humphrysfamilytree.com - My family tree

My family tree

The research I was doing on the Thomond motor car that my grandfather built led slowly but inevitably to researching my family history in general, which I have been doing properly since 1984. I have a large amount of material offline, in particular a set of family trees I produced in 1990-92. Over the next few years I will transfer all this information onto the web. It may take me 10 years to put all my information online onto this website. The blog page shows my future plans for putting the material online.

How to read my narrative family trees: The format I am using is a hypertext version of the Burke's Peerage narrative format. Basically, to move around the tree you click on the names in bold.

Donate to support this research:

See Alphabetical list of all surnames on this site.

Surnames

I descend from the following families:

Humphrys (or Humphreys) of Doonane, Co.Tipperary (and Glenstal, Co.Limerick)

Flanagan of Co.Dublin
Collins of Crumlin, Co.Dublin
Stack of Co.Kerry
O'Callaghan of Co.Kerry

O'Meara (or O'Mara) of Toomyvara, Co.Tipperary (and Limerick city)
Foley of Clogheen, Co.Waterford
Casey of Clogheen, Co.Waterford
Pigott of Limerick city
Ebrill of Limerick city

Cashel (or Cashell) of Co.Kerry
Kickham of Mullinahone, Co.Tipperary
Armstrong
Lyons of Tralee, Co.Kerry

O'Rahilly (or Rahilly, or O'Rahilly "Fionn", or The O'Rahilly) of Sliabh Luachra (and Ballylongford and Dublin)
O'Sullivan (or Sullivan) of Meentoges, Co.Kerry
McEllistrem of Ballylongford, Co.Kerry
Mangan of Shanagolden, Co.Limerick
Nolan of Waterpark, Co.Limerick

Ryan (Ryan "Tim" or Ryan "Cadea") of Newross, Co.Tipperary

One possible gateway ancestor

My possible connection with the World family tree.
Blennerhassett Cashel, descendant of Letitia Blennerhassett, possible descendant of Edward III.

My descent from Letitia Blennerhassett is my possible connection to the World family tree. There is probable evidence that she descends from the main line of Blennerhassett of Co.Kerry, but this remains unproven:

Blennerhassett (or Hassett) of Co.Kerry

Depending on how the Blennerhassett descent is proved, it may yield further descent from the following families. These will not be done in detail. Rather I will only show enough of the tree that is necessary to highlight and cement my particular lines of descent:

Rowan of Co.Kerry

Denny of Tralee Castle, Co.Kerry
Sidney of Penshurst Place, Kent [actually part of our common family tree]

Conway of Castle Conway, Killorglin, Co.Kerry
Herbert [actually part of our common family tree]

Lynne of Southwick Hall, Northamptonshire
Forrest of Morborne, Cambridgeshire
Throckmorton of Coughton, Warwickshire [actually part of our common family tree]

Neville [actually part of our common family tree]
Windsor [actually part of our common family tree]
Vaux of Harrowden [actually part of our common family tree]
Fitz-Hugh, Baron Fitz-Hugh [actually part of our common family tree]

And a lot of further families that my wife also descends from. Hence I have separated these as our common family tree.

These include a Royal Descent.

Contact me

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Things to do

The Blennerhassett Challenge
(€1,000 competition)

Blog
Blog - Archive (1983-2006)
My family tree:

Surnames

Royal Descent

People

My wife's family tree
Our common family tree
The history of the Thomond motor car

Help on How to read these family trees

Conventions

Abbreviations

FAQ on Privacy

FAQ on Adoption

Help on Search
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Mobile phone entry point

My possible Royal Descent

Arms of Edward III and his sons, Trinity College, Cambridge. See full size.

There's nothing strange about Royal Descents. In the west, your family tree tends to either (a) end in obscurity after a few generations, or (b) goes on to connect with the vast, inter-connected web of medieval royalty and nobility in Europe, from which millions of people are provably descended. Showing a descent from some key medieval royal figure is simply a convenient way of showing your connection to this vast family tree of the West. My wife has many such Royal Descents. For Royal Descents of many famous people see here. I have written on what is the point of genealogy and what is the point of Royal Descents.

This is in fact the golden age of genealogy, when you can be born without a Royal Descent, set off to look for one, and finally, triumphantly, connect with the world family tree. In the future, everyone will have a known Royal Descent at birth, which won't be half as much fun. I have been working on the line below since 1985 (when I was age 17). I am close, but the triumphant moment has yet to arrive.

If this chart looks a mess, see here.


