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Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris

Post Number: 1432
Registered: 4-2003
Posted on Sunday, October 03, 2004 - 3:27 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

I am intruigued:
There is a web page I found which includes reviews and comments on the film From Hell.
One of them reads as follows:
I thought that the first time i saw it, it was more about the romance and not the fact that some crazy person was mutilateng the whores of Whitechapel. I am very interested in Jack the Ripper because i am MAry Jane Kelly's great grandaughter so i do know quite alot about it eventhough i am only 15. But overall i thiught the movie itself was very well done and accurate.


This message is not dated. the writer's name and e-mail address is included on the page, if anyone wants to follow it up.
The page where I found this is:
http://www.kamera.co.uk/reviews_extra/all_comments.php?review_id=/reviews_extra/from_hell.php

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Leanne Perry
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Leanne

Post Number: 1481
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Sunday, October 03, 2004 - 5:40 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

G'day Chris,

Be careful of believing that 'Stephanie Jane Manuel' is really Mary Kelly's grandaughter.
I remember someone started to post to
'Casebook', (but only once or twice), trying to make everyone believe she was Mary Kelly's great grandaughter, and her name wasn't 'Stephanie Jane Manuel'. This could have been at the end of the old messages, therefore not in the archives shown here, but I look anyway.

As I believe, Mary Kelly never had a child so couldn't have a grandchild or a great grandchild.

LEANNE



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Brad McGinnis
Inspector
Username: Brad

Post Number: 195
Registered: 4-2003
Posted on Monday, October 04, 2004 - 12:21 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

MJK was an amazing woman. She has a number of young impressionable women who claim to be her direct decendant. Since she had no children of her own, her achievement here is unpresidented. Had she lived, who knows what other amazing things she may have done! Brad
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Debra Arif
Unregistered guest
Posted on Monday, October 04, 2004 - 7:53 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Isn't it possible or even highly likely that Mary Kelly did have a child or children at some point? She claimed to have been married at age 16, I know it was legal to marry at 12 or 13 in the UK with parents consent, but this was quite rare and most girls who married in this era at an early age were 'with child' ( most parents needed their 16 year olds to be out earning money for the family)
I don't necessarily think she had a child with her in Whitechapel, but maybe she left one back home in Wales?
Just a thought!
Debra
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Christopher T George
Chief Inspector
Username: Chrisg

Post Number: 982
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Monday, October 04, 2004 - 1:41 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi, Chris et al.

Isn't it possible also that the teenager quoted above may have been a descendent of a Mary Jane Kelly, but not the Mary Jane Kelly we are interested in?

Chris
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
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Leanne Perry
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Leanne

Post Number: 1483
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Monday, October 04, 2004 - 4:29 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

G'day,

I didn't know that when a baby was adopted out, (IF, IF, IF she had one), the child had access to the knowledge of who it's real parents were.

Another reason why I don't trust: 'Stephanie Jane Manuel', is the middle name she made up: 'Jane'. It's as though she wants people to believe it has always been a family tradition or something!....too tidy!

If I remember correctly, the person who wrote to the old boards of 'Casebook' twice, chose a name like: 'Kelly Something'. Maybe Stephen, or someone with a copy of the old boards, can tell us who it was.

Even if it wasn't the same person, it shows you how some people's minds think!

LEANNE
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Richard Brian Nunweek
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Richardn

Post Number: 1089
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Tuesday, October 05, 2004 - 3:18 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi,
It really amazes me that more people out there that must be relatives of the victims, have not made themselves known.
I Appreciate that not everbody has access to a computer at home, but todays modern workplace is well equiped with PCS , and nearly everyone i know does there own work on them.
The argument that people are to ashamed or unintrested does not work for me, my wife has just discovered that she is related to the poet Shelly, and she is well pleased.
why has not the desendants of Tabram, Nichols, chapman, eddowes , and kelly made there presences felt, they would from handed down oral history be able to possibly fill in some intresting gaps.
For instance is Reg Hutchinson still alive, or Barnets nephew or close relations of any of the deseased?.
Regards Richard.
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Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris

