52 Ancestors #13
My maternal second great-grandmother Elizabeth has presented me with the sort of problem genealogists claim to enjoy.
She married as Elizabeth Kennedy.
Her children’s records say she was born in Limerick.
Later records identify her as Elizabeth Bateman and name her parents as Henry Bateman and Maria, or Mary, Alphonso.
She died from strychnine poisoning, after which her husband was charged with her murder.
An eventful life, even before we begin discussing her name.
The adjacent photograph has been traditionally identified as Elizabeth and James Murphy, but not verified. It appears to date from the late 1860s or early 1870s. James was born about 1810, while Elizabeth may have been approximately fifteen years younger. The couple in the photograph seem younger than I would expect—but appearances in nineteenth-century portraits are unreliable. For now, they remain “possibly Elizabeth and James.”
Elizabeth’s life in the records
Elizabeth was born in Ireland, probably somewhere in County Limerick, but neither her birth date nor her parentage has been securely established.
Her age varies from record to record. The birth certificate of her son Charles points to a birth around 1821. Her death certificate suggests about 1819. In 1959, the rector of All Saints’, Nowra, tentatively transcribed her weathered gravestone as “Aged (70?) Years.” A photograph taken when the grave was rediscovered in 1991 suggests that the inscription more probably reads “50 years,” placing Elizabeth’s birth around 1824 or 1825. The evidence from the stone is examined below.
For the moment, the most sensible conclusion is that Elizabeth was probably born during the early 1820s. Both Charles’s birth certificate and her own death certificate say that she was born in Limerick, giving us at least one reasonably consistent starting point.
Marriage to James
The first Australian record that can be attached to her with confidence is her marriage.
On 21 April 1844, Elizabeth Kennedy married James Murphy in the Roman Catholic Church at Windsor, New South Wales. Both described themselves as being from Windsor. James and Elizabeth both signed the register, rather than making a mark. Their witnesses were John Rafter (although the surname is unclear) and Maria Ryan.
At this point she was not a Bateman, nor an Alphonso. She was Elizabeth Kennedy. This does not necessarily mean Kennedy was her birth name. Perhaps she was a widow? Unfortunately, it only means that Kennedy was the name she used when she married James Murphy.
Witnesses to the marriage
There was a John Rafter who arrived in New South Wales aboard the China in 1839. He was reportedly born at Ballingarry, County Tipperary, about 1813 and had been living at Windsor for approximately five years. He seems the strongest candidate if indeed he was the one who witnessed the marriage of James Murphy and Elizabeth.
His obituary, published in the Freeman’s Journal on 2 February 1859, remembered him as “one of the truest Irishmen that ever breathed in New South Wales.” More usefully for understanding his presence at the marriage, it described his active role in promoting Catholicism in the district and his generous support of the clergy with both “voice and purse.” He could have been a friend, sponsor or parish witness—or simply someone the priest trusted to stand beside a young immigrant couple.
Maria Ryan, the other witness, remains unidentified.
Other women of this name were already living in the colony in 1844. One Maria Ryan appears in the 1841 census, born in the colony and recorded as the child of A. Kelly needs further investigation.
A Mary Ryan who married John Kennedy in Sydney in 1823 initially looked attractive because she brought the surnames Ryan and Kennedy together. On closer inspection, she is a weaker candidate. As John Kennedy’s wife, you would expect she would call herself Mary Kennedy in 1844, whereas the witness signed “Maria Ryan.” She was also substantially older and does not appear to have a connection to Windsor.
The most intriguing candidate is the Mary Ryan who arrived aboard the Albatross in 1841 from County Limerick. Also on board was a 15 year old Eliza Kennedy from County Limerick. Mary would have been about thirty-two when Elizabeth married. Mary and Maria were often treated as equivalent names in Catholic records.
For now, the Albatross passenger seems the most interesting possibility.