                               Edward III
                                |
                 +--------------+----------------------------------------+ 
                 |                                                       |
                John of Gaunt                                           Edmund Plantagenet
                 |                                                       |
                Joan de Beaufort                                        Constance Plantagenet       
                 |                                                       |
      +----------+-------------------------------+                      Isabel le Despencer
      |                                          |                       |
     1st Earl of Salisbury                      3rd Baron Abergavenny   Elizabeth Beauchamp
      |                                          |                       |
     Alice Neville                               +----------+------------+
      |                                                     |
     Elizabeth Fitz-Hugh                                   4th Baron Abergavenny
      |                                                     |
     Catherine Vaux                                        Sir Edward Neville, Kt.
      |                                                     |
     Clement Throckmorton                                  Catherine Neville
      |                                                     |
      +-------------------------+---------------------------+
                                |
                               Martha Throckmorton
                                |
                               George Lynne
                                |
                               Martha Lynne
                                |
       +------------------------+----------------------+
       |                                               |
      Robert Blennerhassett                           John Blennerhassett
       |                                               |
      Henry Blennerhassett            +----------------+----------+
       |                              |                           |
      Robert Blennerhassett          John Blennerhassett         Ruth Blennerhassett
       |                              |                           |
      Sir Rowland Blen.,             William Blennerhassett      Mary Blennerhassett
      1st Baronet                     |                           |
       |                              |                           |
 +-----+--------+                    William Blennerhassett      Sarah Rowan == Francis Cashell
 |              |                     |
 |              |                     |
Arthur Blen.   Sir Robert Blen.,     Arthur Blennerhassett
died 1839      2nd Baronet            |
                |                     |
                |                     |
               Sir Arthur Blen.,     Arthur Blennerhassett
               3rd Baronet           of Ballyseedy
               died 1849             died 1843

Unproven:
Letitia Blennerhassett below is probably a close relation of "A.Blennerhassett J.P." in 1828,
who is probably one of the 3 Arthur Blennerhassett's above.
Hence Letitia is probably descended from Martha Lynne.
In addition, Edward Cashel below may well be of the Cashell or Cashel family of Co.Kerry that descends from Sarah Rowan above.



                       Letitia Blennerhassett                    Edward Cashel
                        |                                         |
                        +-----+-----------------------------------+
                              |
                             George Blennerhassett Cashel
                              |
                             Blennerhassett Cashel
                              |
                             Agnes Cashel
                              |
                             Eithne O'Mara
                              |
                             Richard Humphreys
                              |
                             Mark Humphrys

My relations

My grandfather:
- Dick Humphreys, fought in the GPO in the Easter Rising 1916.
My great-grandfather:
- James O'Mara, Home Rule MP, Sinn Fein TD.
My great-great-grandfather:
- Stephen O'Mara, Parnellite MP.
My blood relations (i.e. we both descend from a common ancestor):
- The Gaelic poet Aodhagán Ó Rathaille
- The poet James Clarence Mangan (unproven)
- The Fenian Charles Joseph Kickham (unproven)
- Joseph O'Mara, the opera singer
- The O'Rahilly, the only leader of the 1916 Rising to die in action
- The scholar T.F. O'Rahilly
- The scholar Alfred O'Rahilly
- The scholar Cecile O'Rahilly
- The revolutionary Sighle Humphreys
- The practical joker The Bird Flanagan
- Liam Cosgrave, prime minister of Ireland (Taoiseach)
- The jockey Fred Winter
- The pirate radio pioneer Ronan O'Rahilly
My in-laws:
- What is an in-law? It means they are not a blood relation - there is no common ancestor. Both of you exist on separate trees which are tied at some point by marriage. We define a 1st-order in-law as meaning that there are just 2 separate trees, tied together by one marriage - a blood relation of yours and a blood relation of theirs married. If there were any children, then people exist who are blood relations of both of you in common.
- A 2nd-order in-law would mean there are 3 trees, tied together by 2 marriages, and so on. Allowing n'th-order in-laws, probably anyone on the planet can be connected to anyone else.
- So we will restrict ourselves to listing 1st-order in-laws. And not even all of them - e.g. the entire Royal Houses of Europe are already known 1st-order in-laws of mine (not just that - they are 1st-order in-laws of every single blood relation of mine in all of my family trees). So we will restrict ourselves to much closer sub-categories:
My grand-uncle:
- W.T. Cosgrave, the first prime minister of Ireland
My most recent non-Irish ancestors:
- If Blennerhassett link proven:
  - 17th century - I have ancestors in England, Ireland
    - English - Martha Lynne left England and moved to Ireland perhaps c.1620.
  - 18th century - I have ancestors in Ireland

"Stadfadsa feasta - is gar dom éag gan mhoill
ó treascradh dragain Leamhan, Léin is Laoi;
rachad 'na bhfasc le searc na laoch don chill,
na flatha fá raibh mo shean roimh éag do Chríost."

"I will stop now - my death is hurrying near
now that the warriors of the Laune, Lein and Lee are destroyed;
I will follow the beloved among heroes to the grave,
those princes under whom were my ancestors before the death of Christ."

- Deathbed poem (c.1729) of Aodhagán Ó Rathaille, my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granduncle.

See Alphabetical list of all surnames on this site.

Donate to support this research:

The Blennerhassett Challenge (€1,000 competition)

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