More on Pierre and Bertrand de la Vallade

The search continues! I have yet to find any definitive link between Charles de la Valade of Lisburn and any French Huguenot family in the south of France - nor can I find any noble La Valade family anywhere in the Languedoc other than the Viguier de la Valade family of Moissac as mentioned in an earlier post - I'm ruling out the Viguier de la Valade family completely.
I am still fixated on the Pastor of Fontenoy-le-Comte, Pierre de la Vallade, who was possibly of the same family as Bertrand de la Vallade as was the earlier Jean de la Vallade.  It is mentioned that this family followed the Princes of Navarre to Poitou;  although one text mentions that Pierre de la Vallade was born in the Langudoc, another mentions that he came from a family of Languedoc. (Languedoc being a generic term for the southern area of France.)

http://alison-stewart.blogspot.com/2011/12/la-vallade-family-of-fontenay.html

http://alison-stewart.blogspot.com/p/bertrand-de-lavalade-of-nerac.html

http://alison-stewart.blogspot.com/p/charles-lavalade-timeline.html

Charles de la Valade was supposedly the son of a count, but I've been told that this is merely a generic term for a French noble.  I can find no French nobel family of the name of La Valade and of the Protestant religion.
Bertrand de Lavallade of Nérac, however, was granted noble status by the King of Navarre, and this title could have been handed down.

Anyway, here is more information which I've uncovered about the families of Bertrand and Pierre de la Vallade.
In 'La Revue de l'Agenais', I read through 'La Chronique d'Isaac de Peres' who was the Concierge to the royal household at Nerac. He was the secretary there in the early 1600s but kept a simple journal there from 1586 on, in which he noted births, deaths, marriages. The Lavallade family of Bertrand de Lavallade gets a few mentions: a relation of Isaac - Pierre de Peres  - married Janne de Lavallade who was related to Bertrand, the president of the cour des comptes in Nerac.    Catherine de Lavallade, Bertrand's daughter, married Jan Pinole in April 1596.  She died the following year in the town of Bordeaux; Isaac mentions that Jean Pinole was his own brother-in-law - Isaac was married to Jan's sister, who was the daughter of Guillaume de Pinolle.  The niece of Bertrand de Lavallade died in August 1596.
(In these journals, Isaac de Peres also mentions members of the duBedat family who later fled France and ended up in banking in Ireland.)

Pierre de la Vallade was the Protestant pastor at Fontenoy-le-Comte from 1603 until his death from either scarlet fever or cholera in 1633.  He was married to Loyse (Louise) Billaud.  Louise was the daughter of a lawyer of Fontenoy, Pierre Billaud and of Francoise Delespee.  Pierre Billaud died about 1621 - his principle heir was his son, Joachim Billaud, the lord of Moulin Billaud in Pouzauges, a townland of Fontenoy.  A legal document exists which documents the division of Pierre Billaud's properties amongst his children with the agreement of Joachim Billaud.   Their names were Francois Billaud, the lord of Pigasse who lived at Auzay; Louise, the wife of Pierre de Lavallade; Marie Billaud, the wife of Pierre Delafond, living at La Rochelle; Catherine Billaud, the wife of David Poignand, living at La Rochelle.  
The properties which the siblings divided up amongst themselves were the house and farm of Moulin Billaud, the territories of Pigasse and de Gallerand, the house and farm at La Berthiniere in the parish of La Parate, Gatine.
Louise and Pierre de la Vallade got the house in Fontenoy, a tenanted farm in the village of Suairie le Mouille and several other plots of land. 
Other legal documents exist from Fontenoy.  In November 1606,  Pierre de la Vallade leased a low room with a cellar for three years to the widow, Jeanne Audayer, in the building he had constructed next door to the protestant church.
In January 1617, Pierre Bernard, the lord of Jauroy, an advisor and secretary to the king in his house of Navarre, and who was living at Cognac, accepted the payment of income due to him by Pierre de la Vallade, the minister of the reformed church at Fontenoy, for half of the noble house and tenanted farm at Parois a la Jaudonniere.   (A rural area north of Fontenoy-le-Comte next to Bazoges-en-Pareds which was associated with the Huguenot Hudel family who intermarried with the La Vallades - Saran Udel was the wife of Hanael d'Espee or Hanael Delespee who was a doctor and the brother-in-law of the pastor la Vallade. Later, Jean Hudel of Fontenoy renounced Protestantism in 1686 but engaged in Protestant propaganda at Bazoges-en-Pareds, the area his wife came from, and was subsequently jailed from 1690 till 1717. Not surprisingly he fled the country following his release.)
In June 1622, Louise Billaud, on behalf of her husband, Pierre de la Vallade, took the harvest from their land at Garennes Rondes in La Jaudonnieres to the miller.
In October 1623, Pierre Terras,a judge in the town of Duras in Agen, on behalf of Alain Fillol  (who was an advisor to the king ,who was in charge of wages etc, and who worked in the parliament at Guyenne), gave a receipt for 549 livres which Fillol claimed was due him following a contract for transport (?) to Pierre de Lavallade.  This archaic French has defeated me here, but there was also mention of Fillol's father who worked in the Parliament at Bordeaux and had something to do with this business deal.   The mention of Bordeaux, and La Vallade's connection to it, is of interest - the widow of Jacques Duboudieu who fled France later was the sister of Charles de la Valade. Jacques Dubourdieu, her husband, had been the pastor at Blaye, Bordeaux before his murder in 1685.  The town of Duras mentioned above was just south of the Dubourdieu home town of Bergerac, and about three miles from the town of Le Sauvetat where Isaac Dubourdieu had been the pastor in 1637.
Earlier in April 1621, an apothecary of La Rochelle, Pierre Defforgue, sent a bill to Pierre de la Vallade and to Pierre's brother-in-law, Francois Billaud the lord of Pigasse. The bill was for 250 livres to pay for the four or five months of medical treatment given to Pierre de la Vallade's mother-in-law, Francoise Delespee by the apothecary . The Delespee family appear many times in the legal documents of Fontenoy, which record wills and minor business deals in the area. These documents were published to the web by the Conseil General de la Vendee and appear under the title of 'Notaires de Fontenoy-le-Comte: analyses d'un choix de pieces (1578 - 1632).'

Pierre and Louise de la Vallade had four children although I've only discovered references to two of them. Their son, Elysee/Elisee de la Vallade, the maitre d'hotel du Roi, married Marie Genay in 1647, 14 years after the death of his father.
The next references to this family, show them to be under pressure from the Catholic authorities and hint at the conditions the Huguenot population had to contend with  in the years leading up to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
From an official list of people who were condemned as false nobles in 1668 and 1670, we see Elisee de la Vallade and Jean de la Vallade, both of the area of Xanton (just east of Fontenoy), and both of them declared to be common peasants. (Roturiers.)  Elisee de la Vallade was fined 500 livres, as was Pierre Billaud, the lord of Moulin Billaud.
A later text - incomplete - about the Protestant church of Fontenoy stated  'the revocation of the Edict of Nantes targeted with great cruelty several of  La Vallade's grandchildren, some of whom lived in Fontenoy, some in the outskirts of the town....'

Given that Rev. Charles de la Valade's sister was married to Jacques Dubourdieu in Bordeaux in the 1680s, I've kept an eye out for La Vallade connections to the town. 
Bertrand de la Vallade's daughter, Catherine, moved there following her marriage to Jan Pinole in 1596, and died there the following year.
Much earlier, in Bordeaux in 4th October 1542  '...a certain Monsieur Helie de la Valade for having said that church candles served no purpose and that it would be better to give them to the poor, and that he didn't want a mass said for him after his death, was condemned to pay a fine and to retract his statement...'
The same Helie de la Valade was held prisoner in Bordeaux in 1542.  I found another incomplete reference to Helie de la Valade, which stated that he was a 'licencie es-loi' which I presume refers to the legal profession, and that he was related to Antoine de la Valade.  (An Antoine de la Vallade was a co-seigneur along with John Brun de la Vallade at this time in Brive-la-Gaillard but I have no idea if these people have any link to Pierre and Bertrand de la Vallade.)
I also stumbled across a reference to the baptism of a Jean de la Valade, the son of Alain de la Valade of Bordeaux but no date was given for this.

Still Hunting for the La Valade Family!

This Huguenot La Valade family are proving elusive! I've joined Geneanet which is excellent value - only €40 for a year's subscription - and have spent a few days dredging through their online library of digitised books, searching for La Valade references in the Langudoc region.
The major problem with French genealogy is that early French families use a 'nom de terre' rather than a 'nom de famille'.  The name 'de la Valade', therefore, signifies an area rather than a specific family, and there are numerous townlands named Lavalade scattered throughout the country.

The only reference to a La Valade family in the old Languedoc area occurs in Moissac/Castel-Sarrasin, but I've been unable to find any mention in the historical genealogies of a Count de LaValade who was, presumably, the father of Charles de la Valade and his brother, the two Huguenot pastors who left France for Lisburn circa 1700. If the family were truly members of the French aristocracy, their lineage would be well-recorded and relatively easy to track down. If our La Valade family were members of the aristocracy, then they were surely minor members of it.
I have, however, made a little progress although it's mostly speculative at this stage.
In a book of armorials, the family coat of arms of the Valade family of Languedoc is mentioned - 'Palé de gueules, d'or,  d'azur d'or et de gueules' - so they must have existed somewhere in the region!

I mentioned in an earlier post that Pierre de la Vallade was the protestant pastor of Fontenoy-le-Conte from 1603 - 1633 and that he had been born in the Languedoc before moving west to Bergerac. Several of the texts hint at a family link between this Pierre de la Vallade and Charles de la Valade who went into exile following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
The journal of Paul de Vendée, a Huguenot captain, mentions Pierre de la Vallade twice - in an entry for February 1622, he mentions that he saw M. de la Vallade preaching at la Buardyere, and earlier in 1619, that M.de la Vallade went to spend the night at Escoue.
In another text, I read that Pierre de la Vallade died during an epidemic of either scarlet fever or cholera which struck the town of Fontenoy in 1633.
Yet another text relates that Pierre and his wife, Louise Billaud, had four children, although only one was mentioned - Elysée or Élie, who was an equerry and master in the house of the King. He married a Marie Genays in 1647. This text was incomplete.

