Digging deeper

After my last post I heard from John DeCourcy who gave me some updates on the information I'd supplied and added some further details - plus an interesting picture.

Firstly he added some clarity to the story of Francis Hannagan. We've mentioned this before, some time ago. He writes:

Are you aware of this particular skeleton in the family cupboard.? How Francis had a wife in Dunedin (Catherine Comer) then went off to the Victorian goldfields, claimed Mary Ann Cairns/Kearns as his wife there, had 4 children with her, came back to Dunedin, had Charles with Catherine, Catherine then dies a few months later (no cause of death on the death certificate), and he then officially marries Mary Ann Cairns in Dunedin? No wonder our very proper grandparents thought there was no point at all in pursuing Hannagan genealogy! I have much of the official documentation around this, which I un-earthed by a chance encounter with a Marnie Hannagan in Melbourne who is a descendant of Mary Ann.

Well, that certainly adds a bit of colour to the family tree!

He also pointed out that the copy of John and Bridget's family picture that I posted is actually a reverse version of the original:

The other day I wrote that there were two girls in the photo. There aren't. One of the girls is actually John Hannagan....it wasn't uncommon to dress boys in what we would now regard as a girlish fashion, especially on formal occasions like having a photo taken. John DeCourcy thinks he would have been 3-4 years old at this point.

And now to the 'interesting' picture.


John writes about this photo: The Hannagan photo I am really interested in is attached. The version I have looks like a copy of a copy of a copy, and is a generation earlier than the one you have. I would dearly love to know where the original of this set of photos is, and would be happy to pay to have a good-quality reproduction done. Brian Hannagan?? [He's wondering if Brian Hannagan, my mother's cousin, has a copy. I haven't checked yet.]

It shows Family of Francis Hannagan, b 1825, at top. Clockwise from him, deduced by age: John H b 1844; Brigid H, b 1842; wife Catherine Connor, b 1824; Francis jnr, b 1845; Margaret, b 1848; at centre Charles, b 1867.

If you click on the photo, you'll get a larger version, which may be easier to see. If anyone knows any more about this photo, send me an email.

Hannagan family

A photo of some of the Hannagan family as adults...Charles, Catherine, Albert Powell (probably a fiance of Anne), Rose, Frank, Tess. Front row: Mary, Bridget (their mother), Anne and Dan.


My mother has written that it's Dan on the very right of the picture, though he looks a little older than some of the others. According to my family tree he was only 44 when he died. I don't know a lot about him at all. Presumably he was married, but the family tree doesn't have any record of this at this point.

This other photo of Charles is in a heavy frame and the photo is very faded. However, I'm including it for posterity's sake....

Frank Hannagan

This following three links are to pdfs on Scrib.com relating to the Debt of Honour Register in which the details of where Frank Hannagan is buried in the Tyne Cot Memorial Cemetery in Belgium.

Page 1.

Page 2.

Page 3.

Hannagan family photos

While sorting out something or other recently we came across a photo album in which someone had put some very old family photos. I've been trying to scan them onto the computer this afternoon, but the programme my printer insists on using is not easy to use, and it's taken me a lot longer than I anticipated.

However, here are the first batch:


This is Tess and Frank Hannagan (two of my grandfather's siblings) - Frank was killed at Passchendale. The top of the photo has been torn badly.

This next photo includes some of John and Bridget Hannagan's family:


According to some notes my mother has made on the back, the boys are Frank, Dan and Charles (he's the baby). The girls are Catherine (Kit) and Rose - she thinks.

This next photo came from a newspaper cutting dated 1993 - the For Sale sign on the right has been partly cut off in this scan.


This is the first house Charles and Flora Hannagan owned and lived in. It's still standing, and has been restored to a degree in the last few years. The next photo is 7 Stanley St, which many readers of this blog will remember. It's no longer standing, and was replaced almost 25 years ago by a bland house and an even blander garden.


The last two photos are of Nan (Flora) and Pop - she leaning out the window at the Elgin Rd house (I'm guessing) and he at a picnic.

Two weddings

Rebecca Hannagan, now Dixon, has just let me know that she and Anthony celebrated their marriage on the 2nd January this year.

And Peter Kellet (one of Jane Hannagan's sons) also got married, but that's all I know at this point. Further info to come!

A couple of catch-ups

Max Allen was born on December 21 in Paraparaumu to Marie and Roy Allen, Margaret and Frank Irvine's second daughter, and her husband.

Margaret reports that: Max weighed 8lb 3ozs and is a great sleeper and eater.

Celia and I won a mystery trip that turned out to be to Wellington, and we went there a couple of weekends ago. While we were there we took the train out to Paraparaumu and caught up with my aunt. (I got a free ride, now being the owner of a Gold Card.)

We almost didn't see she as she'd gone out shopping with Frank, one of her son-in-laws (the husband of Margaret). However, just as we were leaving, thinking we'd missed her completely, she came round the corner in the car with Frank, and we went back to the house and spent some time with her, including looking at some old photos of the family. Some were familiar to me from another photo album of the period, but others were totally new.

Mini-reunion, and Frank Crowl

There hasn't been much happening on this blog recently, nevertheless I haven't forgotten about it!

We had a mini-family reunion in Mosgiel for Paul Stokes' 60th birthday some months after the actual event: it was to have been in September (which was still late) but the Christchurch earthquake interrupted Mary Fraher's preparations, as well as the fact that she got swine flu in that month. It finally took place in November, with a smaller number of people than originally intended. It was still a good catch-up, and invariably on these occasions bits and pieces of family history and small events from our various lives are shared.

On another tack, I received an email the other day from the Canadian, Alan McGowan, a chess player and chess historian who writes for a magazine called Chess Scotland. Alan and I had had some conversation on an earlier occasion about my father and chess, but this time he was alerting me to an online article that Edward Winter, a chess historian, had uploaded. It included the myth that Frank Crowl had been born in Melborne and brought up in Shanghai - where he learnt chess. There was a statement towards the end saying that he hadn't been born in Melborne, but Surrey, England.

I wrote to Edward and told him about the fact that my father had grown up in London, attested to by his brother, Reg. Edward came back wondering if I knew my father's birth date, (he knew the year, 1902) as it wasn't mentioned in any of the information he had. I discovered it wasn't on the family tree, which surprised me, and I thought I didn't have it.

This morning I woke up and thought: I've got my parents' marriage certificate; the birthdate will be on there. Nope, it wasn't, only the fact that my father was 40 when he married, in 1942. Searched through the various papers in the old tin box that such stuff has been kept in for as long as I can remember, and found...my father's birth certificate. Born on the 24th August, 1902, in the registration district of St Pancras, with the sub-district of Kentish Town. I have no idea why I haven't put this information on the family tree before....just one of those things!

Furthermore, on the birth certificate, it says that his name is Frank, rather than Francis, which I'd assumed.