Armstrong, Smyth, and Gallery

Local volunteer contacted

Reply to MaureenN:  her enquiry dated Monday 18th April 2022.  Blaris (Antrim).

Hello MaureenN: Today, 22 June 2023, I have only just seen your enquiry and apologise about that.  Please don't be disappointed that I can't answer your specific request, because I posted a similar request on this Message Board when I first joined Ireland XO, seeking information on my maternal grandmother and really got no further.  I am a granddaughter of Mary Elizabeth (Lizzy) O'Connor, née Smyth, related to Annie Armstrong of the Railway Hotel in Lisburn.  You have given some information which is new to me and very welcome, and that is the name of Lizzy's brother and the names of their parents.  Lizzy and my grandfather Andrew married in 1904, and she died in 1913 in Dunmore, Co. Galway but I cannot find where she was buried.  I have a copy of her death certificate, obtained some years ago through Ancestry.com. I never met her and would dearly love to know more about her background. As a child I knew my grandfather Andrew very well; he died in 1966 in Sheffield, U.K.  I have also remained in touch with several cousins on my O'Connor side, who for years have shared my desire to find out more about our grandmother.  Is this information of any interest to you?  Are you an actual relative of Lizzy and her brother, and therefore related to me? If so, I would love to keep in touch with you, perhaps via email, etc.  I eagerly await your reply, Maureen.  Thank you.  Anne Adams.

Hi Anne,

I’m not sure if we’re related, my interest is that Lizzie’s cousin Annie Armstrong unofficially ‘adopted’ my grandfather in 1895, when he was 10: we’d understood Annie was an ‘aunt’, turns out ‘honorary aunt’ but likely some sort of relation.

Lizzie and her brother were cousins of Annie, you’ll find Lizzie in the 1901 census in Annie’s address, the Railway Hotel, Lisburn. I’d looked into Lizzie’s background hoping to find out more about Annie Armstrong and any biological relationship with my grandfather.

So - info so far. What I’ve found about Lizzie and her brother is from public sources, mainly the British Newspaper Archives (subscription, they cover a number of Irish newspapers) and the Irish BMD records on Irish Genealogy (free but not complete) and Roots Ireland (subscription) and Wills/ probate (PRONI website)

I’ve been able to take Lizzie’s genealogy back a couple of generations. You mentioned Ancestry: it’s on my Ancestry page (you’d need to search specifically for the name because it’s on a branch linked by ‘additional parental relationships’ to the main tree).
Her father was William Addison Smyth c.1842- 7 Jan 1876, and her mother Elizabeth Jane (Eliza Jane) Gallery c.1846- 28 April 1875. Both parents died when Lizzie and her siblings were very young, I don’t know who brought them up. Eliza Jane Gallery was in turn the daughter of John Gallery ?- 1886 and ‘our’ Annie Armstrong’s maternal aunt Ann Armstrong c.1823- 1899. On the Smyth side, if memory serves I came across various people in the late 1900s records (think, the newspaper archives) with middle-name Addison and surname Smyth, and/or surname Addison-Smyth, probable connections. Lizzie’s family lived in Belfast, but there were related Gallery’s in Lisburn, and ‘our’ Annie Armstrong - Lizzie’s cousin - seems to have kept in close touch with Lizzie and her brother as Lizzie’s brother spent his last illness in Annie’s address and Lizzie married from Annie’s address, the Railway Hotel.

There is also a Gallery grave in Lisburn, beside the grave of ‘our’ Annie Armstrong and her family. It’s a James Gallery c.1814- 1878 and his family, I believe it’s highly likely this James Gallery to be Lizzie’s great-uncle, brother of her grandfather John Gallery. I can E-Mail a photo of this grave,

hope this helps! If you would like to do so, I can send you details of the Ancestry page by email,

Maureen 

25 June 2023

Hi Maureen:  You are a gem!  You have gone to so much trouble to give me information, and it is very much appreciated.  Before going further, I must apologise that in my reply to you above I carelessly misspelt Lizzie as "Lizzy". (I don't know why, as in my searches of quite a few years ago I always wrote "Lizzie").