Another link: A Saran Udel was the wife of Hanael d'Espée, doctor and brother-in-law to the pastor La Vallade.  (Pierre de Lavallade's wife was of the family d'Espée - her mother was a Francoise d'Espée.)  Later, a Huguenot, Jean Hudel of Fontenoy-le-Conte, engaged in protestant propaganda at Bazoges-en-Pareds, was jailed from 1690 to 1717, before leaving France for good.

Most of the literature links Pierre de la Vallade to Bertrand de la Vallade who likewise worked for the King of Navarre and for his protestant mother, Jeanne d'Albret.  An early historian, Samazeuilh, wrote a note about Bertrand de la Vallade but gave little information on his origins.  Bertrand, he writes, was the 'procureur générale' for the Queen of Navarre in the duchy of Albret and in the Chambre des Comptes in Nerac in 1566.  By 1582 he was the master of 'requetes ordinares' for the King of Navarre, and the president of the Chambre des Comptes in Nerac in 1598 and 1604.  Bertrand, with the authorisation of the King, sold the title of president to the Chambre des Comptes on 28th September 1610 to a Du Maurier.
Bertrand de la Vallade appears in numerous texts and seemed to play the role of notary overseeing commercial land transactions between various members of the Perigord nobility, and also seemed to play the role of messenger for the royal house of Navarre.
Working alongside Bertrand in the Chambre des Comptes in Nérac were Jehan Alespée, Sieur de la Grange, and Jehan de Secondat, Sieur de Roques.
The daughter of Bertrand de la Vallade, Catherine, married Jean Pinolé on Sunday 28th April 1596.
Bertrand de la Vallade's niece - unnamed - died on 16th August 1596.

From 'The Revue d'Aquitaine' we learn that the family of the pastor, Pierre de la Vallade, came to Poitou following the princes of Navarre and Condé but it doesn't say where they originated from!  The same text mentions that a Jean de la Vallade was possibly the father of Pierre de la Vallade and was certainly the father of Bertrand de la Vallade.
This Jean de la Vallade, who is sometimes called by the archaic form of Jehan, also worked in the royal household of Navarre and a letter exists written by him from Fontenoy-le-Conte on 19th May 1569, in which he states that he was commissioned by the princes of Navarre to collect funds due to the state following the sale of ecclesiastical goods in the dioceses of Lucon and Maillezais.
The published records state that Bertrand de la Vallade was of the town of Laumont, which is just south of Brive-la-Gaillarde in Perigord. In some texts he is called Bertrand BRUN de la Vallade which seems to link him to the Brun de la Valade family who lived in the same area of southern Brive-la-Gaillarde.
By 1540, there is mention of Jean Brun, Seigneur de la Vallade at Grospuy and l'Estrade which are in the area of Laumont associated with Bertrand de la Vallade.
There was a chateau belonging to the Brun family in Grospuy south of Brive-la-Gaillard since the thirteenth century but the name of La Vallade doesn't make its appearance alongside the Brun name until about 1500 when there is mention of Jean and Antoine Brun, co-seigneurs de la Vallade.  The daughters of Jean Brun de la Vallade married into the illustrious d'Abzac and d'Aubusson families and the land passed quickly into those families.

I mentioned earlier in this post that Bertrand de la Vallade served alongside a man by the name of Jehan or Jean Secondat in the Chambre des Comptes at Nérac.  He was the seigneur of Roques who became the steward of Henry II of Navarre. Henry's daughter, Jeanne d'Albret, awarded Jean's service with 10,000 livres so he could become lord of the domaine called Montesquieu north of Moissac in the Languedoc. This family later reverted to Catholicism.
There are links between the Secondat and la Valade families although in this instance the nom de famille is 'Viguier de la Valade' and this branch of the family is associated with Moissac/Castel-Sarrasin in the Languedoc.
In the 1550's, Catherine de Secondat was married to N.....de Viguier, sieur de la Valade, who lived close to Moissac in Quercy.
In 1566, Marie-Anne de Secondat was baptised a Protestant and had, as godfather, Henry, Prince of Navarre who was represented at the ceremony by Antoine Viguier de la Valade.
In 1574, the noble Pierre de Secondat, seigneur de Roques, who was the maitre d'hotel ordinaire for Henry IV, had been baptised a Protestant;  the godmother was Anne de Viguier de la Vallade, his cousin.
Later, Catherine de Viguier, the heiress of the la Valade family, married Francois, the seigneur de Pechpeyrou and Montbarla (Montbarla is just north of Moissac), the baron of Beaucaire.
By 1780, the La Valade estates belonged to the Marquis de Beaucaire.

William John Anderson and Agnes Keating

This is my great-grandmother, Agnes Jane Wilson,on the beach at Ballywalter with my father, Paul Cuthbert Stewart, circa 1936.  She was born Agnes Jane Anderson in 1881 in East Belfast to William John Anderson and Agnes Keating.

William John Anderson had been born in Kells, Co. Antrim - just south of Ballymena - on 28th March 1858 to a teacher, John Anderson, and to Jane Wilson Blair. 

http://alison-stewart.blogspot.ie/2011/08/anderson-family-of-county-antrim.html

At some stage before his marriage to Agnes Keating, William John Anderson moved south to work as a pawnbroker in Belfast city, probably aided by his paternal uncle, Joseph Anderson, who worked as an auctioneer in Smithfield in the city centre.

William John Anderson and Agnes Keating married in Berry Street Presbyterian Church, Shankill, on 17th October 1877.  William John gave his profession as a pawnbroker. The witnesses were Alexander Reid and James Rainey. Agnes Keating's father was mentioned as Samuel Keating a cardriver.  She gave her address as the time of the marriage as Dunadry which is close to Templepatrick in Co. Antrim, this despite the fact that her family came from the Donaghadee area of County Down. She may possibly have been living with William John's family who had their origins in the area.  Or perhaps someone misheard 'Donaghadee' and transcribed in incorrectly as 'Dunadry' - both are phonetically similar.

http://alison-stewart.blogspot.ie/2016/10/the-keating-family-of-ballyhay.html

You can trace William John Anderson through the street directories. Between 1884 and 1897, he ran two pawnbroking establishments, one at 69 Templemore Avenue and the other around the corner at 93 Castlereagh Street. 

In February 1892, William John Anderson was assaulted with a clock by a man named Thomas Houston when Houston was asked to leave the panwbroker's office on the Newtownards Road.

In 1897, during the Belfast Municipal Elections, William John Anderson of 93 Castlereagh Street, stood as assentor to the candidate Robert John Dawson of Cherryville, My Lady's Road, a building contractor.

By 1900, he has branched out into the bicycle trade at 134 Albertbridge Road while still running a pawnbrokers closeby at 215 Templemore Avenue. 

He later opened the first cinema to operate in the area and also ran several shoe shops.  The cinema was named The Princess Picture Palace on the Newtownards Road and seated 1,200 people - it opened on 16th September 1910, and closed down on 31st December 1926.

When William John Anderson signed the Ulster Covenant in 1912, the family home was at 418 Woodstock Road;  in 1911 they had been living at 360 Woodstock Road, while in 1901 they were at Number 410.  

William John Anderson

The children of William John Anderson and Agnes Keating were as follows:

Samuel Anderson, born 23rd September 1878 at 195 Woodstock Road. Samuel later married Marion Russell and died 13th May 1960.  He appeared on both the 1901 and 1911 as a pawnbroker, most likely working in one of his father's establishments,  but later managed one of his father's shoeshops.

Samuel Anderson signed the Ulster Covenant in 1912 and gave his address as 160 Madrid Street.

Samuel's wife, Marion Russell, was born on 21st June 1873 to the butcher, Matthew Russell, and his wife, Jessie Young, in Belfast.  Matthew and Jessie had been born in Ayrshire, Scotland, and married at Tradeston, Glasgow, on September 11th 1868, before moving to Belfast.  They lived off the Woodstock Road at 43 Castlerea Place.

Marion Anderson, née Russell, died on 23rd May 1917 at 160 Madrid Street.

Present on the 1911 Census were the two young sons of Samuel and Marion Anderson - William John Anderson who had been born on 11th June 1908 at 6 Lomond Avenue, and Matthew Aird Anderson who had been born on 18th March 1910 at 160 Madrid Street. 

Matthew Aird Anderson died at 10 Greenburn Park, Lambeg, Lisburn, aged 77 on 12th November 1987 and was buried in Plot E4-796 in Dundonald Cemetery.  Also there was May Anderson, aged 78, who died at the same address on 21st February 1994.  This was presumably the wife of Matthew Aird Anderson. Also buried in this same plot was a William J. Donald of 1 Queenside, Carryduff, who died aged 87 on 16th December 1970.

Agnes Jane Anderson, our great-grandmother, born at 56 Templemore Avenue on 25th March 1881.  She married our great-grandfather Edward Leviolett Wilson.

http://alison-stewart.blogspot.ie/2012/10/edward-leviolette-wilson-and-agnes-jane.html

Agnes Jane had a twin, William John Anderson, also born on 25th March 1881.  A John Anderson died, aged 6, at the family home of 69 Templemore Avenue on 23rd April 1887.

Elizabeth Veronica (Lily) Anderson, who was born on 5th October 1884 at 69 Templemore Avenue;  present at the birth, according to her civil birth registration, was Elizabeth Jamieson of Wallace Street, Newtownards, who was a possible relation of Lily's mother, Agnes Keating, the daughter of Samuel Keating and Elizabeth Jamieson of Ballyhay, Donaghadee.  

Lily Anderson was a piano teacher who later lived at Gibson Park Avenue in Belfast.  Lily Wilson died aged 83 on 27th February 1968 at 13 Gibson Park Gardens and was buried in the family plot (C2-136) in the City Cemetery.

Kathleen Coey Anderson was born on 24th July 1887 at 69 Templemore Avenue, but she died aged only 1 year and 8 months at 69 Templemore Avenue on 5th March 1889.

William Mitchell Anderson was born at 69 Templemore Avenue on 28th July 1889, although his grave has his date of birth as 1884.  Relation Elizabeth Jameson, who now lived at 69 Templemore Avenue, was present at this birth too. William Mitchell Anderson later managed Andersons Picture House on the Newtownards Road which had been opened earlier by his father William John Anderson. He died aged 70 on 23rd June 1954 at 13 Gibson Park Gardens.

