I’ve long since lost touch with the reader who contacted me in April 2014 with a query about William Fitzgerald and his wife Ellen, who emigrated from Ireland to Hastings County, Ontario. This reader reported that William Fitzgerald (born about 1816) and his wife Ellen (born about 1813) emigrated from Ireland to Hastings County in 1843; that their son John Fitzgerald married Mary Ann Hickey in 1863; and that many of the family are buried at St. Ignatius Roman Catholic Cemetery in Maynooth, McClure Township, Hastings County.
In October 2022, I received an email from another reader who informed me that Ellen’s maiden name was Bourke, and that the couple had initially settled in Hungerford (Hastings County). This reader was anxious to connect with the above (2014) reader to share more information, but unfortunately, I could not help (beyond posting an update to this blog), as I no longer had the email address for the 2014 reader.
I’ve now received yet another interesting email from yet another reader, Alex M, with more intriguing information. Alex M. is the 3x great grandnephew of William Fitzgerald and Ellen (or Mary Ellen) Bourke. And he has in his possession a genuine family treasure: the original copy of a mid-19th-century geographical compendium (Favell Lee Mortimer’s Near Home, Or, The Countries of Europe Described: With Anecdotes and Numerous Illustrations), with an inscription to “W. Harvey Fitzgerald from his affectionate Mary Ellen,” dated “Dublin Sept. 25/54.” Photos posted here by permission of Alex M.
Alex M. notes that this book was
likely passed down from William Harvey [Fitzgerald] to his nephew Alfred Augustus, to his daughter Emma Lillian Fitzgerald (my great grandmother) to her only son George Fitzgerald Webb (my grandfather), to my mother, Judith Fitzgerald Webb. Most from the Guelph region.
As Alex M. points out, this book places the couple in Ireland in 1854 — which doesn’t exactly line up with an emigration date of 1843, as per the information of our original 2014 reader. The plot thickens …
