Any comments are welcome - Please contact John Byrnes 

 Latest Byrnes & Lovell family publication:

This work, "The Castlereagh Connection" by Sharon Hindmarsh, has the main text file of the book now downloadable.

It is available at http://freepages.family.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hindmar/

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:   Sharon is the wife of  Robert Hindmarsh, a great grandson of Alfred and Constance (Alfred Byrnes and Constance Rhoda Lovell).   She started an interest in Family History in 2001 and shortly after that began research into the Byrnes family (.... more).

 

 

~*~

These photos were taken during the visit to the cemetery by portion of a group that met at Castlereagh (at the Methodist "sacred acre" hall) on 4 June 2006 to commemorate 200 years since the formation of this 'Byrnes' family.

 

 

 

About this page

 

Two books have now been produced (references below) covering branches of this family over the time span 1800-2000.   Snippets also are welcome with view to uploading.  Also welcome would be any advice on free webspace hosting to which more material might be uploaded as time goes on.  Please send contributions, suggestions or any offers to John Byrnes. 

 

Photos currently here were taken by Ray Johnson (the above ones) and Pat Curry (the ones below).  Photos by others may be uploaded and linked to here later on.  Wording here at present is by John Byrnes.  Text/comment by others will be uploaded as separate pages, and those pages linked to here.  Coming soon, it is hoped, will be the text of a talk given on 4 June 2006 concerning James and Harriet Byrnes, by Patricia Curry.

 

More reliable facts herein are most likely to be from the Curry (2000) Byrnes book.  Any mistakes or dubious speculations are due to the current writer getting things wrong, and will be corrected promptly if you'll be good enough to advise me of them.

 

 

 

Three Ann+David descendants, 2006 - John Byrnes, Ray Johnson, Ray Curry (Photo: Pat Curry)

 

 

 

 

To which Byrnes family do you belong to?

 

Place an ad in any Sydney newspapers about anything like a 'Byrnes reunion' and one may find that the great majority of the people who ring you will not really be your own family; and many may also say that they or their parents do not have any idea now which early Byrnes family they may belong to.  Anyway, that's been my experience from doing such advertising.

 

I too was a member of the group-of-not-knowing who one's first Byrnes ancestors are.  I was born in 1944 and neither I nor my parents knew who our older ancestors on the Byrnes side were until rather recently.  I had read at the Mitchell Library about some Byrnes's having been at Castlereagh, and I had a hunch we could be related to those.  However, I didn't know of any evidence until the book by Pat Curry appeared in 2000.

 

It is a shame one cannot direct anyone wondering who their early Byrnes relatives in Australia are to places on the internet where they might enquire or read about this further.  Certainly there are overseas Byrne/s-and-similar websites, but none that I am aware of in Australia.  If there actually are some, and if any "other early Byrnes family" contacts are sent, then such information or links will be  placed here.  At the moment, however, none are known of to this writer, even though there were 'numerous' early sounds-like-Byrnes family name people who came to Australia in early years, before 1820 say.  There were other Byrne/Byrnes'es living around Castlereagh and elsewhere along the valley of the Nepean River who are not related to the Ann+David family (some for example lie in the Catholic cemetery at Upper Castlereagh).  It is noteworthy that some of the early Byrne/s (not Ann+David relatives) were servants/guides with the first parties to successfully get across the rugged Blue Mountains.  I think that some Byrne's eyes were certainly amongst the first to have caught sight of the open plains that lie further west, and which would allow the small hemmed-in early penal colony of New South Wales to expand westwards into the State it now is.

 

There were Burn's and Burne in the First Fleet and dozens more with names like Byrne arrived later on.  Some came in connection with the exiling of members of the 1798 war's losing side (English/Anlgophile side won, United Irish side lost).  Our ancestor David Burns (Byrnes) was in that category, or 'in one of those shipments' to be precise - namely on the "Friendship" (convict transport ship).

 

The trial of David (in Curry 2000) was:  Dublin, 22nd October, 1798.