Ernest James Anderson was born on 3rd October 1897at 215 Templemore Avenue; his birth was registered under the name of James Ernest Anderson, but he was always known as Ernest. He died on 11th August 1968.  

He later emigrated to Canada, and met his Edinburgh-born wife, Mamie, on the boat going over. Ernest Anderson appeared on the 1931 passenger list of the 'Letitia' which was sailing from Belfast to Québec.  The list stated that Ernest had previously lived in Canada, from 20th October 1928 until 14th August 1931, at 1505 Makay Street, Montreal.  He was a stock-keeper, and his next-of-kin in Ireland was his sister, Elizabeth Anderson of 13 Gibson Park, Belfast. 

The family photo below shows Lily Anderson, the piano teacher, dressed in black to the right of the group. Her older sister, Agnes Jane Wilson (nee Anderson), is shown in the middle.  They are visiting our grandmother, Agnes Keating Wilson (aka Nessie), shortly after her marriage to our grandfather, Bertie Stewart, at their first home in Killyvolgan, Ballywalter, Co. Down.  Nessie is without a hat. Her sister, Kay, has her arm around her aunt Lily. The man to the far left is William Mitchell Anderson, the brother of Agnes Jane Anderson and Lily Anderson. Neither William nor his sister, Lily, ever married and the two shared a house together at 13 Gibson Park Gardens in Belfast. They also had a holiday home in Ballywalter, Co. Down.

William John Anderson seems to have been an enterprising and generous individual who employed many of his and his wife's relations in his various businesses.

William John and Agnes Keating Anderson witnessed the marriage of her brother, Samuel Keating, to Sarah Agnew of Bangor in 1885. By 1901, Sarah was widowed and living with her five children in Jocelyn Street close to the Woodstock Road where William John Anderson and Agnes Keating were living.  As can be seen from the Census, two of Sarah's adolescent children - William aged 16 and Samuel aged 14 - were working in the pawnbroking trade.

Agnes Keating's sister, Margaret Jane Keating, married Robert McWilliams in Westbourne Presbyterian Church in 1887.  By the time of the 1901 Census they were living on My Lady's Road off the Woodstock Road - Robert McWilliams was working there as a pawnbroker's assistant and one of their eight children has been named William John Anderson McWilliams.

On the same street - My Lady's Road - lived two of Agnes Keating's paternal aunts, Margaret McCully and her unmarried sister Agnes.  Margaret McCully's husband, George Cully, was a shoemaker and I wonder did he supply shoes to William John Anderson's shoeshops at some stage?

William John Anderson died at 13 Gibson Park Gardens, the home of his children, Lily and William Mitchell Anderson. Aged 70, he died on 15th October 1928.  

His wife, Agnes Anderson, née Keating, died aged 53 at 418 Woodstock Road on 21st March 1911.

The family plot was C2-136 in the City Cemetery and also held Lily and William Mitchell Anderson, neither of whom ever married.  

Also buried there were the two children of William John Anderson and Agnes Keating who didn't survive childhood - John Anderson died at 69 Templemore Avenue aged 6 on 23rd April 1887.  His sister, Kathleen Coey Anderson, died aged 1 year 8 months on 5th March 1889 also at 69 Templemore Gardens.

Richard Williams and Geraldine O'Moore Creighton, 17 Eden Quay

Richard Williams (1812 - 1885) and Geraldine O'Moore Creighton (1811 - 1888) were our maternal great-great grandparents.  The father of Richard Williams was a gentleman, John Williams, who had died by the time of his son's marriage to Geraldine in 1847.  

Who was this John Williams, father to Richard?  I am still researching this, and have so far failed to uncover any definite relations for Richard Williams of Eden Quay from who we descend.  DNA results have been similarly disappointing.

I had originally speculated that Richard's father was John Jeffery Williams of Grays Inn, London, but I now believe this not to be the case.  John Jeffery Williams and his second wife, Mary Oliver, did have a son, Richard Williams, in 1812;  their older sons moved to Dublin and had close links to the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company which our Richard Williams worked for at their Eden Quay headquarters.  In research into the family of John Jeffery's son, Hutchins Thomas Williams, commissioned by Hutchins' daughter in the 1880's, no information was given for either Richard or his brother Henry Jeffery Williams.  The following link gives the details of John Jeffery Williams nonetheless:

http://alison-stewart.blogspot.com/2011/11/john-jeffery-williams-father-of-richard.html


A handwritten note at the bottom of a parchment, listing the proprietors of the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company,  mentions 'John Williams, dec'd' and this may be a reference to our elusive great-great-great grandfather.

The elusive father of Richard Williams might also be the John Williams who was in partnership with merchant Thomas Williams of 50 Lower Sackville Street.  The pair worked together at 1 Grafton Street up until about 1811 or 1812; following this, Thomas Williams (1779 - 1858) continued alone at 50 Lower Sackville Street.  Thomas Williams also had links to the Dublin Steam Packet Company, contributing £200 capital to the fledgling company.  Our Richard Williams' father-in-law, Rev. David Hill Creighton and his young daughters ran a school for young ladies from 50 Lower Sackville Street in the 1830s and it might have been here that Richard Williams met his future wife, Geraldine O'Moore Creighton.   The referees on behalf of Rev. David Hill Creighton also had close associations with the Dublin Steam Packet Company, Mrs. Ferrier of Willow Park and Mrs. Roe of Sans Souci, their husbands being shareholds and directors of the company.

http://alison-stewart.blogspot.ie/2015/10/john-and-thomas-williams-of-grafton.html

In the 1820's, the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company acquired the premises of 15, 16 and 17 Eden Quay, Dublin and it was at No. 15 Eden Quay that our great-great grandfather, Richard Williams, made his first documented appearance in 1837 when he bought £50 worth of shares in the Great Central Irish Railway.
(There were two Richard Williams - our ancestor who was the book-keeper for the CDSPCo and the older Richard Williams who was the co-founder of the company and who lived at Drumcondra Castle with business premises at 38 Dame Street. I'm assuming, given the paltry value of the shares bought, that the Richard Williams who bought into the Railway was our ancestor who lived at Eden Quay.)


The Street Directories record 'Williams & Co., merchants and cornfactors' at 1, Marlborough Street, in both 1836 and 1837.  I believe this to be our Richard Williams - there are no similar entries in the Dublin directories prior to 1836 and after 1837.

He appeared in the Dublin Street Directories, sometimes as a merchant, sometimes as an esquire, at the neighbouring address of 17 Eden Quay until 1854;  from 1854 until 1857, he wasn't listed in the directories/almanacs at all, but, between 1858 until 1860, Richard Williams Esq, was listed at 2 Upper Mayor Street, the street where the CDSPCo had their stores; this could well be a business address, rather than a family residence.  A child was born in 1853 at Mountpleasant in Rathmines.  From 1861 onwards, the family lived at Privot House, Dundrum in the southern Dublin suburbs, and from 1873 they lived at 8 Sydenham Road.

An 1839 meeting of the CDSPCo proposed that Richard Williams be employed as a clerk to the company - although he had already been living for at least two years in their Eden Quay property - on trial at a rate of £60 a year for 6 months.  Later on 5th May 1841, Richard Williams was paid £9-9-0 for attending nine sittings of the CDSPCo committee.  On 12th June 1847, the company ordered '...that £20 per annum be added to the salary of the book-keeper, Mr. Richard Williams, to commence from the 1st November 1846.'

In 1842, 17 Eden Quay was the offices of the Dublin and Liverpool Steam Ship Building Company, the Transatlantic Steam Ship Company and Williams & Co., Merchants & Cornfactors who had a timber and slate yard at 22 Sir John Rogerson's Quay.  Thomas Harvey Todhunter, a Quaker merchant, also had an office there in 1842.

By 1846, Williams & Co. was known as Williams, Todhunter & Co, signifying a business partnership between the two families but this was shortlived - by 1854, Thomas Todhunter is operating alone at his premises on Sir John Rogerson's Quay.    (Williams and Todhunter dealt in timber, slate and corn.  The Todhunter family of Rogerson's Quay were always considered to be timber dealers.)
In 1846, Phineas Howell, the secretary of the City of Dublin Steam Packet Co., was recorded as living at 17 Eden Quay although later he moved next door to Number 16.  Phineas Howell was one of the pallbearers at Charles Wye Williams' funeral in Liverpool in 1866.

It was during this era that our ancestor, Richard Williams, the son of the late John Williams, married his first wife Mary. 

The family must have been living in Glasnevin in North Dublin at this time, since two of the children of Richard and Mary, Sophia and Emily Williams, stated on later documents that this has been their place of birth. 

Richard William's first wife, Mary, died young at 35 years old - her burial is recorded in the Mount Jerome archives for 1846.  She died of consumption at 17 Eden Quay on 10th December 1846.  This was signed by the Registrar and Alexander Fry.  Alexander Fry was a doctor and was possibly related to William Fry, an Athlone-born solicitor who was a founding member of the Plymouth Brethren community in Dublin along with Henry Bewley and J. Denham Smith.  Alternatively, he may merely have been the doctor attendant at her death.

Earlier the deaths of several children had been recorded at 17 Eden Quay:

• Charlotte Williams died of consumption aged 7 weeks on August 25th 1842. Signed by the Registrar and Richard Williams. 
• On 3rd July 1845,  Albert Williams, aged 6 years and 9 months, died of inflammation of the lungs. Signed by the Registrar and Richard Williams.

There were three surviving children of the marriage of Richard and Mary Williams:

• Sophie or Sophia Williams was born about 1836 in Glasnevin and left Dublin to work in one of Thomas Barnardo's childrens' homes where she was a housemaster in charge of 25 girls.  In 1881, the UK census records Sophie Williams, who had been born in Dublin in 1846, working as a governess in Edgbaston, England.  By 1891 she was working in Illford, Essex at the 'District Girls' Village Home For Orphan Neglected and Destitute Girls'.  1901 shows her, aged 55, and still working at Dr.Barnardo's Girls' Home in Ilford.   The 1911 census shows her living in the House of Rest for Christian Workers at 10 Finchley Road - this confirmed that she had been born in about 1840 in Glasnevin, Dublin. She died in London on August 1st 1933 at 10 Finchley Road, North Marylebone, of congestion of the lungs and ovarian cancer. She was 93, and had been working at the Girls' Village Home as a superintendant at the time of her death.