I understand that her correct full name had been Mary Elizabeth Smyth. I am the eldest child of her eldest child, Annie May O'Connor (later known as Nancy).  My mother and siblings were very young children when she died in 1913.  My mother must have misheard/misunderstood the surname of Lizzie's family of origin, calling it something that sounded like "Acheson-Smyth" or "Aitcheson-Smyth", with a cousin insisting understandably that it was "Armstrong-Smyth", so all of that had been an obstacle in my searching.

I am puzzled about her year of birth being given in your findings as 1871, yet in the 1901 Census her age was given as 27.  I had therefore been searching only from about 1873 as a date of birth.

As a family we had always understood that Lizzie and her brother (whose name we had never known - I now gather it was William) were "orphaned" when very young.  You can imagine how surprised we now are to learn, via information given to your good self in another post on here, that there had been a third child, another brother, named John.

You have furnished for us the names and approximate years of life of both of their parents: William Addison Smyth and Eliza Jane Gallery - so interesting and valuable to us.  I would suggest that Gallery is an uncommon surname.  Your suggestion to email to me with the photo of the Gallery grave in Lisburn is very welcome, Maureen.  My email address is  annieadams@hotmail.com   

My own mother died young, when I also was young.  I had enjoyed little childhood chats with her about her background, but never thought to talk about further details with her father, my Grandfather Andrew O'Connor, in later years.  My mother and her sisters spoke affectionately of Annie Armstrong, so seemed to know her well as "a cousin".  Sadly I do not recollect any mention of the surname Brady.  Although records indicate that Annie remained unmarried and childless it sounds as if she was very family-minded and caring, in that she took into her home your grandfather as a child in 1895, her ailing cousin John Addison-Smyth and his sister Lizzie as young children, with Lizzie remaining in her care and later as an adult in her employ at the Railway Hotel in Lisburn.  We are of course left wondering about the name and fate of a possible third sibling.

However, I wonder if this little I know is of interest to you: in the year following the death of his wife Mary Elizabeth (Lizzie), Andrew O'Connor re-married a first cousin of Lizzie, named Sarah McLornan. The marriage took place in Lisburn on 16 April 1914, witnesses being Paddy Smyth and George McLornan.  Sarah became a much-loved stepmother to my mother and her sisters.  As a very young child I met several of Sarah's relatives, some in the Belfast (and possibly Lisburn) area, with surnames of McLarnan (? alternative spelling McLornan) and one branch in Dublin named McCloskey. I feel that Ella McCloskey was a sister of Sarah McLornan; she was known to us as Aunt Ella.  On her baptismal certificate (20 January 1872) Sarah McLornan's name is spelt as McLarnon, but we do feel it is the same person. That baptismal certificate gives Sarah's address as Bohill  (the marriage certificate states Bohill House the Rock), her father as Patrick McLarnan (note the "a" here) and mother as Elizabeth Orr or possibly Elleanor, and the Sponsors/Informants as William Orr and Sarah Orr. Patrick McLornan (note the "o" here) and Elleanor Orr married 03 August 1869 in Lisburn, the witnesses being Owen Orr and Martha Simpson.

Because of little specific/identifying/recorded detail attached to them, my efforts to locate the grave of my grandmother Mary Elizabeth (Lizzie) in and around the graveyards of Dunmore, where she died, have been unsuccessful. I am now wondering if she had been brought back to Lisburn for burial.  And would the "Gallery" family grave you have mentioned, and have a photo of, possibly feature as her resting place?

Maureen, although I have not been of any direct help regarding James Joseph Brady, I do look forward to that emailed photo, and any other comments of yours on what I have written here.  Thank you very much for all you have already shared with me. 

Every good wish from Anne Adams. 

Hi again, Maureen: not with any information, but with a correction about what I wrote in my message to you (above, paragraph 4) on 25th June.  I have inadvertently reversed the names of John and William in that paragraph, and I apologise for that.  I think it was via another contributor on this site that mention had been made of the existence of a third child in that family.  I am looking out for the email photo of the grave you mentioned, please.  I now wonder if Lizzie could have been interred in the neighbouring Armstrong grave.  Anne.

Sorry, Maureen: I have a further correction. Checked that it was contributor Patricia who furnished you with the information that William and Eliza Jane had had  a THIRD child who was a SISTER (not a brother) to John & Lizzie.  Named Annie Addison Smyth, born Belfast 16 October 1873.  I am sorry that I had become confused.  Anne.