Down the rabbit hole - Lauren's adventures in genealogy

My previous posts  The Six Wives of Captain Kearney  and  The Six Wives of Captain Kearney Part Two: The Kindly Gael's Daughter  covered my exploration of the first two wives of Richard Adderley Kearney. This post turns to the woman at the centre of the bigamy courtroom drama, my own ancestor Mary Reeves Rainsford. It feels different to write about Mary because I am part of her story - however many generations removed. But as with Elizabeth and Jane, I didn’t begin with a clear picture of who Mary was. I knew her only as the woman whose marriage led to a bigamy conviction and whose child led to me. I found out about Mary Reeves Rainsford and the bigamy trial at the same time. A few years ago, I started to research my family history, and my uncle David sent me what he had. Central to his materials was, of course, the bigamy trial of Richard Adderley Kearney and the role played by his supposed second wife. In fact, the very first thing I read about with respect to my l...

In part one of this series,  The Six Wives of Captain Kearney  I introduced my 2x great grandfather Richard Adderley Kearney, a man known for brushes with the law and romantic encounters. I also introduced the first of his six wives, Elizabeth Gilpin. Having concluded her tale, it's time for our attention to turn to the second wife - Jane Maclean. Just a note, the spelling of Maclean hops around a bit in records and is also sometimes Mclean. I default to using Maclean because this was the first recorded spelling I found.  Meet Jane Maclean I didn't learn about Jane chronologically. I discovered my own 2x great grandmother Mary Reeves Rainsford and Elizabeth Gilpin far earlier. I almost missed Jane entirely. Most people do. Jane didn't feature in the bigamy case that led to Richard's arrest and imprisonment, so the splashy spotlight of the courtroom wasn't on her. For a long time, she was simply one entry on a marriage certificate - more evidence of Richard's per...

Introducing my 2× great-grandfather, Captain Richard Adderley Kearney, is no small task. He defies easy description. With a trail of wives scattered across Australia and England, and frequent appearances in newspapers and court records (notably for bigamy), he emerges from the historical record as a charming and persuasive rogue - unscrupulous and morally flexible. Formerly in the British Navy, later an Irish Merchant Marine, and then finally a coastal navigator in Australia, his letters to the editors of various Australian newspapers show that he had an extremely high opinion of himself and his naval skills.  But Richard is actually to be the subject of another post (or several). For this series, I want to focus on the six wives of Richard Adderley Kearney.  It is easy to lose sight of Richard's wives because the man himself takes up so much space in the available records that he overshadows them. But it was for exactly that reason that I wanted to dedicate time and energy to...