This page contains some notes on two families whose origins we are researching. At present we know very little about their early history, but we hope that by publishing this summary here we can make contact and exchange data with people who can tell us more or who can point us in the right direction to continue our own research.
The family we are researching lived in County Antrim towards the end of the nineteenth century, although their origins were possibly elsewhere. So far we have established only the following very short family tree:
James Kelly (no details known)
William Kelly and Jane Mann (married 1872)
Gardiner Mann Kelly (1875 - 1944) and Elizabeth Francey (c1874 - 1954)
Annie Kelly (1902 - 1996) and William Venn (1901 - 1972)
Gardiner Kelly and Elizabeth Francey were married in 1896 in Shankill, Belfast. They had left Northern Ireland by 1902 and spent the rest of their lives in Plymouth, Devon. We know very little about the origins of the Kelly line and even less about the Francey family. So we would welcome any input about the families themselves or about potentially useful information sources.
Gardiner Mann Kelly was born in 1875 in Ballygarvey, near Ballymena, the son of William Kelly and Jane Mann (both aged 21 when they were married in 1872). He was named after his mother's father, Gardiner (or Gardner) Mann. William Kelly possibly came from Ennis in County Clare, but we have found no records which can be positively linked to his family prior to the 1872 marriage.
Elizabeth Francey claimed to have to have been born in Alsace, but the little we know about her background comes from hearsay rather than from any official records. Her father, James Francey, was possibly in Bastia in Corsica at some point, but we believe that he travelled widely. Elizabeth was living in Belfast at the time of her marriage, but she had been brought up by a family living in Ballymena.
Some of the names above are linked to the corresponding record in the on-line family tree. When you click on a link, the linked record will be displayed in a separate window. There you can see the family relationships as we understand them, together with notes on what we have found in the few records we have traced.
Please contact Chris and Linda Warren if you can help with research into this family