Baxter Cousin’s Day

Another year has rolled around. Last Sunday, the first weekend in March was our annual cousins get together for one of my maternal families – BAXTER.

I have organized these Cousin’s Days for this branch of the family for many years now. You can see reports of some of them in former blogs.

 

Although they are always wonderful days for us all, each year has been a little different, and this year was no exception. This year the numbers attending were about the same, but there were no children. These were all off representing their school or community in a team sport of some kind or another.

Another interesting fact was that all lines of my grandparent’s children were represented by at least the eldest grandchild on that line. This has never happened before. In fact, most of the attendees were first cousins to me.

In the past, I have selected an ancestral couple on that family line and prepared material telling the story of the chosen couple. In the past years I have written the story of ‘The Life and Times of Arthur and Harriet May Baxter (nee Bell)’ – my grandparents; The Life and Times of James and Margaret Jane Baxter (nee Kennedy)‘ – Great-Grandparents; ‘The Life and Times of Thomas George and Mary Baxter (nee Mather)’ – Great- Great- Grandparents; ‘The Life and Times of James and Elizabeth Baxter (nee Dixon) – Great-Great-Great Grandparents and the Life and Times of George and Sarah Bell (nee Sargent)‘-Great-Great Grandparents. This year it was The Life and Times of Thomas and Mary Bell (nee Battlemore)– Great-Great-Great grandparents.

 

However, for several reasons, I didn’t have the story of Thomas and Mary Bell ready in time. Firstly, I became ill while only up to the indexing of the material. Secondly, I found photographs and documents, that I had filed away safely during our bushfire crises this last year, and had forgotten about them. They needed to be included- and thirdly, I received a  DNA match (of a very small amount), with people in England, who are connected to the female line of ‘Battlemore’ or more correctly ‘Bartholomew’.

 

The DNA research trail is something I have recently embraced although I know it is only a ‘tool’ rather than the answer to research problems. Although everyone was a little disappointed I didn’t bring all the material with me this year, they all know I will eventually get it done. They are very excited about what might come out of the DNA connection. Particularly, to my delight, several of my first cousins received DNA Kits for gifts at Christmas! They have at last sent their samples away and are awaiting results. Everyone is most interested to see how it might help with our ancestral quest.

 

Another plus with all my work and sharing with these cousins each year, it has now begun to bear fruit. Some of my cousin’s, now adult children, have begun their own family history journey. One visited Picton and the surrounding area and was able to identify and photograph family homes still standing after over 150 years; the old farm, with the sign still at the front gate; family headstones in cemeteries, once crumbling and overgrown, now cleared and restored beautifully;  and the historic Picton Anglican Church, St Mark’s, restored after severe flooding a few years ago. All this material they put together as a slide show with video clips. All to music in glorious colour to be enjoyed by members of our family.

 

I know I do not have to worry about the future of our family histories. They are in the good hands of the next generation.

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The Kennedy Clan in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland

This month I have concentrated on researching some of my ancestors from Northern Ireland. On my maternal line I am descended from the Kennedy’s of County Tyrone.

Gilbert Kennedy was born about 1827, son of Thomas and Mary Kennedy near The Rock, County Tyrone, Ireland. I have not been able to locate surviving baptism records for the parish churches, in this area of Northern Ireland. I am continuing to research the Kennedy families in this part of Ireland and found some were still there in the 1901 Census.

On 3 February 1852, Gilbert married Ann Hunter at the Artrea parish church. Ann was the daughter of Robert and Jane Hunter of Ballyneill More, in County Londonderry.

In 1854 Gilbert and Ann Kennedy had a daughter who was named Elizabeth.

In 1856, Gilbert and Ann decided to emigrate to New South Wales. They traveled to Belfast where they took a boat to Liverpool and boarded the emigrant ship, Kate. The Kate left Plymouth in mid-September and arrived in Sydney two days before Christmas in 1856.

Advertisements appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald later that week stating that there were a number of Agricultural Labourers who had arrived by the ‘Kate’. It is believed that Gilbert and Ann Kennedy went to the Camden area to help with the summer harvest.

The Kennedy family were at Spring Creek, near Camden two years later when a daughter Mary Jane was born on 9 March 1858. They are believed to have been renting a farm there.

In 1860, a third daughter, named Mary Ann was born. In that same year their eldest daughter, Elizabeth, died from croup.

Another daughter, Isabella was born in 1862 followed by Martha in 1864. However, four-year-old Isabella drowned at Spring Creek in 1866. Soon afterward the family moved to Abbotsford, Picton. A son William James Kennedy was born at Abbottsford on 7 June 1866.

It was about this time that Gilbert Kennedy’s health started to decline and in February 1870 he was admitted to the Parramatta Asylum, where he remained until his death on 1 September 1903. The admission registers for this time period have not survived, to give us the medical reason for Gilbert’s admission. Gilbert was buried at Rookwood Church of England Cemetery, but there is no headstone. He is memorialized on his wife’s headstone at St Mark’s, Picton.

Parramatta Asylum was opened in 1849 in the old Female Factory. From the outset, it consisted of a free and a criminally insane division. By 1870 there were about eight hundred patients, over seven hundred being free. Although in 1885 a new hospital wing was completed, overcrowding was always a problem. Several photographs of Parramatta Asylum at the turn of the 20^th Century can be viewed at the State Records website at http://www.records.nsw.gov.au . Because this Asylum was so much a part of my ancestor’s life, finding these photographs have been very helpful. An article in the Town and Country Journal, 12 August 1871 gave a detailed description of the establishment, which helped me put our Gilbert Kennedy’s life into context. The reporter mentions an inmate by the name of ‘Kennedy’, but further research showed he was a ‘William Francis Kennedy’ and not our ‘Gilbert Kennedy’. I have copies of surviving Asylum records relating to Gilbert, but they do not give a great insight into his ‘illness’.

In 1875, Mary Ann Kennedy, the second surviving daughter of Gilbert and Ann Kennedy died, of ‘disease of the throat.’ She was buried at St Mark’s, Picton aged 15 years.

Less than two years later Martha Kennedy, the fifth child and second surviving daughter of Gilbert and Ann Kennedy died of cancer. She was only 13 years of age. She is also buried at Picton.

On 23 March 1878, a joyous occasion was celebrated in the family, when ‘Margaret Jane’ the only surviving daughter of Gilbert and Ann Kennedy was married to James Baxter, in St Mark’s, Church of England, Picton. The following year a son was born to James and Margaret Baxter who was named ‘William James’.Nine children were born to James and Margaret Baxter over the next twenty years or more, all of whom survived. The youngest child, a son, was named ‘Ewart Gilbert’ in honour of his Grandfather Kennedy.

In 1894, William James Kennedy the only son of Gilbert and Ann Kennedy married Florence Emily Evans. They were to have twins, Myra, and William in 1896, followed by Stella in 1897 and Dorothy in 1899. This family resided at 73 Lincoln Street, Stanmore for over fifty years.

Ann Kennedy went to live with James and Margaret Baxter’s family in the late 1890s, until her own death in 1912. She is buried in St Mark’s Picton alongside her daughters Isabella, Mary Ann, and Martha. Headstones mark these graves.

James and Margaret Baxter are also buried here and a headstone marks the grave.