 

He was placed on trial as a suspect United Irishman.  The sentence was "Life".   

 

That meant exile, and never to return to Ireland.  He perforce left behind a wife and six children.  Nothing further is known about those persons.

 

For those descended from David, and his wife Ann Reffin/Ralphin, this small number of graves at Christ Church Cemetery seems likely to stay as our "first Byrnes" for all practical purposes.  They are the earliest ones we know of.  There must of course be earlier 'Burns' ancestors in Ireland but so far nobody has discovered who those are.

 

So this Australian-Byrnes family was commenced by our ancestors Ann Reffin/Ralphin and her husband David Burns/Byrnes who are buried in this small family plot.  At least for the first generation or so the family was strongly a convicts or transportees family.  Both parents had been transported here and their children married other transportees or the children of convicts.  

 

The family began with the birth of their first child, James Byrnes, who was born on 19 May 1806.

 

 

 

The graves

The first grave that can seen behind the V-shaped tree marks the assumed limit of the Byrnes plot as it is not a Byrnes grave.   The Byrnes plot is thought to extend from just the other side of the the V-shaped tree to where the foreground figure (Pat Curry) is standing.

There are a number of burials presumed to be in this plot and a full listing will be placed here shortly.

There are only three headstones, and these show a linear sequence of burials for where there are headstones (i.e. 1841, 1865, 1876).   James Byrnes was the last family member buried here; other family burials being at the Methodist church graveyard, Upper Castlereagh. 

The first family death at Castlereagh was on 8 July 1838 and was the death of Catherine Sophia Byrnes.  She was the third daughter of Ann Reffin.  She married at age 14 and died at age 19, eight weeks after giving birth to Rachel Harris.  Rachel was baptised on the same day Catherine Sophia was buried.  A year later Ann Reffin herself died, on 26 July 1839.  David died on 25 March 1848.  Both were buried at this cemetery and presumably within this plot.  It is very unlikely any plan of burials now exists.  However, if the burials were generally and successively in line, as those with headstones suggest they may be, then Ann and David would lie at the end of the plot, where the V-shaped tree is seen.   

The three headstones, from rear to front are:

 

James Byrnes

Headstone standing and in very good condition (the headstone is constructed of a superior quality sandstone, quite likely from the Wondabyne quarry on the Hawkesbury River).

Photo: Ray Johnson

The headstone tells us that James was born on 19 May 1806, and died on 29 January 1876.

Were it not for this gravestone there would have been no record of James' birth.  There is no record of baptism.  James first appears in government records in the 1828 Census.

Later descendents of the family believe that James Byrnes in his later years was living on a property at Bird's Eye Corner off Castlereagh Road.   His cause of death is recorded as low fever of 9 days' duration.

This headstone was probably added years after the death of James.  Around the upper edge of the stone is the inscription Erected by Jane Brownlow.   Jane Brownlow erected this stone, and when she did so is unknown, to the memory of James Byrnes.  Jane, who is buried locally in the nearby Methodist cemetery at Upper Castlereagh, was closely associated with the Byrnes family at Castlereagh for many years.  Jane was born in Regentville near Mulgoa in 1849 and joined the household of James and Harriet Byrnes when she was very young.  She was still there when Harriet died in 1865 and it is believed she remained as a housekeeper until James' death in 1876, at which time she would have been aged 27.  In 1878 she married Michael Long, who lived at Castlereagh and who later on became Mayor of Penrith in 1886.

 

Harriet Byrnes

This headstone fell over prior to year 2000 and broke into pieces; but two or three years ago was repaired by those who do conservation work at this cemetery and who have affixed it to a horizontal concrete base in order to keep the pieces together.

Harriet was a convict, guilty likely of pickpocketing, who was transported to Australia under the name Nicholson ca. 1828.  She was assigned as a servant to the Reverend John Vincent at Parramatta and at that time was aged 22.  She married James Byrnes in Parramatta in 1830.  The couple moved to Bringelly by 1832 and to Castlereagh some time after that, before 1839.  In the early 1840s Harriet Byrnes "led the way" (Gloster Udy: Spark of Grace, 1977) in a Methodist revival at Castlereagh.  With other ladies she organised tea meetings to collect funds for rebuilding the church there.  