Thomas Barnardo was a family friend and a member of the evangelical Protestant sect, the Plymouth Brethren, as were the Williams.  Thomas was the son of a German immigrant, John Michaelis Barnardo, who had moved his furriers business from Hamburg to Dublin at the beginning of the 19th century.  Thomas had been born in 1845;  the family lived at 82 Dame Street.  Thomas was converted to the Plymouth Brethren religion in 1862 by William Fry, a family friend of the Williams, and a founder member of their Merrion Hall headquarters.
Apparently Thomas Barnardo would seek out the company of Richard Williams, who was a pious man and an ardent reader of the Bible. Richard attended Merrion Hall, which from 1863 was the meeting hall of the Dublin Plymouth Brethren, and would preach the Bible there. It is said that he was invited to take part in the production of the Revised Version of the Bible in 1881 but he declined.

• Emily Williams was born to Richard and Mary Williams in Glasnevin in either 1836 or 1837 and remained unmarried all her life. She worked as a teacher and lived at 8 Charlemont Place, Dublin.  In 1901, the Irish census records her as the sole occupant of flat 735.1, Killeen Road, Rathmines; she was a 'visiting governess', aged 54 and, in common with other members of this family, was Plymouth Brethren. Emily spent 4 days in Mountjoy Jail for drunkenness in November 1909 at the age of 72 - she confirmed that she had been born in Glasnevin and that her next-of-kin was her sister Sophia Williams, a teacher of Londo.   In 1911 Emily was a retired teacher, living at 8.6 Charlemont Place.  Emily Williams died in Dublin on 8th October 1914 and was buried in the family plot in Mount Jerome, along with her younger half-brothers, Willis Creighton Williams and John Williams.

     'Family Burial Place of Willis Creighton Williams
    Jessie Muriel Williams (Junr)  died 20th May 1886
    Willis Creighton Williams (Junr)  died 26th September 1901
    Emily Williams     died 8th October 1914
    Kate Williams      died 17th February 1920
    Willis Creighton Williams  died 22nd October 1932
    John Williams     Killed in France   October 1918'

• Richard Williams II, the son of Richard and Mary Williams of Eden Quay, emigrated to Australia at some stage and little seems to be known about him.

On 15th June 1846, six months after the death of his first wife, Mary, Richard Williams married Geraldine O'Moore Creighton, the daughter of an English Presbyterian minister, David Hill Creighton. Her mother was Eliza Willis, the daughter of Thomas Willis who ran a school in the Huguenot settlement of Portarlington. Following the marriage of Richard and Geraldine, the names 'Willis' ,'Creighton' and 'O'Moore' would repeat through the generations as family names; names associated with Richard's first invisible wife would not recur which is disappointing.  (The names 'Geraldine' and 'O'Moore' are both very interesting and I wonder was there some connection to the O'Moore family who orginally came from Portarlington?)
http://alison-stewart.blogspot.ie/2011/09/revdavid-hill-creighton-1737-1855.html

In 1846, the year of Geraldine and Richard's marriage, her father, Rev. David Hill Creighton, was living in Dublin city at 30 Summer Street;  from 1847 to 1849 he was noted at 43 Summer Hill. The family had settled in Dublin in about 1829, although he had spent a few years south of the city, working in Bray, Co. Wicklow.

The above photograph was kindly sent on to me by Judy Geddes, the great-great granddaughter of Richard and Geraldine Williams - this is believed to be a photo of Geraldine O'Moore Creighton taken at the time of her marriage to Richard Williams in 1846.

(Geraldine O'Moore Creighton's cousin, Rev. Henry de Laval Willis, who was the son of her maternal uncle,  Thomas Gilbert Willis, had links to the Woolsey family of Castlebellingham, Louth, as did Richard Williams of Drumcondra Castle, co-founder of the Dublin Steam Packet Company.
Explanation:  Geraldine's first cousin, Rev.Henry de Laval Willis, was born in Limerick to Rev. Thomas Gilbert Willis - Thomas Gilbert Willis being the brother of Geraldine's mother, Eliza Willis - on 1st April 1814.
He married Mary Anne Woolsey of Castlebellingham, the daughter of Thomas Woolsey (1784 - 1834) of the Admiralty and Elizabeth Gibson. Thomas  Woolsey was the son of Rev. William Woolsey and Mary Anne Bellingham of Kilsaran parish, County Louth.

The children of Thomas Woolsey and Elizabeth Gibson were all born in London, where Thomas was working in the Admiralty, and baptised in the Old Church, St. Pancras -
William Woolsey, baptised 16th November 1814.
Mary Anne Woolsey, later wife of Henry de Laval Willis, born 4th August 1817.
Elizabeth Lucy Woolsey, born 26 August 1821.
Thomas Frederic Woolsey, born 2nd Dec 1823.
Sophia Woolsey, born 21st Feb.1828.

Henry de Laval Willis and Mary Anne Woolsey married in Kilsaran. Co. Louth, on October 16th 1841.

The children of Rev. Henry de Laval Willis and Mary Anne Woolsey were:
Frances Hester Bellingham Willis, born Limerick, 17th December 1842. She would later marry, in 1861,  John Walker of Bolling Hall, Yorkshire.
Elizabeth Lucy Willis, born 1844, named after her maternal aunt.
Henry Thomas Gilbert Willis, born St. Mary's, Lancaster, in 1849.
Francis William Willis, born in Bradford, York, England, on 23rd February 1851.

The daughter of Rev. Henry de Laval Willis and Mary Anne Woolsey, Elizabeth Lucy Willis (1844 - 1870), married another member of the Woolsey family, John Woolsey. John Woolsey lived at Castle Cosey in Castlebellingham:
 'In memory of William Woolsey of Milestone, died 11th May 1887, aged 68 years, and his brother, John Woolsey, of Castle Cosey, Castlebellingham, who died 23rd May 1887 aged 56 years. This tablet has been erected in loving remembrance by their employees.'
      
John and William Woolsey, named above, were both the sons of Captain John Woolsey, the son of William Woolsey and Mary Anne Bellingham. Captain John Woolsey was the brother of Thomas Woolsey of the Admiralty;  he was married to Janet Jameson, the sister of James Jameson of the Dublin distillery and of the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company.  
A variety of genealogical threads interweave at this point - Rev. William Woolsey's mother was Lucy Palmer;  his daughter, Frances Woolsey, married Richard Palmer of the same Kenmare family, whose sister, Anne Palmer, married Richard Williams of Drumcondra Castle, who co-founded the CDSPCo with his brother, Charles Wye Williams.  Many of these people invested in the CDSPCo.)

Richard and Geraldine O'Moore Creighton Williams had four surviving children together - David Creighton Williams, John Williams, Jessie Creighton Williams (named after her mother's sister, the schoolteacher Jessie Creighton) and our geat-grandfather Willis Creighton Williams.

The Dublin newspapers of the day show other children, however, born to Mr. Richard Williams at 17 Eden Quay;  given the inability of people at this time to know their correct age, the two surviving births which follow may well correspond to two of the surviving four children -

• The 'Freeman's Journal' of 29th March 1848 announced the birth, on 27th March 1848, of a daughter.   On March 3rd 1851, Richard and Geraldine lost two of their children to whooping cough - Eliza Willis Williams, aged 3 years, and Geraldine O'Moore Williams, aged 8 months. (Their address was given as Harolds Cross - in 1853 they were living, or visiting, Mountpleasant in neighbouring Rathmines.)
• The 'Dublin Evening Post' of 20th November 1851 reported that Mrs. Williams of Eden Quay had given birth to twin sons.  The 'Dublin Evening Mail' of 14th November 1851 confirmed that this was Mrs. Williams of 17 Eden Quay.   One of the twins must have been the Alexander Williams who follows.....
• The 'Dublin Evening Mail'of 2nd July 1852 announced the death of Alexander Williams, the youngest son of Mr. Richard Williams, aged 7 months and 18 days.
• The 'Dublin Evening Post'of 28th January 1853 announced the birth of a daughter, by the wife of Mr. Richard Williams of 17 Eden Quay, at Mountpleasant (Rathmines) on 23rd January 1853.  This was Jessie Creighton Williams.
• The 'Dublin Evening Mail' also announced the birth of a son on 29th October 1854, probably our great-grandfather Willis Creighton Williams.

From 1861,  Richard William's address was Privot House in Dundrum, and from 1873, 8 Sydenham Road, Dundrum.  In 1866, The Times published Geraldine's mother's death notice:
    'On the 15th inst., at Privot House, Dundrum, near Dublin, Mrs. Creighton, relict of the late Rev. D.H.Creighton, aged 84.'

Geraldine O'Moore Williams, wife of Richard Williams of 8 Sydenham Road, Dundrum, proved the will of a widow, Jane Phillips, a Welsh housekeeper of 2 Stanley Crescent, Anglesey, Wales, who died on 16th September 1875, but I'm unsure if the two women were in any way related.  Jane Phillips had been born in 1807 and was buried in Anglesey on 20th September 1875. Perhaps Jane Phillips had worked for the Williams family as a housekeeper?

The Surviving Children of Richard Williams and Geraldine O'Moore Creighton:

a ) David Creighton Williams was born to the Richard Williams and Geraldine O'Moore Creighton circa 1849.   Perhaps he was the twin brother of Alexander Williams who had been born in November 1851 and who died 8 months later.
David Creighton Williams was a transfer clerk - the 'Dublin Evening Express' of 14th February 1894 noted that David C. Williams of 15 Eden Quay was one of the executors of the 1893 will of Stephen Mills who lived at 13 Upper Mountpleasant Avenue, Ranelagh.  In 1880, the street directories show D.C. Williams living at 40 Lower Mountpleasant Avenue, Ranelagh.   Earlier in 1859, Stephen Mills had an address at 15 Eden Quay where he was mentioned as one of the shareholders of the Galway railway.   It is interesting to see that David Creighton Williams had a business address in 1894 at 15 Eden Quay, one of the buildings owned by the Dublin Steam Packet Company which David's father had worked for.
For two years David Creighton Williams was slowly dying and was visited daily by his younger brother, Willis Creighton Williams. He was moved during his last illness to 23 Carysfort Avenue in Blackrock where his younger sister, Jessie, ran a school, and he died there on 4th October 1895. The cause of death was hip disease and Bright's disease, and his brother, Willis Creighton Williams of 50 Park Avenue, Sandymount, was the informant.

