Hello,
My great-grandfather, Michael Henson (1843-1933) was buried in Killamehian Cemetery according to the obituary his family had published in the USA. Does anyone know where this cemetery is located? The spelling may not be correct because death notices in the USA often have spelling errors. He lived in Bunnahinly, Co Westmeath, so the cemetery would be somewhere in that area.
Kind regards,
Kathy Condron Shinopoulos
Closest match I can find is a townland named 'Killomenaghan', it would sound very like 'Killamehian'. The townland in Kilcleagh civil parish, but not far south east of St. Mary's Athlone. The distance from Bunnahinly townland to Killomenaghan townland in a straight line is just under 5km (~3 miles) - see map attached (OSI/Geohive). The railway runs through both townlands.
A closer look at historic maps shows a graveyard - see 2nd map extract , below - it appears to be an old 'shared' graveyard and is shown on historic maps going back to the 1840s. Close to the graveyard the map shows a St. Menaghans Well - the origin of the townland name - Killomenaghan = Church of Menaghan
A view of Killomenaghan graveyard from Google StreetView.
Hello Kathy,
I have Henson ancestors from Kilcleagh Parish, do you know who Michael's father was? Have you taken a DNA test with any of the companies?
Kind regards,
James.
Hello Shane,
Thank you so very much for your very helpful response! I'm so sorry for my delayed response. My sister and I were in Ireland for 3 weeks (Aug 21 - September 11). I didn't see your response before I left home (busy packing) and I am just finally catching up on things now. I think your research is quite correct and confirms a search my sister and I carried out when we visited the area in summer 2019. The fact that the railroad ran through both townlands is a great bit of information that I didn't know about before. When we went looking for the cemetery in 2019, it seemed a bit far from Bunnahinly, but now I think it's possible that they transported the casket by train from Bunnahinly to Killomenaghan. Based on your information, it looks like we went to the correct cemetery after all! As always, we wish that we could have continued our research in Ireland for a longer period of time - even 3 weeks wasn't enough! Hope to back again within the next couple of years and have another chance to search the Killomenaghan cemetery. Thanks again.
Kathy Condron Shinopoulos
Hello James,
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Was in Ireland from August 21 - September 11. Was very busy packing and researching before the trip so didn't see your message until a while ago. Now I'm just getting back to normal after a productive but exhausting trip. Still have much to do, but I'm making progress. Michael's father's name was Patrick. I've had my DNA tested on Ancestry and 23 and Me and have uploaded my DNA results to My Heritage.
Kathy
p.s. Michael and family were from St. Mary's Parish, but it looks like your family's parish was nearby.