Family in the Shoalhaven
Elizabeth and James went on to have six known children:
- Margaret, who married John Joseph Foley
- James, not married, no known children
- a son whose name has not been identified and died young
- John Bede Murphy, my great grandfather
- Elizabeth, who married Arthur Poole Davis
- Charles, who married Susan Kelly but had no children
By the time Margaret was born in 1846, the family was living in the Shoalhaven district at the historic settlement of Coolangatta, a short distance up river from the commercial hub of Terara. Numbaa lay south of the Shoalhaven River, immediately east of Terara, while Back Forest was across the river to the north. During Elizabeth’s years in the Shoalhaven, repeated flooding transformed the district. Major floods in 1860 and 1870 damaged Terara, and many residents and businesses eventually relocated from the floodplain to the higher ground at Nowra.
Elizabeth appears to have spent the remainder of her life in the Shoalhaven, away from Windsor and far from the Ireland she had left behind. These records show her not simply as the mysterious woman with three surnames, but as a wife and mother raising a family in colonial New South Wales.
Elizabeth’s final days
Elizabeth’s life ended at Back Forest in the Shoalhaven district in March 1875. The cause of death recorded as strychnine poisoning. Her husband James Murphy was charged in connection with her death but later acquitted.
It is the most dramatic episode in the surviving story of Elizabeth’s life—and deserves a careful account of its own, based on the inquest, court proceedings and contemporary newspaper reports. The coroner’s proceedings raised sufficient suspicion for James to be prosecuted, but an inquest verdict was not a criminal conviction. Two trial juries subsequently acquitted him after the Crown failed to prove murder beyond reasonable doubt. See the full report here.
For the purposes of identifying Elizabeth, her death certificate is particularly significant. It gives her the middle name Jane, calls her Bateman and names her parents as Henry Bateman and Mary Alphonso. It is worth noting that “Jane” does not appear in earlier records. Before 1875, she was usually just referred to as Elizabeth. The middle name may have been hers, but the death certificate is currently the earliest known record of it.
Elizabeth was buried at Numbaa Cemetery near the Shoalhaven River. Her son-in-law Arthur Davis witnessed the burial.
Finding the grave
The subject of Elizabeth’s headstone had been of interest in the family as long ago as 1959 when my Uncle Laurie started researching the family in the late 1950’s. At that time, the rector’s reading of Elizabeth’s age was explicitly uncertain: “Aged (70?) Years.”
When my Aunty Margaret and her husband Lionel Gilbert visited Numbaa Cemetery in 1991, finding Elizabeth was no simple matter. They arrived in gumboots, having been warned about snakes and found the cemetery choked with lantana and flood debris. Elizabeth’s grave was nowhere to be seen and the plan displayed on one of the cemetery plaques proved inaccurate. After searching unsuccessfully, Lionel began probing the ground with an iron bar. They tried another position and, at last, the bar struck stone—first the buried plinth and then the headstone itself. “It was such a thrill!” Margaret wrote. “I was nearly in tears.” They said a prayer for Elizabeth, took photographs and paced the distance from the surrounding monuments so that a more accurate map could be drawn. It had taken two hours on a hot day, but Margaret declared it “well worth it.”
The photograph Margaret enclosed allowed the inscription to be examined again. Although it remains faint, the first digit appears more like a five than a seven—suggesting that Elizabeth died aged fifty, not seventy.
Although weathered, the stone appeared to read:
Erected by James Murphy
In memory of his wife
ELIZABETH MURPHY
who departed this life
March 29th 1875
Aged 50 years
May her soul rest in peace, Amen
If Elizabeth was fifty when she died on 29 March 1875, she was born between 30 March 1824 and 29 March 1825. This is younger than the ages implied by her death certificate and the birth certificate of her son Charles, but remarkably close to the estimated birth year of the fifteen-year-old Eliza Kennedy who arrived aboard the Albatross in November 1841.
It does not prove that the two women were the same person. Gravestones can contain erroneous information and we may not be reading the inscription correctly.
A possible journey aboard the Albatross
Elizabeth’s death certificate says that she had lived in New South Wales for about thirty-five years. If approximately correct, that places her arrival around 1840. This brings us to a particularly tempting immigration record.
On 30 November 1841, the Albatross arrived in Sydney after leaving Dublin on 23 July. Among its assisted immigrants was an Eliza Kennedy, aged fifteen. She was Roman Catholic, could read and had been employed as a child’s maid.
Her native place was recorded as something resembling “Kilanoy” in County Limerick.