Post Number: 1437
Registered: 4-2003
Posted on Tuesday, October 05, 2004 - 9:16 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi Richard
Believe me there are still plenty of people out there who not only do not have access to a PC but positively avoid them! And even if someone did have access they would only seek out a site like Casebook if they had an interest in the case.
The possible reasons why descendants and more distant relatives of victims, police officers etc may not have "come foward" include, to my mind, the following:
1) They simply may not know. We must remember that wartime, moving house etc. destroys family documents and records just as effectively as it does public collections.
2) They may simply not be aware of the connection, even if they know the name of a distant Victorian relative.
3) The notoriety surrounding the case and its public treatment may easily dissaude them from entering the Ripper "circus" and any media attention. Remember the example of the family of Thomas Stowell, who shortly after his death destroyed all records of his research on the subject. The stated reason reason was that the notes were of "no interest" but we can be pretty sure it was to dissuade any further attention.
All the best
Chris
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Maria Giordano
Detective Sergeant
Username: Mariag

Post Number: 94
Registered: 4-2004
Posted on Tuesday, October 05, 2004 - 11:58 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Chris is right. Families of victims may well have been ashamed to admit that Grandma was a hooker.

The victims were estranged from their families for the most part, anyway.

Still,if my family lore suggesated that a relative was a victim of JTR I know I'd be looking for all the info I could find and eventually I'd wind up here.
Mags
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Richard Brian Nunweek
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Richardn

Post Number: 1090
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Tuesday, October 05, 2004 - 3:38 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Maria,
Exactly, i do not believe that decendants of the victims blame there relatives for being in the east end of london in the 1880s, and living a wayward life , this was a hazard that a lot of women occured in order to survive.
Women at that time had no rights, they either lived at home and were protected by their parents under strict victorian morals, or were forced by numerous circumstances to break from that safety, when life became in most circumstances intolerable.
I still find it hard to accept that the modern day desendants have not found the fascination that we have in trying to make sence of this case.
Richard.
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Leanne Perry
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Leanne

Post Number: 1488
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Tuesday, October 05, 2004 - 4:57 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

G'day Richard,

I couldn't care less what my ancestors did for a living! At least one of them was a convict! (but that could be for being caught doing something as little as steeling a slice of bread!)

Hey, many modern day desendants of Ripper victims may not even be aware of who their ansestor was! Not everyone has had their family tree traced/recorded or even wants to.

LEANNE

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Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn

Post Number: 1178
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Tuesday, October 05, 2004 - 5:15 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Well Richard it may seem that I want to take issue with you all the time and that isnt so.However plenty of women did have to work in Victorian times-thousands of them and this was very definitely so in the east end of London.In May 1888 the girls at Bryant and Mays match factory led one of the most famous strikes in history agaist their dangerous working conditions and poor pay.Not all women turned to prostitution to earn a bit of money by any means although it appears to have been something many women turned to when they couldnt get any other work and it prevented their families from not having enough to eat.
I somehow think that these victims had other issues as they were also dependent on alcohol.Poor Anne Chapman had tried desperately to cure herself of her addiction according to her brother and other records but after a year of sobriety had failed after which her marriage broke down completely and the descent into prostitution followed.
Natalie
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Belinda Pearce
Sergeant
Username: Belinda

Post Number: 27
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Wednesday, October 06, 2004 - 3:28 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Joe Barnett believed Mary had a son she used to visit didn't he and she was reported to have been sick for 8 or 9 months several years earlier???
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Dan Norder
Inspector
Username: Dannorder

Post Number: 323
Registered: 4-2004
Posted on Wednesday, October 06, 2004 - 11:08 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi Belinda,

Never heard any of that myself. Do you remember where you got that from?

Dan Norder, editor, Ripper Notes
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Debra Arif
Unregistered guest
Posted on Tuesday, October 05, 2004 - 12:26 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi all
I wasn't suggesting that the girl in question was related to MJK ( her generation relationship doesn't match up, I believe she said she was MJK's great grandaughter, at 15 she would be something like a 5xgreat grandaughter) ) just the possibility that MJK MIGHT have had children, and they wouldn't have to have necessarily been adopted out.
They could have been left in the charge of grandparents or other relatives and been brought up as their children, never knowing who their real mother was.
Later generations can sometimes trace these type of events.
Nothing much is known of MJK's past so her having had children, I believe, cannot simply be ruled out.
Debra

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Debra Arif
Unregistered guest
Posted on Tuesday, October 05, 2004 - 12:38 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

That last one should have said 3x great grandmother not 5x
My teenager's 3x great grandmother was born in 1863 ( similar to MJK)
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Belinda Pearce
Sergeant
Username: Belinda

Post Number: 28
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Wednesday, October 06, 2004 - 8:22 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi Dan It's in the Jack the Ripper A-Z entry on Mary.The boys age given as six or seven could tie in with her stay in Cardiff Infirmary if any of it could be proved

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