Finding more out about MJK

[MrBarnett]

Hi Sally,

You beat me to it. All there is to add is that MK's place of birth was shown as Whitechapel, and ED's as ' on a voyage from Canada'

MrB

[Natasha]

Name mix up

Hi everyone

It occurred to me whilst reading a press report on here (the Irish papers) that maybe there may have been a mix up with Mary Kellys name. Also credit to Mr B, for mentioning this before regarding an Emma Davis. What if her maiden name was actually Davies and her married name Kelly (she might not have actually married but still used the last name Kelly).
I decided to use what little information we know about Kelly, and found the following information interesting.

Since she said she 'married and lost her husband in an explosion' I started researching mine explosions and find www.scottishmining.co.uk so I checked the fatalities list and found this entry:

Name: James Kelly
Age: N/A
Occupation: Collier
Name of colliery: Kinneil
Where Situated: Bo'ness, Linlithgow
Date Of Death:9 July 1883
Category:Explosion of fire damp
Cause: He went into a heading by mistake while the fireman was away for materials to take out the gas

[MrBarnett]

Hi Natasha,

A very interesting find. Of course, Linlithgow is in Scotland, which complicates things somewhat. And Mary is said to have been born in Ireland with an Irish name, and then moved to Wales where she married a man with a Welsh name, so a reversal of the names is somewhat counterintuitive. Not that Kelly is uniquely Irish or Davis uniquely Welsh, though, so who knows?

MrB

[Garry Wroe]

Interesting, Natasha. Again, though, it counts for nothing if Kelly lied about the Davi(e)s (or Kelly) marriage in much the same was as she misrepresented her relationship with Joe Barnett (see McCarthy), or indeed if she invented the mining explosion in a similar manner to that which prompted Liz Stride to fabricate her involvement in the Bywell Castle disaster. My own feeling is that little or nothing she related to Barnett and others can be taken on trust, hence the conclusion that she will never be identified.

[Fleetwood Mac]

Hi Mr B,

Name: Mary Kelly

Religion: C of E

Kelly C of E?!

Surely anyone with the name Kelly would have been catholic, and most people born in South Wales would have been Methodist.

[Sam Flynn]

Surely anyone with the name Kelly would have been catholic, and most people born in South Wales would have been Methodist.

Apart from the first/second-generation Irish immigrants, of which there was a sizeable contingent in South Wales at the time.

[Sally]

Kelly C of E?!

Surely anyone with the name Kelly would have been catholic, and most people born in South Wales would have been Methodist.

R.C. would be what I'd usually expect to find - I was slightly surprised to see that this Mary Kelly is listed in the infirmary register as C of E - but that's what is written, nonetheless.

As Mr. Barnett has posted above, this one is also listed as having been born in Whitechapel - a local girl.

[MrBarnett]

Hi,

Could be an error, they are quite common on census returns of the period.
Could be that these particular Kellys had been living in England for generations and, possibly through marriage, had switched to C of E.
Or maybe C of E was used as a default for someone who had no religious affiliation.

MrB

[miss marple]

I did a lot of research on that Mary Kelly, prostitute years ago. which i posted. Born in Whitechapel. The wheel is constantly being reinvented because new postees don't read old posts. Its page 5 on the Kelly victims thread.

If you look at the post' Could MKJ have been a local girl' You will see the genealogy for mk prostitute, plus I ordered Whitechapel death cert for Mary Kelly 1891, see post.

Look up the post please!

Miss Marple

[Sally]

Thanks Miss Marple.

Here's a link to the thread for those who haven't read it -

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=6546

This Mary Kelly had a settlement of a week when she was admitted to the infirmary in 1881 - maybe she'd moved around a bit. I don't see her again in the following months, so perhaps she moved on again.

If she was of Irish descent, her accent could've been either or. I've witnessed gypsy children born in London who grow up with an Irish accent - I think the development of accent is complex and unpredictable when there is more than one influence at hand, so this Mary Kelly may or may not have sounded Irish.

All academic, perhaps, since for all we know 'our' Kelly may have sounded Welsh!

[Natasha]

Was looking at the history of workhouse s and came across the following, which might be of some interest:

This Davies is around the same age of MJK at the time of 1881

Cardigan Union Workhouse, Abbey, St Dogmells, Pembroke, Wales 1881
Cardigan, Cardiganshire

Inmate
Name; Mary Anne Davies
Age: 18
Occupation: Domestic Servant
Born: Pembroke

Cardiff, Glamorgan Residents of Cardiff Union Workhouse, Cardiff St John, Glamorgan, Wales 1881
An infirmary with 164 beds was added at the west of this workhouse in 1872.
MJK said she spent time in an infirmary, and again this Davies is roughly the same age

Inmate
Name: Mary Ann Davies
Age: 19
Occupation: Domestic Servant
Born:Cardiff, Glamorgan

Now I found this a bit annoying, couldn’t find any 1881 census inmate lists records for Newcastle-in-Emlyn (Newcastle Emlyn), Carmarthenshire workhouses. It has some significance as it has been suggested that MJK came from the area of Carmarthenshire and most records for this area have been destroyed.

[Sam Flynn]

Don't know if some of the "noobs" here have seen this, but here's something I posted years ago:

http://forum.casebook.org/showpost.php?p=55202&postcount=5

I'm not being precious because it's my research, but I've honestly yet to find a more plausible candidate for Mary Kelly. (At least inasmuch as "Mary Kelly" was not a pseudonym, which is very likely IMO.)

[GUT]

Thanks for that Sam.

[Natasha]

Don't know if some of the "noobs" here have seen this

I hadn't seen your post before, but having read it now, it is quite interesting.

There is tons of stuff on here, so forgive me for not viewing everything.

As no one knows for sure the identity of Kelly, its fair game for anyone to post their opinions and findings regarding her

[Fleetwood Mac]

Hi,

Could be an error, they are quite common on census returns of the period.
Could be that these particular Kellys had been living in England for generations and, possibly through marriage, had switched to C of E.
Or maybe C of E was used as a default for someone who had no religious affiliation.

MrB

Unthinkable.

I grew up in a mining area in the North East, and we had immigrants from all over the show who came to work in the mines. Many Irish. Probably 65/35 Protestant/Catholic when I grew up, and we had many round here: Roache, Hughes, Scully, Kelly and I don't know of one instance where a catholic switched sides or vice versa; and catholics married catholics so unlikely to have been a parent of each and one parent decided C of E.

It would have been more unthinkable 100 years earlier. In my view, that certificate is not right.