He had married Irene Reynolds in Bangor, Wales, and, following their move back to Dublin, had seven children with her -

1) Irene Geraldine, born 21st July 1881 to David Creighton Williams and Irene Reynolds, at 8 Sydenham Rd., Dundrum, the home of her grandparents Richard Williams and Geraldine O'Moore Creighton.   She married the Tyrone-born bank clerk Thomas John Lytle in Dublin in 1902 prior to leaving for Canada.  The US archives show up Thomas John Lytle entering the USA.  He was travelling to New Jersey without Irene Geraldine but with their five children - John S. Lytle, Robert M. Lytle, Creighton Reynolds Lytle, Irene H. Lytle and Dorothy W. Lytle.  The record states that Thomas John Lytle had emigrated first in 1906 to Lake Manitoba, Canada, and had previously visited America in 1916, 1923 and 1924.   The son of Irene and Thomas John Lytle, Creighton Reynolds Lytle, who had been born in Winnipeg on 29th May 1909, died in Salmon Arm, British Columbia, on 25th July 1980.  An insurance adjuster, he had married, then divorced, Margaret Graham.

2) Jessie Ida/Jumbo, born 10th July 1884 in Bray, Co. Wicklow, to David Creighton Williams and Irene Reynolds.  On 19th April 1906 in Rathgar, Jessie Ida Williams, the daughter of David Creighton Williams and of Irene Reynolds, married the printer, David Percy Robinson.  At the time of the marriage, the bride was living at 19 Leinster Square, her mother's home, and the groom at 16 Greenmount Road in Terenure. The witnesses to the wedding were the bride's brother-in-law, Charles B.Reinhardt, and Ephraim McDowell Cosgrave who was an eminent Irish physician of the time.

David Percy Robinson was the only son of the Westmeath-born printer, William Woods Robinson, and his first wife, Frances Moore, who had married in Westmeath in 1881.

The Robinson family:
The Robinson family hailed from Co. Westmeath.  

It seems that David Percy Robinson's great-grandfather was Edmund Robinson of Bloomfield, Co. Westmeath, whose eldest daughter, Catherine Robinson, married the Dublin coal merchant George Alexander Seton of Upper Dorset Street in St. Thomas's on 7th April 1831. George Alexander Seton would die aged 61 at 15 Aughrim Street, on 22nd October 1864.

Edmund Robinson of Bloomfield also had David Percy's grandfather Anthony Robinson (1807 - 1892) and Edmund Robinson (1809 - 1878).   The younger Edmund Robinson (or possibly his father) was noted in 1829, when he registered his property as a freehold, ie, Bullockfield, Co. Westmeath.  He was also noted there in 1838.  This property was later known as Bloomfield, and was located in the townland of Coolvuck Upper, or Coolwickoughter, just outside of Athlone.  The younger Edmund Robinson never married, and died in Strand Street, Athlone, on 2nd August 1878 aged 69.

The 'Athlone Sentinel' of 13th October 1837 reported that Anthony Robinson of Bullockfield, Westmeath, had changed horses at Haire's Hotel, Athlone, and was accompanied by his new bride, Caroline Donohue of Ballymacward, Co. Galway, the happy couple having married a few days previously.

Anthony Robinson left Westmeath for Dublin, where he set up as a coal merchant with an address at 9 Prussia Street, Grangegorman.  His brother, Edmund, was occasionally noted at this address also.

The Children of Anthony Robinson and Caroline Donohue were:

1) Rev. Edmund Wilfred Robinson who married Elizabeth Frances Moore, the daughter of the late John Moore of Dublin, in St. Thomas's on 11th September 1867.   The eldest son of Anthony Robinson and Caroline Donohue,  he died aged 47 in St. Kilda, Melbourne, on 14th September 1889.  The papers noted him as the Colonial Secretary of the British and Foreign Bible Society.   He had settled in Tooradin, Victoria, and left 6 children at his death - Anthony Ernest Oswald Robinson, Elizabeth Moore Robinson, John Moore Robinson, Caroline Robinson, Margaret Robinson and Linda Robinson.    His widow, Elizabeth Frances Moore Robinson, died aged 79 in Toora, Victoria, in 1921.   Son John Moore Robinson became a journalist and was known to have enlisted in 1917 with the Australian forces.

2) Arthur Donoghue Robinson was born on 27th February 1857 at 9 Prussia Street. On 1st October 1875 in the Registrar's Office, Arthur Robinson of 9 Prussia Street, married Emma Kymer of Abbey Street, the daughter of house painter Samuel Kymer.  A son, Samuel Robinson, was born on 25th June 1877 at 128 Upper Abbey Street.  This couple went to live in Glasgow from where Arthur Robinson  sent a letter of sympathy when his brother-in-law George Thomas Monson died in 1897.

3) Catherine Seton Robinson of 9 Prussia Street married the merchant/printer George Thomas Monson, son of George Monson, in Grangegorman on 17th September 1873.  The witnesses were her father, Anthony Robinson, and William Monson.   George Thomas Monson's nephew, David Percy Robinson, was working for the stationers 'Monson, Robinson and Co' when he disappeared in 1923.
Catherine Seton Robinson and George Thomas Monson had a son, Edmund Arthur Monson on 24th June 1879.  Son George Monson was born on 14th April 1875 but died of tonsillitis aged 8 in 1883;  a daughter, Caroline Margaret Monson, also died young aged only 3 at the residence of her grandfather, Anthony Robinson of 9 Prussia Street, on 8th September 1883; she died of scarletina. William Herbert Monson was born 25th September 1877.    Another son was John Frederick Monson/Frederick John Monson who was born in Raheny on 1st October and who went on to marry Agnes Eileen Esther Wells, the daughter of James Wells of Boyle, Co. Roscommon, on 14th May 1908.
George Thomas Monson died of cancer at Avondale, Terenure Road, on 11th October 1897;  his funeral was reported and named his brothers-in-law as William Woods Robinson (David Percy's father), Thomas Woods Robinson and Richard O'Neill, and nephews as Thomas Parker, George O'Neill, Edmund O'Neill and Percy Robinson.

4) Thomas Woods Robinson was born in Westmeath to Anthony Robinson and Caroline Donoghue.  On 12th December 1894 he married Georgina Gill, the daughter of a gamekeeper William Gill. The witnesses were Thomas Aloysius Mulvey and Thomas O'Neill.  He converted to Catholicism to marry Georgina Gill.  In 1901 he was working as a bewery clerk and was living in Royal Canal Bank with his wife and three young children, Godfrey Knight Robinson, Edie Mary Robinson and the newborn William Thomas Robinson.

5) Caroline Robinson never married and was living with her widowed sister, Catherine Seton Monson, in 1901 at 16 Greenmount Road, Terenure.

6) Susan Francis Robinson of 9 Prussia Street married the widowed Castlepollard merchant, Richard O'Neill, in Grangegorman on 18th April 1876.  Richard O'Neill was the son of a farmer George O'Neill and the witnesses to the Grangegorman marriage were Caroline Robinson and a Charles Nugent Fox.

7) Mary Jane Robinson of 9 Prussia Street married the farmer, William Parker of Ballymacward, Galway, son of Matthew Parker, in Grangegorman on 4th June 1867.  The witnesses were Anthony Robinson, the bride's father, and John Robert Parker.

8) David Percy's father, William Woods Robinson, was born in Westmeath in about 1842.  On 22nd June 1881 in Killucan, Co. Westmeath, he married Frances Moore, the daughter of David Moore, a merchant of Killucan.   At the time of the wedding, William Woods Robinson was working as a printer in Talbot Street, presumably in the family business of 'Monson, Robinson and Co.' which had its headquarters at 10 Talbot Street.  The witnesses to the cermeony were Bessie Lynch and the groom's brother Thomas Woods Robinson.

David Percy Robinson was born at 36 Leinster Road, Rathmines, on 24th May 1882 to the printer William Woods Robinson and his wife Frances Moore.  However, on the 1901 census he was living with his uncle and aunt, Richard O'Neill and Susan Francis Robinson, in Benison Lodge, Faughal, Westmeath - the census return states that David Percy (aka Percy) had been born in Westmeath.

Frances Moore Robinson died at 74 Grosvenor Road, Rathmines, on 30th May 1893 aged 48.  William Woods Robinson married again.  On 2nd February 1898 in Rathmines, William Woods Robinson, son of Anthony Robinson, married the widowed Elizabeth Stuart Simpson McClean of 2 Hargrove Terrace, the daughter of Tyrone merchant Stuart Simpson.   F. P McClean and Marianne Simpson were the witnesses.
They were living at 96 Grosvenor Road, Rathmines, in 1901, along with Elizabeth's daughter, Mary Elizabeth McClean, but William Woods Robinson died shortly after this on 4th November 1903 aged 62.   

Jessie Ida Williams and David Percy Robinson, the son of William Woods Robinson and Frances Moore, would have two sons - William David Edwin Robinson was born at 'Dalmar', Terenure Park, on 8th February 1907 and Richard Frank Robinson was born at 19 Terenure Park on 19th May 1911.
William David Edwin Robinson married Gladys Shorter - they were living at 29 Clareville Road in Terenure from about 1939 up until 1970 when Gladys Robinson was listed in the electoral lists as living there.
William D. Robinson and Gladys Shorter had Hillary Robinson in 1938, Carole Robinson in 1943 and Robert Lewis Robinson in 1946.