Harriet died on 11 May 1865, aged 59, recorded as being from a paralysis of 1 day duration (stroke?).  For some as yet unknown reason, her death certificate gives her maiden name as Harriet Parkins.  

 

 

 

Caroline Deborah Jackson

 

This is an ornately carved headstone, in fairly good condition, which fell over backwards in 2005 but fortunately suffered no damage other than cracking off just below ground level.  It has been placed back in alignment with the other graves. 

Caroline was born on 17 May 1837 at Parramatta and died 19 February 1841 at Castlereagh.  Caroline was the third child of Ann Reffin's first daughter, Ann Byrnes.  Ann Byrnes married William Jackson on 19 November 1827 at Parramatta.  Ann was 16 at the time and William, who was possibly then about 36 years of age, had been a convict who arrived in Australia in 1818.   The couple possibly lived after their marriage at or near Ann's parents' house in Campbell Street, Parramatta (as the 1828 Census records William Jackson as 'employed' by David Byrnes).  There is no evidence whether or not William ever went with the others when most of the family regrouped at Castlereagh ca. 1838.

History regarding this headstone, which seems likely to be a later addition, is pure guesswork and no actual facts concerning it are known.  

It is thought likely that the early Byrnes at Castlereagh would not have had money for such a headstone when young Caroline died.  This headstone is thouight likely to have been the first one placed in the Byrnes plot.  We have not as yet had a good look around the cemeterery specifically to see if it stylistically resembles any of the other stones, as might suggest when the stone was erected.  One idea has been that perhaps Caroline's brother John Jackson had the stone erected at the same time that he had a headstone erected for his mother.  John's mother Ann died in 1879 and is buried at the Methodist cemetery (in which grave John and his wife Harriet were also later buried).  The last four lines on the headstone of John's mother's grave (Ann Byrnes/Jackson), of "Weep not for me my earthly Friends ..", also occur on the headstone of her daughter Caroline Deborah Jackson.  However the style of the headstones is dissimilar, which would not support any idea of them both having been erected at the same time and paid for by John Jackson.

 

Another idea has been that Ann's brother, James Byrnes, might have paid for it.  But would he do that for the child Caroline without first, or also, providing a similar headstone for either of his parents Ann Reffin or David Burns, or both (who could possibly be in the same grave)?  

A third possibility, perhaps the most likely one, is that the headstone was provided by Thomas Harland.  Thomas Harland was Ann Byrnes' second husband.  Thomas was from Richmond.  They were married on 16 September 1847, possibly at Castlereagh (as registered in the Windsor Wesleyan church).  It would seem appropriate that Thomas might pay for a memorial to a child of his wife's who was already buried at Castlereagh.  However, it would not be expected that he would have provided a memorial for Ann Byrnes herself, even though he did outlive her.  This is because the marriage subsequently broke up and Thomas had moved away (although he did not subsequently remarry until the year in which Ann died).  Ann's son John retained his Jackson name and did not use the Harland surname when he placed the headstone at his mother's grave.  

Also adding some support to the idea that Thomas commissioned this headstone is the fact (fide Pat Curry) that Thomas Harland had a Church pew at Richmond and made donations to the Church there.  Thus he  may have been more wealthy at the time than the Byrnes'es at Castlereagh. 

 

REFERENCES:

Patricia Curry, 2000.  A Byrnes Book, 1800-2000.   ISBN 0 9585650 1 5

Sharon Hindmarsh, 2007.  The Castlereagh Connection.  A Byrnes and Lovell Family Story, 1800-2000.

