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Jane McKeown of Omagh Workhouse

Jane McKeown/McEwen/McGowan, a Famine Orphan, emigrated to Victoria, Australia on the "Diadem" in 1849. On arrival in Melbourne on 10 Jan 1850, Jane was recorded as a house servant aged 18, illiterate and Church of Ireland, suggesting a birth year of 1831/2. She had been an inmate of the Omagh Workhouse. Jane married Tyrone immigrant James Jackson in Melbourne in 1850, before civil registration commenced in Victoria, which meant that her parents' names were not recorded in the marriage register. When Jane died in NSW in 1885, her parents' names were not noted on her death certificate, because they were unknown to her family.

Would any records of Omagh Workhouse exist that might reveal her home parish and/or the names of family members? Searching for a baptism online is difficult, since her surname apparently appears in a variety of spellings. Any suggestions welcome!

John

4 replies

John,

Here's a link to information on Omagh workhouse. It mentions what records are known to survive. There's no mention of the inmate admission registers for the 1800s so I suspect they are lost.

https://www.workhouses.org.uk/Omagh/

The Board of Guardians minutes do still exist. They may well contain references to the arrangements for sending suitable orphans to Australia but they are unlikely to name them or include any other personal data.

You mention the difficulty in searching for a baptism. I would add that many Church of Ireland parishes don't have records for the 1830s as 30 to 40% were lost in the 1922 fire in Dublin. And of those that survive, they are often not on-line. Copies of all the surviving parishes records in the Omagh area are held in PRONI in Belfast but a personal visit is required to view them. But even if you found a baptism that appeared to match, with so many records missing, how could you be sure that it was the right lady? Unless you get a DNA match with someone, I think you may struggle to find any other information on her.

Elwyn, IrelandXO Volunteer ☘IrelandXO Volunteer

Thanks to both Elwyn and Eileen; expert advice as usual. The links you gave me are most informative concerning the background of the Irish Famine Girls, so called, and the Earl Grey Scheme. Next stop PRONI.

John

John

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