Gut Feeling - John Kelly
You get to a point on your tree where you have to decide that you've reached your limits.
For the Kelly line it ends with John Kelly.
He is a name on some certificates. But I could write a simple story about him. How much is true needs to be established. In my story those words in red are information found in sources such as death certificates and newspapers.
John Kelly came from an Irish background. He spent some time around the Campbelltown area before settling near Yass. He married Mary Kerasen (Kerrison?) and lived on the Bendinine estate. Their daughter was Mary Ann.
The family lived close to where the Cotter Family lived on the estate and this may be a factor in Mary Ann marrying Edward Cotter.
He lived in the area during some interesting times. Banjo Paterson was a boy, and his father managed the Bendinine estate. During this time the bushranger Johnny Gilbert was killed in a shoot out close to the edge of town.
As I get more ... If I can get more, I can add to the story.
But what makes him a difficult person to track is his own name. It's like the Irish version of Smith! In the area there were at least 3 John Kelly's. One was the grandfather of John Dunn, Johnny Gilbert's gang member. Another a surveyor (a newspaper article tells me he fell and bruised his leg in a fall but crawled home thinking it broken). Another John Kelly I stumbled across died at "Golden Boot" Yass (his residence) 11 May 1854. This would be very early to be Mary Ann's father or even brother. A grandfather maybe.
As exciting as it would be to have a bushranger in the family, a lot of family research has been done on that family and no daughter by the name of Mary has ever been mentioned.
The following are just information for me to consider later. I think this could be useful to also elimintate it as our John Kelly. There is an article (found on TROVE) that talks about a rape committed to the Pegrem daughter by John Kelly. However there is a family connection perhaps with Catherine Kelly at Tangmangaroo .. but who knows .. yet! **Reading it again I see that one of the boys involved lived at Bendinine**
I am looking for descendants of the SHEA / O'SHEA family, particularly Sarah SHEA who arrived in NSW on the Success in December 1849 with her mother, Honora (née NUGENT), sister, Johanna (aged 18) and brother Stephen (15). Her father, James, was working at Thomas BRASSEL's at Yass.
Johanna married Patrick FALLON in 1850 and Stephen married Catherine KELLY in 1858 at Tangmangaroo and Philadelphia GROVES in 1900.
In February 1852, Sarah married James MCDONNELL / MCDONALD at Yass. He died in December 1852 at Bendigo and their only child, James, who was my great grandfather, was born at Yass in May 1853. James married Ellen EAGAN in 1879 at Yass. For a time he was licencee at the Commercial Hotel at Bowning.
In 1858, Sarah married a widower, David PEGREM / PEGRAM / PEGRUM who already had 5 children from his first marriage, Thomas, John, Rebecca, Mary Ann and Elizabeth. David and Sarah had 4 children - Sarah (1859-1866), Honora, born 1861 who married William GURNETT at Yass in 1889 and died at Narromine in 1929, Johanna, born 1862, who married John KELLY at Yass in 1890 and died at Young in 1941, and David, born at 1864, who married Ellen Louisa GOOLEY in 1890 at Boorowa. David junior lived most of his life at Bowning.
Sarah PEGREM née SHEA died aged 77 at Bowning in 1913.
Other names I am researching in the area are WALL and HANNAN at Limestone Creek near Bowning.
Any assistance would be appreciated.
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