Also aboard the ship were Margaret Kennedy, aged twenty one, a kitchenmaid and William Kennedy, aged nineteen, a mason. The records appear to present the three as siblings. Their father was Michael Kennedy, a plasterer and widower, and their mother Mary was deceased. Margaret’s record suggested she was from Kildowy, Limerick.
Eliza and Margaret travelled under the protection of Robert Fitzgerald and his wife. Michael appears to have remained in Ireland.
I had initially thought the Fitzgeralds had sponsored the family and would be providing work in the colony – Robert Fitzgerald was a well known pastoralist and politician in Windsor. However, it turns out this Robert and Margaret Fitzgerald arrived on the same ship as the Kennedy’s. He was a shoemaker who firstly lived in Market Street, Sydney but later moved to the Braidwood–Araluen district. His wife was Margaret Dundon and his mother was Bridget Flannigan. Whether any of these people were relatives of the Kennedy children remains unknown.
There does not appear to be a place called Kilanoy, or Killdowy in Limerick. Other suggestions have included Killcullen, Killeedy – names that might have been misunderstood somewhere between an Irish speaker, a clerk and a nineteenth-century passenger list. Robert Fitzgerald and his wife Margaret came from Kildimo, County Limerick, which may be the mysterious place name referred to in Eliza’s entry.
The immigrant Eliza Kennedy is a good candidate for my Elizabeth:
- she had the right name;
- she came from Limerick;
- she arrived at approximately the right time;
- she was close to the expected age;
- and she was Roman Catholic, as was the woman who married James Murphy.
It is a neat fit.
However the passenger list says that Eliza’s father was Michael Kennedy. Later Australian records name my Elizabeth’s father as Henry Bateman. The Albatross passenger may be my Elizabeth—but the evidence does not yet prove it.
The name Bateman appears
For more than twenty years after Elizabeth’s marriage, the records are silent about the name Bateman.
That changed in 1867 when Elizabeth and James’s son James died. His death registration named his mother’s maiden surname as Bateman. The informant was his father, James Murphy. This is important because it predates Elizabeth’s own death certificate and appears to show that Bateman was not simply an error introduced after her death.
Eight years later, Elizabeth’s death certificate named her parents as Henry Bateman and Mary Alphonso. Morton Richards of Cambewarra, a solicitor acting as coroner and Elizabeth’s son Charles were associated with the information recorded on the certificate.
| Year | Record | How Elizabeth was identified | Informant or source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1844 | Marriage to James Murphy | Elizabeth Kennedy | Original marriage register |
| 1851 | Baptism of son John | Elizabeth Kennedy | Baptismal register |
| 1867 | Death of son James | Elizabeth Bateman | Husband, James Murphy |
| 1875 | Elizabeth’s death | Parents named as Henry Bateman and Maria Alphonso | Morton Richards of Cambewarra, identified as a solicitor, and Elizabeth’s son Charles |
| 1891 | Death of husband James | Elizabeth Jane Bateman | Son, Charles Murphy |
Other records either leave Elizabeth’s maiden name blank or identify her only by her married name, Elizabeth Murphy.
Family tradition adds another layer. Elizabeth’s mother was said to have been a Spanish woman—a Castilian of noble blood, with grey eyes—who may have worked as a lady’s maid. Her father was remembered as an English sea captain and an “Hon.” who had supposedly “whisked Maria off the estate.”
The surname Alphonso may have preserved a genuine connection, inspired the Spanish tradition or acquired details as the story passed through successive generations. At present, no contemporary record confirms the noblewoman, the sea captain or the whisking.
Why did Elizabeth marry as Kennedy if she had been born Bateman? At present, we do not know.
Was there a Mr Kennedy?
One explanation is that Elizabeth had married a Kennedy before she married James Murphy. That possibility has found its way into family trees, where an “Unknown Kennedy” sometimes appears as her first husband, however there is no evidence of this marriage. The original 1844 church marriage entry, does not contain any statements about the marital status of either Elizabeth or James.
If Elizabeth was the fifteen-year-old who arrived in November 1841, she had less than two and a half years in which to marry a Kennedy, lose or leave him, move to Windsor and marry James Murphy. Possible, but not evidence.
Was she raised by the Kennedys?
