmly of his attributes:

“You have proved and brought into prominence, by the many arduous tasks you have fulfilled, the self-sacrifices you have made, the various improvements and buildings you have effected, and especially the model church we all feel so proud of, that you are a priest of singular administrative ability. In all this work you have been sustained by a buoyancy of spirit, a zeal for souls, a feeling for your fellow man, and a trust in God that has endeared you to all. Sustained by such sentiments, you have continued, in spite of failing health, to discharge duties under difficulties to which stronger men would have succumbed. You have won your way into our hearts, not by the glow of brilliant exterior accomplishments of one craving for popularity and applause, but by your sterling qualities and true priestly virtues. We have always looked up to you as a true Christian gentleman and model priest. Again, as a churchman and citizen, your singleness of purpose, broad-mindedness and genial Irish spirit, endeared you not only to your own flock, but to those outside the Church, many of whom have joined us here to-night to offer you their congratulations.” 

Fr John showed a great love for the mountains he loved under in his adopted land. In his reply at his jubilee he stated that:

“His mission had a singular fascination for him. The gigantic mountains with their snowcapped peaks, piercing the very clouds of heaven, proclaimed in their own way the infinite power and eternity of God. This always gave him a buoyancy of spirit which was indescribable. 

I have compiled a much longer account about Fr John Francis O'Donnell. It can be found at this Google Drive link.

 

The Last Post

On October 3rd 1918, John Francis Payn, my great-uncle, was killed in action near Crevecoeur in northern France.

He was born in Kumara on the West Coast in 1895, the sixth child and second son of Francis Davis Payn and Johanna Scettrini.

He was a private in the 2nd Battalion of the Wellington Regiment, NZEF. He departed New Zealand on 17 June 1917, and served in France for just over a year before his death on the battlefield.

Via Twitter, thanks to @NZLainey and @powderkeig, I learned about the Last Post ceremonies at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park in Wellington. These have been held each evening to commemorate the 100 year anniversaries of New Zealand  involvement in World War 1. I decided to apply to read the Ode in English at the ceremony on October 3rd, 2018, the date marking 100 years since the death of John Francis Payn.

Leaving Palmerston North early-ish allowed time for some Wellington explorations. It was dull and a little drizzly first thing, but this seemed to bring out the very best in the tulips at the Botanical Gardens. Somehow, their brightness reminded me of poppies found today on the old battlefields.

Around 4pm it was time to get ready for the ceremony. I had taken my greenstone taonga to wear, which had belonged to a cousin on the Payn side. (I had also decided to wear a skirt to show respect- but the Wellington breeze was swirling around the memorial, so perhaps trousers would have been more suitable!)

When I arrived at Pukeahu I was very pleased to find my youngest sister, who lives in Wellington, had made it there. Lainey and Jane both arrived, and a cousin and her three children were also there. It was heartening to find I had such support.

Soon John, the organiser of the ceremony, arrived, and he made my sister and myself both very welcome. He talked me through what was to happen. Since it was a special anniversary, he said I could say a few words about John Francis, and lay a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the start of the ceremony. I was introduced to all the military participants, and they also made me very welcome.

The ceremony itself was simple and dignified. There was a senior officer who was in charge, two men to bring down the flags, and a bugler. This day there were three of us to read the Ode, including an Italian man who read it in Italian.

We marched out to our positions, and we three readers of the Ode stood just behind the tomb. I spoke briefly about John Francis and laid the wreath. Then the bugler played the still and the Last Post. We three read our versions of the Ode, in Te Reo, English, and Italian. And then everyone stood still for a minute's silence. At the end we all marched back into the shrine area. It was a simple ceremony, very respectful of the memory of those soldiers who had not come home.

John had a special gift for me before we all departed- this special '100' Last Post commemoration pin. He then kindly took photos of our family visitors in the shrine.

It was a special time at Pukeahu, and I feel privileged to have had the chance to honour the memory of John Francis Payn.

Using the Corippo Parish Register

We know from his naturalisation papers that Giuseppe Scettrini (my great-great grandfather) came from the village of Corippo in the Canton of Ticino, Switzerland. And from his marriage and death register entries, we know that his parents were Giovanni Scettrini, and Giovanini (Johanna) Maria Scilacci, and that he was born around 1835.

