This was one of those exciting discoveries that keep us family historians hooked. It happened a few weeks ago now, before I had a website, but I thought it deserved a post. We knew the name Paget mainly because Beatty boys kept getting it as a middle name through a family tradition based on it being an ancestral connection with some social pretensions, and we vaguely understood it to be the maiden name of Marcella, the wife of Jas. Beatty who brought his family to Australia in the late nineteenth century. Both the index records and Marcella’s death certificate named her parents as James Paget and Hannah Dempsey which pushed the family tree back another generation. A Google search then found those names connected in this record of a Paget estate called Kinnard (or Kinard) Lodge near Enniscrone, County Sligo.
http://www.landedestates.ie/LandedEstates/jsp/estate-show.jsp?id=218
Archie Beatty’s descendants all knew that he had been born at Enniscrone shortly before his family left for Australia. A bit of collaboration discovered James and Marcella’s marriage certificate where the occupation of her father, James Paget is given as “Gentleman” whereas his father (also James Beatty) is a “Farmer”.
Another connection was made while scouting through digitised Argus pages in TROVE (surely the cleverest thing that the National Library of Australia has ever done!). Look what the Beattys call their house in Caroline St., South Yarra at the time of Charles Gordon’s birth.
From The Argus, Melbourne, Weds 25 Feb 1885
But the real breakthrough was discovering this announcement in TROVE:
Paget-Beggs marriage from the Argus Thurs 19 Nov 1885
What the heck is someone claiming to be a son of “James Paget of Kinard Lodge, Ireland” doing in Violet Town, Victoria? Our Pagets are all supposed to be in Ireland being gentry!! I spent an afternoon checking all the Paget births, marriages and deaths in the indexes forVictoria. A high proportion of them took place around Voilet Town and Baddaginnie. It became clear that two sons of James Paget had come from Ireland to Victoria, married two Beggs sisters and had many children, later losing most of their sons in the First World War. In fact at one stage, half of the Pagets in Victoria were certainly relations of ours.
The most interesting entry of all was for a “Hanorah” Paget who died at Baddaginnie aged 75 in 1897. Surely it couldn’t be Hannah herself? Another $30 for the death certificate and YES! She is our Hannah, wife of James Paget, born in Ireland having arrived in Victoria the same year as James and Marcella Beatty, with her children listed with ages given including Marcella, James, and Charles. Yay for informative Victorian death certificates. If she hadn’t come to Australia we’d have been lucky to find a death certificate for her at all, and even so it would have had far less information.
And yes, the name of her father, John Dempsey, pushes the family tree back another generation. It’s a shame that Charles Paget who was the informant didn’t know his grandmother’s name. Oh well, the hunt continues.
Added 9 May 2012: My most up-to-date information on the Pagets is now part of “The story” – see the link to it in the right hand column.
taggerty 
Happy hunting and publishing – how is the site maintained?
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Hi Peg,
The trickiest bit was getting the family tree linked in (on the side menu) as I wanted more than just a blog. The best family history websites involve ongoing cost, but you never know when some unknown relation with more information or photos might get interested and find the site, so it’s better to leave it on the web for the longer term. This isn’t perfect for my purpose, but is the best no cost solution I could find. This seems to be about the best blog system. You set it up and maintain it yourself. It can be as simple as you like, but is highly tailorable if you want to go further with layout and such. All I did was sign up and start playing. Everything you need is on your dashboard. TIP: I can save you from one mistake I made at first. Don’t think just because they have a silly name that widgets won’t be important!
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Hi there My name is Irene
I was born at Kinnard lodge in 1942 my mother was Lily Bourke who was one of of six sister and two brothers now all deceased
My grandfather was Oliver Bourke the youngest who was a ‘brother’? of Charles Henry Bourke Ballina ‘ Mary Robinson’s grandfather and Paget was her uncle who was an atttorney general in the UK seving in Palestine and Bermuda for which he was knigted and was afterwards on retairment he was the subject of a kidnapping by the IRA he later retired to |Canada where he died
My Grandfather’s sister married a Simpson who lived next door at Whitefield Lodge This family did not convert whilst mostly all the others
converted to Catholisim at the time for political reasons.
The remainder of Grandfather’s family emigreated to USA including his mother
Captain Paget Boukke served with the british forces and there is a Captain Pager buried in the Local Church Of Ireland Cemetery at Kilglass where they had a seat
The Bourke family are well documanted in the main Church of Ireland in Ballina where they had there own Tomb. My great Grandfather is buried there inside the church and there are many commemoratives plaques in that church following the family history through the ages
The Family seat was I beliveve in Killaila
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Nice to hear from you Irene. My Grandfather was born at Kinard Lodge too, in 1877. I can see your mother in my family tree. You and I are 5th cousins! Your message didn’t have your email behind it or I’d ask you many questions. Briefly, I think your grandfather (Oliver Bourke of Kinard Lodge) and Henry Charles Bourke of Ballina were cousins rather than brothers? Also I’d love to know if you heard anything at all about James Paget who built Kinard Lodge.
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to bushmaid
Good to get a reply so soon I will endeavour to look some things up
‘you could try the geology of Mary Robinson to get more factual facts as she was well documented by the geological society’s’
I am interested in how we are 5th cousins?
‘Of interest but you may already know’
September 19th edition
August 19 in St. Mark’s Church, Dublin, Captain James PAGET, only son of Thomas PAGET, Esq., of Knockglass, county Mayo, to Jane Caroline, eldest daughter of Major J. KNOX, of Greenwood Park, in the same county.
Inserted from <http://www.irishinnyc.freeservers.com/photo.html
I have a letter back in London written by Paget regarding the transfer of kinnard to his brother
I do not know the contents or dates exactly until look, He did not reside in Ireland.
Forgive me I am not so good at these networking websites!
It is also of some consideration to take into account: The state of Pre-Republician Ireland her Political Religious Social and Famine Times also as a way of retreving information and how certain informations was repressed.
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Thanks Irene, I’d be curious to see that letter. I’m guessing it must be between Capt. John Paget Bourke who lived in England? but owned Kinard Lodge after my Paget ancestors emigrated in 1877, and his younger brother James Paget Bourke (your great grandfather) who occupied it and handed it down to his son Oliver.
The way cousins work is: If you have a grandparent in common you are first cousins. If you have a great-grandparent in common you are second cousins and so forth. According to my calculations you and I are both great-great-great-great grand-daughters of the first Thomas Paget of Knockglass (approx 1716-1797), so 5th cousins. His grand-daughter Elizabeth Paget married John Bourke at Crossmolina in 1815. They were your great-great grandparents.
More by email!
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