David Percy Robinson worked for the printing firm of 'Monson, Robinson and Co'. of Talbot Street.  In 1923, at a time of great civil unrest in Ireland,  the family were living in Terenure Park when  David Percy Robinson was called for jury service.  On one occasion, according to his wife, he came home pale and frightened, his life having been threatened.  Robinson was told to leave the country within a fortnight, which he duly did in March 1923, heading to Liverpool.   He wrote to his wife from the Seacomber Hotel and returned home briefly to Dublin.  David Percy Robinson sent his wife a telegram from the Regent Palace Hotel in Piccadilly in 1923, but was never heard from again.  He was eventually declared dead in 1951, and probate of his will of 9th July 1918 was granted to his wife, Jessie Ida Robinson of Adrian Park, Harold's Cross. 

Jessie Ida Robinson, née Williams, died in Dublin on 6th April 1954 and is buried in Mount Jerome.

3) Louisa Vivian, born 7th June 1886, at 26 Claremont Rd., Sandymount, South Co. Dublin, to David Creighton Williams and Irene Reynolds.  On 16th July 1907 in Rathgar, she married Charles Bradshaw Reinhardt, the only son of John Reinhardt of The Cottage, Monkstown.   Of Irish origin, but English-born, Charles' father, John Reinhardt, ran a paving business in Dublin.

Charles Bradshaw Reinhardt's grandparents were captured by the 1861 English census when they were living in Bedminster.  A railway guard, Joseph Reinhardt had been born in about 1807 in Co.Wexford, while his wife, Elizabeth, had been born in London.  Their children were Hannah, Joseph, Elizabeth, Thomas, William, Alice, Paul, and Charles Bradshaw Reinhardt's father, John, who had been born in Plymouth, Devon, on 15th February 1853.
John Reinhardt, son of Joseph and Elizabeth Reinhardt, married Eva (Bradshaw?) and in 1881 were living in Tottenham, Middlesex, along with their three-year-old son Charles, who had been born in Bristol.
By 1901, John and Eva Reinhardt had moved to Blackrock, Co. Dublin.  Charles' sister was Gertrude Eva Reinhardt who had been born in Bristol in April 1885, and who would marry John Luce Powell, son of John Powell, on 11th February 1922 in Bristol.

Charles Bradshaw Reinhardt and Louisa Vivian Williams emigrated to Manitoba - a passenger list for the 'Minneapolis' showed the couple leaving for New York on 15th august 1908.  They would have three children in Manitoba - John in 1908, Edwin in 1910 and Eva Jessie on 20th March 1913 who would die on 6th June 1934.

Private Charles Bradshaw Reinhardt died on 28th January 1940 and is buried in Edmonton.

4) Edwin Reynolds Williams was born 18th March 1888 in Dublin to David Creighton Williams and Irene Reynolds.and died in Vancouver on 4th December 1942.  He married Belgium-born Henrietta, who died a widow at 930 Glenacres Drive, Vancouver, on 2nd January 1988;  her death cert. named her father as a German-born man named Lionheart.

5) Florence Evangeline, known as Tookie, was born at 26 Claremont Road on 12th June 1889 to David Creighton Williams and Irene Reynolds, and died on 3rd March 1965 at 1330 Bute St., Vancouver.   On 1st November 1910, by special licence at the residence of her mother, 4 Haslemore Block, Winnipeg. she married Henry Ernest Douet, the eldest son of Ernest Henry Douet, retired Civil Servant List, of Little Sidcup, Chippingstone, Kent, England.   The Dublin papers noted Tookie as the youngest daughter of David Creighton Williams, late of Leoville, Blackrock, granddaughter of Richard Williams late of 8 Sydenham Road, Dundrum, and granddaughter of Frank Reynolds, late of London and Scarborough.

The groom, Henry Ernest Douet,  had been born on 1st July 1880 in Croyden, Surrey, England, and   died at White Rock, 17th St., Vancouver, on 11th March 1958.  He was noted on his death cert as a retired cashier with The Royal Trust Company - the infomant on his death cert was his son, J.P.Douet of 24th Avenue, Langley.
Henry Ernest Douet had been born in Croyden in 1880 to the Jamaican-born Ernest Henry Douet and Sophia Caroline Paterson who had married in Woolwich in 1869.

6) Frank Creighton Williams was born to David Creighton Williams and Irene Reynolds at Airfield, Claremont Road, Donnybrook, on 19th September 1890. The 1916 Manitoba Census shows him living with his mother, Irene Williams, and brother Edwin Reynolds Williams in Winnipeg.

7) A son, Willis Creighton Williams, named after David Creighton William's brother, was born on 13th October 1879 at Sydenham Rd., Dundrum to David Creighton Williams and Irene Reynolds, but this child died the following year on 26th October 1880 at 40 Lower Mount Pleasant Avenue.  The death certificate stated that he was the son of a gentleman and that he had died, aged 12 months, from acute bronchitis.

Irene Williams, the wife of David Creighton Williams, was the daughter of the English painter, Frank Reynolds (1828 - 1895), and of Jane Bailey, who had married in St. Pancras, London, on 10th February 1852.  Frank's parents were the painter/engraver, Samuel William Reynolds and Emma Humby who had married in January 1824 in Westminster. Samuel William Reynolds (1794 - 1872) had himself been born in Westminster on 6th May 1794 to the earlier painter/engraver, also Samuel William Reynolds who not only collaborated with Sir Joshua Reynolds, but also claimed kinship with him.

Irene Reynolds' mother, Jane Bailey, had been born in Bedford in about 1830;  in 1841 she was living with her parents in Biggleswade - Charles Bailey had been born in 1776 and was a steward.  His wife Ann Bailey had been born in about 1779.

Frank and Jane Reynolds settled in Dublin, and were living at Enderley, Sweetmount, Dundrum, from about 1860. The Irish dog licence records record the fact that the Reynolds family kept greyhounds and terriers.
The 'Freeman's Journal' of 23rd August 1879 carried an advertisement for Messrs. Cranfield and Co. who were currently showing a painting, 'Punchestown Winners 1879' by A. Jones and Frank Reynolds.

Frank Reynolds and Jane Bailey had children in Dublin, although Irene Reynolds had been born in England in about 1857 before the family moved to Ireland. Samuel William Charles Reynolds, named for both of his grandfathers (Samuel William Reynolds and Charles Bailey) was born at Sweetmount, Dundrum, on 1st August 1858,  Madeline Lucy Reynolds was born 16th July 1861, Hugh Reynolds was born on 18th October 1864,  Annie Rose Reynolds was born at Enderly, Dundrum, on 25th April 1866, and Arthur George Reynolds, later a photographer, was born on 18th May 1863.   Daughter Madeline would marry, in 1896 in Scarborough, a nurseryman named George William Walshaw, and had a son, Frank Walshaw, in 1897.
Frank Reynolds and Jane Bailey Reynolds returned to live in England where the 1891 census revealed them living at 3 Oak Road, Scarborough, along with two of their, as yet, unmarried children, Madeline and Arthur George.

Following the death of her husband, David Creighton Williams, in 1895, Irene Williams, née Reynolds, moved in with her sister-in-law, Jessie Williams, at 23 Carysfort Avenue, along with her 6 surviving children. It was the Canadian descendants of this family who were told that the family originated in Wales, and it is telling that they chose to marry there.
Irene Williams emigrated to Winnipeg along with five of her children in 1908 - one of her daughters, Jessie Ida, aka Jumbo, remained in Dublin.


b) John Williams was born to Richard and Geraldine Williams circa 1852. Family lore has it that he trained as a doctor and practised first in England and later in the Blackrock area of south County Dublin where his sister, Jessie, also lived. He was reknowned for his kindness and is said to have given away his own clothes to his poorer patients. I have not found any evidence of his medical training - when John died of pulmonary consumption on 28th June 1880 at 8 Sydenham Road, Dubdrum, the death certificate gives his profession as 'esquire';  his brother, Willis Creighton Williams was the informant.

c)  Jessie Creighton Williams, was born to Richard and Geraldine Williams on 23rd January 1853 and ran a school at 'Leoville', 23 Carysfort Avenue.
Extract from The Irish Times, January 15th 1898:   'Leoville, Girls' Collegiate Boarding School, Carysfort Avenue, Blackrock, Co. Dublin.  Principal - Miss Jessie Creighton Williams, Certificate, Dublin University. During 1897 Miss Williams's pupils have been successful in the following examinations:- Royal University Matriculation;  Intermediate, Passes and Honours; London, College of Music.
University classes and those for Pianoforte, Violin, Mandoline, Singing and Painting may be joined separately.
Boys under 11 received.  Special attention paid to backward or delicate pupils.  School re-opens (D.V.) Monday, January 10.  For prospectus, List of Masters etc., apply to PRINCIPAL.'

 Like most of the Williams family, Jessie was a member of the Plymouth Brethren. Later she moved the school to Leinster Square, Rathmines, before emigrating to Canada along with her widowed sister-in-law, Irene, who had been married to her brother, David, and Irene's children,
In 1901, she was still resident at Carysfort Avenue, Blackrock, along with her widowed sister-in-law, Irene Williams, née Reynolds, and Irene's children - Irene Geraldine aged 19 (aka Igy), Jessie Ida aged 16, Louisa aged 14, Edwin aged 13, Florence Evangeline aged 11 (aka Tookie), and Frank aged 10.
By 1911, Jessie Creighton had moved to Leinster Square in Rathmines, but would soon follow her late brother's family over to Canada, where she died at East Kildonan, Winnipeg, Manitoba, on 4th February 1927.

I will do a separate post for her brother, our great-grandfather, Willis Creighton Williams, who seems to be the youngest son who had been born on 29th October 1854.
http://alison-stewart.blogspot.ie/2011/09/willis-creighton-williams-and-kate.html

Our great-great grandfather, Richard Williams, of 17 Eden Quay and 8 Sydenham Road, died of heart disease on 21st August 1885. The photo above must have been taken following the death of John Williams in 1880 and, obviously, before the death of Richard in 1885.

Richard's wife, our great-great grandmother,  Geraldine O'Moore Creighton Williams, died aged 77, of a tumour of the intestines and of peritonitis on 30th May 1888.  She died at 41 North Great Georges Street at a school owned by her three unmarried sisters, Jessie, Eliza and Louisa Adelaide Creighton.

Her will:  'Geraldine O'Moore Williams, 7 September 1888. Will of Geraldine O'Moore Williams, late of 41 North Great Georges Street, Widow died 30 May 1888 at the same place was proved at Principle Registry by Jessie Williams of Airfield, 26 Claremont-road, Sandymount, Dublin.'

