Orange, NSW and the Wynne/Whiteford Families

On a recent holiday to Orange I decided I needed to make a visit to the Orange Cemetery where there are a number of my husbands family buried. Now, Orange Cemetery is rather large, so go prepared when doing a search. I had looked up the index for the names previously on the CD produced by the Orange Family History Group, so had the sections and grave number I was looking for. They have maps available at the cemetery, but you can also go to the Orange Council web site and download one before you go.  There is also background historical information about the cemetery on this site.

It is still a very hard job finding the graves even with the map and location, but we did eventually find it, as shown above. Lucky enough it had three headstones, with plenty of information. However one was slightly damaged made of stone that had worn away and was very difficult to read.

Transcribed they read:

Sacred to the memory of
Robert Andrew
The beloved son of
Robert & Sarah Whiteford
Died Feb 22nd 1878
Aged 11 months
also
James Joseph Wynne
Born at Orange Nov ?1st 1858?
Died at Parramatta? on Nov 18? 1913
Jesus ??? have mercy on his soul.

Note: Checked the NSW Birth, Death and Marriages  could not find a record of his birth, but found the death, registered in Sydney, parents Thomas & Sarah. Registration number 14968. Will get a Transcript of this certificate from Joy Murrin as it works out a lot cheaper than getting it from the Registry.

In Memory of
Thomas Wynne
Died May 10th 1859
Aged 43 Years
Also his beloved wife
Sarah Ann
Died March 24th 1860
Aged 39 Years
On their souls Jesus have mercy.

Note: Have copies of transcripts of their death certificates and according to Sarah's she died on the 22nd March and was buried on the 24th. They were Innkeepers at Molong, a town not far from Orange.

Sacred to the memory of
Elizabeth Mary
the beloved wife of
Augustus Coulson
died May 24th 1876
Aged 31 years
also of
Elizabeth Augusta Blanch
the beloved child of above
Died Dec. 20th 1868
Grant O Lord Eternal Rest and Peace to the soul of
Elizabeth Mary

Note: Have copy of transcript of death certificate of Elizabeth Mary Coulson. Elizabeth Augusta Blanch died as an infant.
According to records Augustus, Elizabeth's husband should also be buried in this grave, but there was no mention of him on the gravestones.


Some other useful site I found other gravestones for other Cemeteries local to Orange relating to these familes were on Australian Cemeteries Index. They had Molong and O'Connell Catholic Cemeteries which had photos of gravestones of families I am after.

Kiniry Family - Twig on the Family Tree

It's amazing how much time you can get caught up on researching twigs in your family tree. I recently was contacted through Ancestry about the Kiniry family. I really only had a small amount of information about them. My grandma Irene Veronica O'Neill, a staunch Catholic, when I was younger, told me about cousins Rev. Father Tom Kiniry and Rev. Father John Kiniry. That was about the extent of my knowledge. My uncle Paul Pearce another mad fellow family historian had given me the information that Brigid Hurley cousin of my grandmother's through the McMahon family married Peter William Kiniry and they had a daughter Agnes Kiniry.

My contact through Ancestry wanted to know more and when, where and who came out to Australia from Ireland. I then had to go to work doing more research, starting with the Victorian Birth, Death and Marriage indexes. I am luck enought to have access to these on CD, but for a fee you can access the Registry of VIC BDMs online. This gave me a wealth of information that I spent several hours sifting through. The number of * wildcard searches on the surname Kiniry I had to do as they were very creative in their spelling of this name.

Peter William Kiniry I found had been born in Maldon, Victoria in 1874 and died at Korong Vale, Victoria in 1922. The Kiniry's and many of my other relatives including O'Neills, Hogans, McMahons and Ryans farmed in the Boort, Korong Vale and Whychitella surrounds in Victoria.

Peter married Brigid Hurley in 1908 at Wychitella. She was the daughter of Patrick Hurley and Jane McMahon. and was born in 1879 probably at Wychitella and died 24 December 1917 at Korong Vale. She is buried at Wedderburn Cemetery.

Peter farmed the Koprong Vale area and was a member of local council for many years. Furhter information was found on newspapers on the National Library of Australia's newspaper website.

Peter was the son of John Kiniry born 1835, died 1918 at Korong Vale and Mary Morrisey born about 1835 and died 1922 at Korong Vale. Now I know they came from Ireland, but when and where from. That was the next test on which I spent a long time searching and again the many ways of spelling their surname made it difficult. This meant searching on the PROV Online Assisted British and Unassisted indexes. So far I have had no luck. I even tried the Passenger indexes from NSW State Records with no luck. One to keep working on!!

Next problem where they came from. I tried looking for all the children of John Kiniry and Mary Morrisey. The first one born in Victoria was Margaret in 1863 in Melbourne. With further searching on found a Thomas Bartholomew Kiniry dying in 1916 age 58 in Brighton, Victoria and working backwards I found he married in 1883 in Victoria to Jane O'Neill stating that his birthplace was Cork, Ireland.

Well I now have a lot more information to send to the contact in USA, but it has now given me more work in trying to track down the immigration of John and Brigid Kiniry and son Thomas from Cork, Ireland in Victoria, Australia. I do know from John's death register that his parents were John Kiniry and Mary O'Connor, so a little more to go on.

Back at it Again!!

Well I am finally over Christmas and New Year and have been away on hols for a week down at Phillip Island and Inverloch in Victoria. Thought it was about time to get back to work. Finally have fixed all the place names on the Close Family Tree, so I am now in the processes of sorting the filing cabinet out and re-organising all my bits of paper and certificates into folders that will be easy to find.

Particularly working on the Kimber and Simcock families today. I had collected Inquests on several deaths of these families years ago. A good place to get some extra information now is via Newspapers online. I found and fixed some interesting information on my inquests for Timothy Simcock, Arthur Foster Kimber and William David Simcock in the Melbourne Argus.


I also found it useful to do a search for Wills and Probates that have been digitised that are now available at the Victorian Public Records Office.

If you are a member of the GSV (Genealogical Society of Victoria), of which I am, it is a good idea to have a look at the members section. They have a database that you can search of online resources. I was able to find a number of the Kimbers and Simcocks mentioned in Hospital records such as Ballarat and Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital (they have images of these) and a number of other miscellaneous records. Anyway it's worth utilising it if you are a member and I should do this more often.