The Family Detective

Around 1830 a baby girl was born in Tuam, Galway. Her name was Ellen Phillips and one day she would marry James Kelly and set off to a new life away to Australia and away from the turmoil of the Great Potato Famine. Her parents were Michael and Mary Phillips (nee Connolly) and she grew up with at least two other siblings. Stephen who was a railway labourer was the one to sponsor James and their newborn son John on their journey to Australia. The other was her elder sister Catherine who accompanied Ellen and James aboard the immigrant ship Bengal in 1854. Times were tough in Ireland in the late 1840s. More than a million people died in Ireland and around another million emigrated to other lands. The English were building their underground railway and took advantage of the plight of many desperate Irishmen employing them as cheap, almost slave labour. Stephen found employment as a railway labourer in London and as with many desperate people needing to live close to their place of

Tracing Mary Ann Kelly has taking many years of my own research and many more of some of the other researchers including Dafydd. With happiness he agrees with me that we have found Mary Ann's parents in James & Ellen Kelly (I've realised John & Mary as names are only on Mary Ann's death certificate and there's been little other information about them except their residences). I think with 2 of our researchers we might also be able to get a DNA match so I shall hold off myself getting one!! Anyway for me I like the old fashioned chase...a bit like grabbing pen & paper for working out a sum before I grab a calculator! Mary Ann Cotter (nee Kelly) So... until I am proven any different Ellen Kelly is my newest branch on the tree and after a few days I have many stories to tell but she is still elusive! Part of the issue is she has so many names in the documents I've discovered. Eleanor, Ellen, Mary...even her surnames Kearasen on Mary Ann's death