New Hannan cousins

A few months ago I wrote a bit about the Hannan family, which came from Girvan on the west coast of Scotland.

About 40 years ago my mother’s cousin Willie Hannan took my mother and me to Girvan to see the family graves, and he told us that all the children of Thomas Hannan and Janet McCartney, my great great grandparents, had died young, except for my great grandfather William Hannan. And indeed round the tombstone were listed the names of their children.

But in the last few months a new third cousin, Janet Ewing from New Zealand, has made contact. She is descended from Jane Hannan, and as Jane Hannan was among the children shown on the tombstone, we thought it must be another one from a different family. But checks with birth and death certificates and census records have shown that there were in fact two Jane Hannans, daughters of Thomas and Janet. The first Jane, the firstborn, did indeed die young, but a younger daughter was also named Jane, and survived to marry Samuel Kay, and have several children, some of whom emigrated to New Zealand.

And now our “new” cousin Janet may be visiting Southern Africa later in the year, so there’s a possibility we might meet, and that will be something else to write about.

Altavista still better than Google for genealogy searches

A few months ago I wrote that Altavista was a better search engine than Google for some genealogy searches.

A new test shows that that is still the case.

I wanted to see if Google picked up our family wiki pages, and so entered “Flamme family Cape Town”, which didn’t appear in the first three pages of Google results, but the relevant pages showed up in the first page of the Altavista results, for example our main Flamme page. And the third page of Google results was generally way off the mark.

This doesn’t mean you should stop using Google, but it might be more fruitful to start with Altavista, and when you’ve exhausted its possibilities, then try Google.

Growdens visit Athenian Krewe

The following news item mentions Lori Murphy and Brad Growden, members of our Growden family from New Orleans.

clipped from www.montgomeryadvertiser.com As the Krewe of Athenians called on guests to attend its 59th annual ball, members were honored to be the first mystic so­ciety in the area to host a pre­sentation of debutantes at the Renaissance Montgomery Hotel & Spa at the Convention Center. The special event, “Athenian Renaissance: A Debutante Ball hosted in Three Acts,” was planned to meticulous detail. Highlights included a humor­ous skit and a majestic presenta­tion ceremony in the Montgom­ery Performing Arts Centre and a long night of celebration in the hotel’s grand ballroom. Special guests from New Or­leans included Lori and Rick Murphy; Marie and Brad Growden; Cindy Roth; and Andree and John Hainkel.

Lori and Brad are descended from Arthur Franklin (Frank) Growden, who emigrated from New Zealand to the USA, and has descendants in Tennessee, New Orleans, Alaska and other places in the US.