Much of the above research into the Williams family was carried out by my second cousin, the late Jane Williams of Churchtown, and this has been plagiarised liberally by myself.

Other Stewarts of Moneyreagh, Co.Down

There are clusters of Stewarts around the Moneyreagh area who we may, or may not, be related to. The earliest mentions of a Stewart family in the area occur in the Montgomery manuscripts (1603 - 1706) which document the Protestant plantation of the area. A huge number of settlers had come over to north County Down from Ayrshire,Scotland, with Sir Hugh Montgomery during the first four years of his colonisation.

'In 1718, William Hannyngton Esq., who had been a captain in the army, on his return to his estate at Moneyrea, found that the Presbyterian interest had increased during his absence, consented to join his tenants and other neighbours in founding a congregation of Protestant Dissenters. In order to encourage the measure, he granted, on 18th of May 1719, to David Black, Archibald Stewart and John Orr, in favour of the congregation, one acre and a half of land, and half an acre of turf bog, forever at a nominal rent.'

Among the earliest settlers were the Stewart family of Clontinacally which is a townland immediately west of Moneyreagh.
The name which keeps recurring in the records for Clontinacally (and there are various wierd spellings of this townland) is Dr. Hugh Stewart who seems to have been deeply involved with the local church and school.
In 1822, government papers record that £73 was granted to H.Stewart of Moneyrea for the building of a school.
In 1825, Hugh Stewart Esq., was again in receipt of a grant to build a schoolhouse in the Moneyrea area.
In August 1832, Hugh Stewart of Moneyrea was granted an arms licence for 'one fowling piece and rifle' and 'one brace of pistols'.
On April 25th 1832, the Remonstrant Presbytery of Bangor (ie: Unitarian) held one of its annual meeting at Moneyrea.  Amongst other things, the minister of Moneyreagh Non-Subscribing Church, the Rev. Fletcher Blakely, proposed various resolutions in approval of the plan of national education.  Following the meeting, the congregation entertained the ministers at dinner in the school-house, Dr. Stewart R.N. presiding.

And in 1838:  ' The Rev. Joseph McFadden....on Thursday last, was entertained at Moneyrea, the place of his nativity, on which occasion 52 ladies and 96 gentlemen were present in the large schoolroom.  As soon as tea was over, the Rev. Fletcher Blakely took the chair, and a number of sentiments were proposed which were made the subject of some interesting speeches.  The principle speakers were Mr.McFadden,  Dr. Stewart R.N., Messrs. Alexander Orr McGowan, David Lindsay Blakely, William McGowan and William Cowan.'

Dr.Hugh Stewart R.N.:  'Died, on the 18th  January 1840, at Moss-Brook, Moneyrea, in the 57th year of his age, Hugh Stewart, Esquire, Surgeon, R.N. Having received a liberal education at the Belfast Academy and Glasgow University, he entered the Navy when very young, and was soon after appointed Surgeon. During his residence for several years past in his native neighbourhood,  he distinguished himself  by his successful treatment of various cases of Dropsy and Cancer.  As a general practitioner, he was deliberate, clear-minded and eminently successful.  In his dispositions he was truly benevolent and amiable.  A Unitarian from settled conviction,  he gave his countenance and support on all occasions to what he believed to be the truth of God.  His death is not only an irrecoverable loss to his family, but to a numerous circle of attached friends.'

Hugh Stewart's widow appears on the list of subscribers to Robert Huddlestone's book of poetry published in 1844.  She appears as 'Mrs. Doctor Stewart, Clontnacalley'.
A  Miss Jane Stewart of Clontinakelly, who was born about 1797, married William Kennedy about 1816.
In 1863, a Margaret Jane Stewart was farming eight acres in Clontonakilly in partnership with John Orr.

There were very strong links between the Stewarts and the Kennedys and these families seem to be associated with the Moneyrea townland of Ballymaglaff. Andrew Stewart, the son of Alexander Stewart, married Jane Kennedy, the daughter of Archibald Kennedy, in Moneyreagh Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church on 12th June 1847.  In 1863, Andrew Stewart was listed as farming in Ballymaglaff. Their son was Archibald Kennedy Stewart who was a hardware merchant and farmer and also a staunch member of the Moneyreagh Unitarian community. In 1905 he accompanied the Rev. Richard Lyttle - who had witnessed the will of John Stewart in 1893 - to the Unitarian Congress in Geneva.



A note on the name 'Hugh' as it appears in County Down at this time:  I've noticed that this name seems to appear over and over again in the Bangor area of the county. Just as 'Hugh' appears to be associated with Bangor, the name 'Andrew Stewart' seems to be associated with the Moneyrea area.
An Andrew Stewart of Moneyreagh had a son, Andrew, in 1785. His son, also Andrew, was born in Moneyreagh in 1836 and emigrated to America in 1852 where he married Sarah Emery of Zanesville, Ohio, in 1867. Their son, Charles David Stewart, of Hartford, Wisconsin,  later became the Executive Secretary to the Governor of Wisconsin (1915- 1916), and was the author of 'The Fugitive Blacksmith' in 1905.

The Stewarts of Gransha, Comber, Co. Down

We descend from Joseph Stewart, a farmer of Crossnacreevy in the parish of Comber, immediately south of Belfast in Co. Down.
http://alison-stewart.blogspot.ie/2013/04/the-descendantsfamily-of-joseph-and.html
There was, however, a second Joseph Stewart, who lived in the neighbouring townland of Gransha, Comber, and who was most likely related to our Joseph of Crossnacreevy. 

Was Joseph Stewart of Gransha a son of an earlier man, Francis Stewart of Gransha?

Francis Stewart of Gransha (1755 - 1838):

The 1789 Freeholders records for Gransha/Granshaw, viewable on the PRONI website, record two John Stewarts and one Francis Stewart farming in Gransha, Comber.

The census of 1821, abstracts of which are viewable at the Public Records Office in Belfast, record the family of farmer, Francis Stewart (1755 - 1838), in Gransha.  He was aged 66 and farming 22 acres. His wife was 62-year-old Martha, née Patterson, and the census recorded that the couple had three children living with them, John aged 25, daughter Margaret aged 21 and Martha aged 19.

In the Tithe Books of 1835 a Joseph Stewart was listed as farming a substantial 35 acres in Gransha, next to Francis Stewart, who was farming 7 acres.

Francis Stewart of Gransha made his will in 1838.

On 30th September 1816, Gawn Orr of Moneyreagh wrote back to his first cousin, John Patterson of 4th Street, Philadelphia, informing him, as requested, of the Patterson genealogy.  John Patterson (5th January 1769  - 20th August 1850) was the son of Joseph Patterson (1720 - 1774) and Mary Orr (1726 - 1804) of Ballykeel, Moneyreagh.  John's sister was Martha Patterson, who had been baptised by Joseph and Mary Patterson in Moneyreagh on 4th May 1758, and who married Francis Stewart (spelt by Gawn Orr in his letter as 'Stuart') in April 1784.    John Patterson had himself married Martha Stewart, possibly another member of this same Gransha family, before his emigration to Philadelphia.

Francis Stewart and Martha Patterson settled at Gransha where they had two sons and four daughters, one of whom - Elizabeth Stewart -  married William Fulton in Bangor in 1815. Gawn Orr also identified a daughter as Mary Stewart who married Robert McDowell of Ballyhanwood in December 1809.  He didn't name the remaining children of Francis Stewart and Martha Patterson, but the 1821 census named one of them as John Stewart.  The second son might be Joseph Stewart of Gransha who was named in several deeds involving Francis Stewart of Gransha.
A third daughter was Margaret Stewart who married, firstly, a member of the Patterson family in the 1830s, but who, by 1839, had married a second time to Robert Petticrew or Pettigrew of Gransha.

The fourth daughter, (or perhaps granddaughter,?) of Martha Patterson and Francis Stewart of Gransha might be Agnes Stuart (sic) of Gransha who married a Robert Corbett and who had Sarah Corbett in about 1850.   On 3rd July 1920, the elderly Sarah Corbett applied for the newly instigated old age pension, which required a search of the 1851 census as proof of her age.  This proved positive, but I've been unable to track down any further information about this Sarah Corbett.

As noted earlier, the  Francis Stewart of  Gransha, husband of Martha Patterson, made his will in 1838 and this was granted on 30th October 1838 to his daughter, Margaret Stewart, alias Patterson.  Margaret, who later married Robert Petticrew of Gransha, was shown on the 1863 Griffiths Valuation as leasing a house and 8 acres of land in Gransha.
There are deeds in the Registry of Deeds in Henrietta Street relating to Francis Stewart of Gransha or Granshaw, Comber.

Deed 1837-22-49 records that Francis Stewart, farmer of Gransha, and Margaret Stewart, spinster, made over land in Gransha to Joseph Stewart, farmer of Gransha, on 1st March 1830.  Deed 1837-22-163 records the sale of land in Gransha on 1st December 1837 by Joseph Stewart of Gransha to Rev. James McCulloch or McCullock.
A later deed was deed 1839-3-157 which was a deed of conveyance dated 29th January 1839, whereby Robert Petticrew of Gransha and his wife, Margaret Patterson, alias Stewart, were selling land to Rev. James McCulloch, including a parcell of land that had once belonged to Francis Stewart, deceased.  This land was to be held by Rev. James McCulloch and his heirs for the natural life of Elizabeth Fulton, otherwise Stewart.  This was witnessed by John McCulloch.

As noted by Gawn Orr in his 1816 letter to John Patterson of Philadelphia, another daughter of Francis Stewart and Martha Patterson of Gransha was Mary Stewart who married Robert McDowell of Ballyhanwood in December 1809.    Robert McDowell (1782 - 1877) was the son of an earlier Robert McDowell of Ballyhanwood who made a will in 1808.