Another family theory is that Elizabeth was born a Bateman but was taken in by the Kennedy family. This would explain why she travelled and married under the name Kennedy while later records preserved Bateman as her birth name. It might also explain why the Albatross record apparently places her among Michael Kennedy’s children. There are many ways such an arrangement might have arisen: fosterage, guardianship, informal adoption, the death of a parent, remarriage, or simply a child being absorbed into another branch of a family.
Formal adoption did not operate in nineteenth century as it does today and relationships were not always described accurately. A girl could be raised as a daughter or sister without leaving behind a paper trail explaining the arrangement. There is no direct evidence yet that this happened to Elizabeth.
An intriguing newspaper notice reports the death of a Mrs Mary Kennedy at Broad Street, Limerick, in August 1840 a lady who “devoted herself to religious works and all attendant virtues”. Could she have been Michael’s wife, caring for Elizabeth? Could her death have prompted the Kennedy siblings, or the Fitzgeralds, to bring the girl to Australia? At this stage, the newspaper notice belongs in the interesting but unproven pile.
Religion
Elizabeth married in a Roman Catholic church but was buried in a Church of England cemetery. It is tempting to use this as evidence that she had really been born into an English Protestant Bateman family and only appeared Catholic while living with the Kennedys. That would fit rather nicely.
However, burial in a Church of England cemetery does not prove that Elizabeth was raised as an Anglican. The choice might have depended on geography, available burial grounds, family wishes, cost or local practice. Religious identity could also change during a lifetime. Her burial place at Numbaa is part of her story, but it cannot carry the weight of proving her parentage.
So, who was Elizabeth?
Here is what the evidence currently suggests:
- The woman who married James Murphy at Windsor in 1844 was called Elizabeth Kennedy.
- She was born in County Limerick, probably in the early 1820s.
- Her death certificate suggests that she arrived in New South Wales around 1840.
- She raised six known children with James and spent her later years in the Shoalhaven district.
- By 1867, her birth surname was being recorded as Bateman.
- When she died in 1875, her parents were named as Henry Bateman and Mary Alphonso.
- She may have been the fifteen-year-old Eliza Kennedy who arrived aboard the Albatross in 1841 with Margaret and William Kennedy.
- She may have been born Bateman and raised within the Kennedy family.
- She may have married a Kennedy before marrying James Murphy.
- Or, two women with similar names, origins and ages may have been combined into one story.
At the moment, Bateman is supported by records created by Elizabeth’s immediate family. Kennedy is supported by her own marriage record. Alphonso appears in the information supplied at her death. None of these names can simply be discarded.
So for now, we can only identify her as Elizabeth Bateman – also known as Elizabeth Kennedy, the wife of James Murphy.
Where to next?
Clearly, more research is required. Areas to explore might include:
- baptismal records for a Bateman or Alphonso family in County Limerick;
- records connecting Henry Bateman or Maria/Mary Alphonso with the Kennedy family;
- further information about Michael, Margaret and William Kennedy;
- records associated with Robert Fitzgerald and Margaret Dundon;
- a contemporary document in which Elizabeth herself used the name Bateman;
- DNA matches that can be assigned specifically to Elizabeth rather than jointly to Elizabeth and James Murphy.
To date, DNA matches only confirm connections with descendants of Elizabeth and James, we cannot identify which shared segments came from which member of the couple. Matches pointing towards Kennedy families in Limerick and Tipperary are intriguing, but the documentary trail still needs to be firmed up.
For now, Elizabeth remains Bateman, Kennedy and Murphy: an Irish immigrant, a colonial wife and mother, and a woman whose own story deserves to be remembered while we continue our search for her origins.
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Do you know more about the families mentioned in this post? If you are connected to any of them (particularly if you have DNA tested or are interested in doing so) I would love to hear from you. It’s the power of DNA that can help us break through our brick walls!
I would be especially interested in hearing from anyone descended from Elizabeth through an unbroken female line. Such a descendant may carry Elizabeth’s mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which could add another piece to the puzzle.
As always, please do not hesitate to contact me by sending a message via the sidebar of this blog or through Ancestry, Wikitree or Facebook.
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Featured Image: King John’s Castle, River Shannon, County Limerick. Courtesy of WIkicommons
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