 

 

 

~ More ~

This webpage was started as an introduction to the FIRST plot of David Byrnes related people in the OLD Castlereagh cemetery.  But there are two other younger cemeteries at Castlereagh.  One is Catholic and any Byrnes-or-similar there are very likely not related to this family.   The other is Wesleyan.   David and Ann Byrnes lived at Parramatta and their children were born there.  But by 1838 just about all the Byrnes'es, for reasons not yet entirely clear, had re-grouped at Castlereagh.  The parents Ann and David were quite old (for those times) when they arrived at Castlereagh and Ann died there in 1839, and David in 1848.    Not many latter Byrnes'es were buried in the Anglican cemetery and likely reason is that the family dominantly went over to Wesleyanism.   Thus more burials are found in the Wesleyan (Methodist) cemetery.  The Wesleyan cemetery is on the river flats (Quaternary gravel and sand deposits) whereas the original or "old" Castlereagh cemetery is higher up and atop of the Tertiary river deposits (which is where the government had hoped a town of Castlereagh would have developed but the site was never popular in early times on account of distance from water).   

There is much about those who lie remembered in the Wesleyan Cemetery in Pat Curry's "A Byrnes Book" and this is where Alfred and Constance Byrnes are too - the pair whose descendants Sharon Hindmarsh has traced.   The grave of the writer's parents Mostyn and Doreen Byrnes is besides  that of Alfred and Constance, and most of the Byrnes descendants in this cemetery and in the clump of graves seen below in front of the little building at left which is the original methodist schoolhouse attached to the church.

 The Methodist cemetery at Castlereagh.  The view is looking north.   Most of the early descendants of

Ann and David Burns/Byrnes who are buried at Castlereagh are within the first clump of graves

seen in front of the square building (original schoolhouse).

 

On the wall in the church behind the school is a plaque with some words from the words of James Rutledge (his journal preserved at the Mitchell Library) who the first schoolmaster and later preacher:  "In that church I taught school for five years, and in it I was married, and in it I witnessed glorious revival of God's work.  In it was my daughter Maria baptised: there I officiated as a local preacher for seven years - and so the spot to me, as well as the family of the original donor, is hallowed ground".

Within this clump of graves is the double grave of Alfred and Constance Byrnes. The newer

bare plot abutting it to the left is grave of Mostyn and Doreen Byrnes  (writer's parents).  The

abrupt rise in the distance at rear is the face of the Blue Mountains ('Lapstone Monocline').  

 

Close-up of the above,  Alfred and Constance Byrnes memorial.

At Sharon Hindmarsh's webpage Byrnes Book Files there is, in addition to the the main book file on Alfred and Constance Byrnes, various data files which will be of further interest.   These are a Certificates and Transcripts file (3,049 Kb) that contains some Birth, Death and Marriage certificates or transcripts of certificates relating to families covered in the above book; and a Courts & Land file (2,959 Kb) that contains copies of various original documents or transcripts of original documents.  This includes court cases, convict documents relating to David Byrnes and Ann Reffin and various land documents.

 

UNFINISHED PROJECTS (and "other Byrnes") - More could be written.

Snippets -  Snippets are being placed at http://geo-sites.zoomshare.com/files/david-burns-ann-reffin-fam-snippets.htm --- and anything sent to add there would be much appreciated.

[  File sharing:-    If you have files you would like to share contact the writer if you would like them placed on byrnesshare.zoomshare.com  -- At the moment this has been trialled with one file of Sharon Hindmarsh's "The Castlereagh Connection" and a description of some  - Click here  - for a list of auxilliary files and how to contact the author.  It is intended to also upload these additional files as soon as possible.  Zoomshare offers large free capacity and could take a lot more. ]

There are quite a number of other early Byrnes (or similar sounding) name records one comes across.   The relationships are uncetain or unknown.   If you have some stories about these please contact the writer to consider uploading to byrnesshare.zoomshare.com and index-listing back to this page.   Perhaps a compendium on these people, and whoever is researching them, will help unravel the records somehow.   Possibly more are "Byrne" than "Byrnes" names.   In some cases this has gotten confused .. e.g. a Byrne's Creek near Yerranderie which no doubt refers to a quite early settler has become "Byrnes Creek" though the modern trend of dropping the apostrophe mark of possession in place names.