The children of Mary Stewart and Robert McDowell were:

a) Ann McDowell who married John Goudy, son of Alexander Goudy, in Knockbreda on 7th February 1850.  They had a daughter, Frances Jane Goudy, who married James Shannon McCully.
b) Jane McDowell who married John Morrow, the son of John Morrow, in Knockbreda on 3rd May 1853.  Jane died a widow on 23rd November 1873.
c) Mary McDowell who married James Jamison.
d) John McDowell (1817 - 1910) who married Eleanor Morrow.  Children were Eleanor McDowell, born in Ballyhanwood, on 8th January 1866, and William Robert McDowell who married Mary McQuoid of Braniel.  Eleanor Morrow, the wife of John McDowell, was the daughter of William and Isabella Morrow of Ballybeen.  Isabella Morrow died at Ballymaglaff aged 92 on 27th January 1886, leaving a will in which she named her grandchildren as William Robert McDowell, Francis McDowell, Ellen McDowell and Isabell McDowell.   On 25th November 1890, James McDowell, son of John McDowell of Ballyhanwood, married Rebecca Busby of Braniel, the daughter of Hugh Busby and Eliza White.  The witnesses to the wedding were the groom's brother, William Robert McDowell and a Maggie Patterson.
e) Fanny McDowell.
f) Margaret McDowell.
g) Robert McDowell.
h) Stewart McDowell (1832 - 1889) who married Anna Busby, daughter of Hugh Busby of Lisnaharragh (who died aged 77 on 2nd April 1869) in Belfast on 20th June 1865.  Their children were Rebecca McDowell (1867 - 1950), Mary Jane (1871 - 1946) who married Richard Thomas Morrow, Sarah Kirker McDowell (1875 - 1956), Elizabeth Busby McDowell (1881 - 1969), William John McDowell (1869 - 1909) who married Jennie Boyd, Margaret Anne McDowell (1877 - 1971) who married Andrew Hugh Kennedy, and Hugh Busby McDowell (1893 - 1950).     Stewart McDowell's daughter, Mary Jane, married Richard Thomas Morrow, the son of Thomas Morrow of Ballyhanwood on 7th November 1917;  the wedding took place at the bride's home in Ballyhanwood and was witnessed by John Morrow and a Mary Stewart.  This Mary Stewart was living with the family of the elderly Thomas Morrow in Ballyhanwood who named her as a niece, born circa 1860.  Thomas Morrow died in Ballyhanwood aged 101 on 28th February 1916; son William Morrow was present.

In 1844, Joseph Stewart of Gransha - son of Francis Stewart and Martha Patterson? -  subscribed to 'A Collection of Poems and Songs on Rural Subjects' by local Moneyreagh poet, Robert Huddleston;  William A. Stewart of neighbouring Crossnacreevy also subscribed to this volume of work.  This William A. Stewart was the brother of our great-great grandfather, Joseph Stewart of Crossnacreevy and Dublin, both William A. and Joseph being the sons of Joseph Stewart Senior of Crossnacreevy.

By the time of Griffiths land Valuation, however, there is no mention of Joseph Stewart in Gransha so he was probably living with relations. He can't have gone too far - Joseph Stewart, farmer, died in Gransha/Granshaw on February 28th 1870; he was 80 years old, therefore had been born in about 1790.  Present at death was his son, William Stewart, who was living in the nearby town of Moneyreagh.  The cause of death was unknown; no medical attendant had been present. Joseph's wife was still alive in 1870 but her name is not mentioned on the death certificate. 
Joseph Stewart's wife was Janet or Jenny Abernethy, the daughter of Mary Reid of Ballygowan and John Abernethy of Ballycreely.   Jenny Abernethy's brother was Andrew Abernethy who married Elizabeth Wallace in 1830, and whose daughter, Mary, is discussed next....

Joseph's son, William Stewart, married Mary Abernethy in Granshaw Presbyterian Church on 25th October 1849.  Later their children declared themselves to be Unitarian on the 1901 and 1911 Census so, once again, the Stewarts confound me by not marrying in a Non-Subscribing/Unitarian Church as expected. Why this is so, is beyond me!
Mary was the daughter of Andrew Abernethy and Elizabeth Wallace, and was therefore the first cousin of her husband, William Stewart, son of Joseph Stewart and Jenny Abernethy.

The witnesses to the wedding of William Stewart and Mary Abernethy in 1849 were Moneyreagh locals, Hugh Nelson and Matthew Fisher.
Witness Hugh Nelson of Moneyrea was selected by the 'Society for the Promotion and Improvement of the Growth of Flax' to instruct other farmers in their area in flax farming, as was James Stewart of  Crossnacreevy, a possible son of Joseph Stewart Sr. of Crossnacreevy. ('Northern Whig', 20th July 1844.)
Matthew Fisher's son, Orr Fisher, married Sarah Abernethy, the daughter of John Abernethy, in Comber on 5th May 1853.  Matthew Fisher had witnessed the 1849 wedding of William Stewart and Mary Abernethy.

(Other Abernethy records from the Belfast newspapers....
 William Abernethy of Ballycrielly, ie, Ballycreely, married Mary Jameson on 3rd August 1833.
 James Abernethy of Moneyrea died aged 33 on 14th August 1837.  The wife of James Abernethy of Moneyrea died there on 27th June 1848.
 John Abernethy of Ballycreely married Mary Wilson on 29th December 1829.)

On Griffiths Valuation of 1863,  William Stewart was leasing a house only in the town of Moneyreagh from Hugh McCullough.

William Stewart and Mary Abernethy had several children, none of whom had married by the time of the 1911 Census:

• Andrew, born 1853.
• Francis Stewart, 1854 - 1875.
• William Joseph born 1864 or 1866 according to the Census. (At this time, people were not always sure of their true age.)
• David, born 1st May 1865 in Moneyrea; his grandmother, Elizabeth Abernethy, née Wallace, was present.
• Thomas, born 8th January 1868; his civil registration details names his father William Stewart as a land steward.
• Henry Hobson Stewart, born 5th July 1870 but he died in infancy
• Mary,  born 1869 according to the Census.

The Northern Ireland Family History society holds a collection of mourning cards, some of which concern the family of William Stewart and Mary Abernethy -   Francis Stewart (1854 - 1875), son of William Stewart, died on 5th October 1875 and was buried on 6th October in Moneyreagh.

William Stewart's wife, Mary, née Abernethy, died 11th November 1892 and was buried in Moneyreagh 2 days later.
William Stewart also wrote a mourning card for his mother-in-law, Elizabeth Abernethy of Moneyrea, who died aged 79 on 15th April 1888, and who was buried in Moneyrea two days later.  According to her civil registration of death, her grandson, Andrew John Stewart, was present when she died in Moneyreagh.
 I came across an article in the 'Northern Standard' of 9th February 1847 which reported that Elizabeth Abernethy of Moneyrea (and also our great-great-great grandfather, Joseph Stewart of neighbouring Crossnecreevy) had been fined for having illegal weights and measures in her shop.

Mary Stewart, née Abernethy, the daughter of Andrew Abernethy and Elizabeth Wallace, died aged 61 on 11th November 1892 in Moneyrea, the wife of quarry-owner William Stewart.
William Stewart, son of Joseph Stewart and Jenny Abernethy of Gransha, died a widowed landsteward, aged 74 in Moneyrea on 10th June 1897;  his son, William Joseph Stewart, was present and registered the death.

By 1901 the four unmarried children of William Stewart and Mary Abernethy were sharing a house in Moneyreagh.  William Joseph and Thomas were agricultural labourers and David was a grocer. Their brother, Andrew,was a flax-dresser working in Belfast.  The house was a four-room thatched cottage owned by James McCullough.  All four siblings were Unitarian.

Immediately next-door to them was Martha Stewart, a 78-yr-old retired grocer. (Is there a theme developing? Our great-great grandfather, Joseph Stewart of neighbouring Crossnacreevy, was listed as leasing a shop along with his land in 1863.)   Martha Stewart's house was tiled rather than thatched and was owned by James McCullough. She was also Unitarian.
Martha Stewart, grocer, and daughter of Joseph Stewart and Jenny Abernethy of Gransha, died of old age in Moneyreagh on 9th June 1906 - she had been born in 1821.  Her nephew, William Joseph Stewart of Moneyreagh, was present at her death.  A mourning card exists for her death - she was buried in Moneyreagh on 11th June, and the card had been written by her relative Andy Stewart, presumably her nephew Andrew, son of William Stewart and Mary Abernethy.

There were other Stewart relatives commemorated by mourning cards.  Isabella Stewart of Moneyreagh  died aged 58 on 30th November 1889 her relation, Mary Stewart, wrote the card for her. Isabella Stewart's death was registered by her nephew William Joseph Stewart.   He also registered the death of another of his aunts, Mary Stewart, a 72-year-old unmarried shopkeeper, who died in Moneyreagh on 11th November 1890.
Martha Stewart, the elderly woman who was living next-door to the Stewart siblings in Moneyreagh in 1901,  also wrote a  mourning card for her sister Mary Stewart of Moneyreagh who died on 11th November 1890.   A retired grocer, Martha Stewart died unmarried aged 85 in Moneyreagh on 9th June 1906 and her death was registered by her nephew William Stewart.

David T. Stewart, son of William Stewart and Mary Abernethy,  was the executor of the will of Samuel McCullough of Moneyreagh in 1899.  The will of David Stewart, Moneyreagh retired shopkeeper, who died 9th March 1940 in the District Hospital in Newtownards, was proved by James McClure and David Mitchell, farmers.  James McClure was a farmer of Merrylands, which is the name of the crossroads in Crossnacreevy where our great-great grandfather, Joseph Stewart, was farming earlier. A McClure was farming here next door to our Joseph Stewart in 1863, according to Griffiths Valuation.

The McCullough family of Moneyrea intermingle with both the Stewarts of Crossnacreevy and of neighbouring Gransha, but I haven't deciphered if they are related or merely neighbourly.  However, the results of an Ancestry DNA test have shown me to be related to a descendant of Matthew McCullough of Moneyreagh.
http://alison-stewart.blogspot.ie/2017/04/some-mccullough-families-of-moneyreagh.html
'Belfast Morning News', 9th September 1858 - on 4th September 1858 in Comber, by Rev. William D. Crommelin, Henry, son of Robert Abernethy of Ballycreely, to Rachel, youngest daughter of the late Matthew M'Cullough of Moneyrea.
Robert Abernethy joined Moneyreagh Masonic Lodge No. 556, on 30th March 1835.