Corippo is found in Valle Verzasca. The nearest larger town to Corippo is Locarno.

Back in the 1990s when I was researching more about Giuseppe’s ancestors in Corippo, I was able to order the microfilm for the Corippo Parish Registers in to my local Mormon Family History Centre. The film number was 1751127. This film had not previously been ordered by anyone in New Zealand, and it was brought into the country for me. I remain grateful to the Mormon Church for this service.

The parish church in Corippo is named Sancta Maria Virgine de Monte Carmelli (Blessed Mary Virgin of Mt Carmel).

The parish registers in Corippo at the time were all written in Latin.  I had reason to be appreciative of the three years I had studied Latin in high school to School Certificate level, as it enabled me to translate a lot of the important details.

One of the treasures of this register, was that entries commonly named the father of those named. So for instance, when Giuseppe was baptised, each of his parents were named, but so also were the names of the fathers of each of his parents. This clue to the names of 'three generations' made it much easier to trace entries back with more confidence.

The family name is spelled Scettrini in Italian, but in Latin in the parish registers, it appears as Scitrini when in the nominative case. However, one of the characteristics of Latin is that endings alter depending on the ‘case’ of the noun. Thus it appears as Scitrino in the genitive case, eg when someone is the daughter of someone else.

The register was not always easy to read. The handwriting of some priests was more legible than others. Additionally, the entries varied in length and detail according to the priest of the time. (Sometimes there was considerable detail about such things as the degree of consanguinity that I didn’t try to translate.)

There were so many Scettrini families in Corippo at the time, that sometimes our line was called Scettrini-Benada, or even just Benada.

At times family members descended to a pasturage area, Vira Gambarogno, nearer the lake, Lago Maggiore. This meant that occasionally I could not find the entry for a direct ancestor I was trying to find.

I constructed some family group sheets as well as I could. However, then I had some truly fortunate contact with a man called Rae Codoni who hailed from California. Rae had done extensive research into his Codoni ancestors from Corippo. (We worked our that I am a half fifth cousin with his daughter Anne, the half being because of a remarriage.) I was very glad to be able to compare my draft findings with his, and am truly grateful for all the information he so generously shared with me.

"Family" Stamps

One of the things I enjoy most about tracing my family history is finding out more about the places my ancestors came from, and maybe understanding a bit about what it was like living there. And sometimes there are little 'place' treats along the way.

In the very early days when I was working out who my great-grandparents were, I was sent this stamp by Maurice Payn. It represents a "Payn" family coat of arms from Jersey in the Channel Islands.

 

And someone sent me this stamp that represents Corippo in Ticino, Switzerland, where my Scettrini family came from. (I think it might have been a young German friend of a friend who visited there and sent me some photos.) It was a Swiss stamp that was issued 19 February, 1985.

The stamp gives you a bit of an idea how beautiful this mountain village is. I hope to revisit it once more in a year or so- maybe 2020...

Fr John Riordan

Again, I am in debt to the Papers Past website for information about my family's past. This time I am grateful for more things I have been able to learn about my great-uncle, John Riordan, who died in 1925 while serving as Parish Priest in Ross on the West Coast.

In the early 1990s when I was starting to collect genealogy information about my family, I wrote to the Christchurch Diocesan Archives to find out more about Fr John Riordan. A lovely kind priest, Fr K J Clark, was interested to find out more about some of these former priests himself. He contacted the priest in Hokitika to see if someone could check The Guardian, the Hokitika newspaper, and I was sent notes taken from that paper about Fr John's dying and funeral, as well as his obituary.

Time has moved on since then, and a lot more from past newspapers can be easily retrieved online, (though still not from The Guardian in Hokitika it seems.) Some of these old newspaper treasures give such an intimate look at a person from the past. And so it has been with Fr John Riordan.

When he was ordained he served first in Ahaura parish, and though he was not there for long before  he went to Ross, it seems that fond memories of him were still held. This account - Ahaura Notes- appeared in the NZ Tablet on 6 May 1925.

May he rest in peace.