A Ripperologist Article

This article originally appeared in Ripperologist No. 17, June 1998. Ripperologist is the most respected Ripper periodical on the market and has garnered our highest recommendation for serious students of the case. For more information, view our Ripperologist page. Our thanks to the editor of Ripperologist for permission to reprint this article.

THE ORIGINS OF MARY KELLY
by Peter Birchwood

I've been in business as a professional genealogist for about 30 years now and have been interested in the Ripper for longer than that. Its only recently that I have thought of employing my skills such as they are in trying to put some fact into some of the Ripper research. Those of you who connect to Stephen Ryder's internet "Casebook" site may have noticed some critical work of mine on the genealogical information in Paul Feldman's book on the "Diary." I have also been doing some work on the origins of that most mysterious of victims, Mary Jane Kelly.

The story of her life as she apparently told it to her friends was that she was born in Limerick, Ireland and moved with her family to Wales. The place they lived in was either Camarvon or Carmarthen and she was quite young when they moved there. Her father was John Kelly who worked in an Iron Foundry and she had six or seven brothers and one sister. She married young to a collier known as Davis or Davies who was killed in a mine accident shortly after the marriage. She then moved to Cardiff where, after some months in an infirmary she turned to prostitution. Now when you're working on family histories it's usually best to firstly assume that the information that you have got is largely correct. If it isn't then you can resort to other search procedures. In short, investigate the most likely story first!

Some work in the records of the two named counties led me to the family of a John Kelly living at 2 William Street, Carnarvon. The family comprises:

John Kelly,	head,	36	General Labourer	born Ireland.
Mary Kelly	wife,	37		born Ireland.
John Kelly	son	14	scholar	born Boston, America.
Dennis Kelly	son	10	scholar	born America.
Daniel Kelly	son	9	scholar	born America.
Joseph Kelly	son	6	scholar	born Ireland.
Ignatius Kelly	son	3		born Ireland.
James Kelly Winifred Kelly	son daughter	2 weeks 2 weeks		born Carnarvon. born Carnarvon.

Here we have a family of Kelly's who agree closely with the information given. There are no other Kelly families in Wales who agree as well. There was an Iron Foundry in Carnarvon within walking distance of William Street and it is conceivable that John may have worked there. In 1891 John is a Railway Plate Layer. His son, John jr. has left the house, married and is a hairdresser at 23 Bangor Street Camarvon. Dennis, Daniel and Ignatius are still at home. Dennis is a Colour shop assistant, Daniel is also a hairdresser and Ignatius is Daniel's assistant. By 1921 1 believe Daniel is an Umbrella Maker and Repairer at 4 Pool Hill, Carnarvon. James is born as James Patrick Kelly on the 17th March 1881 the son of John Kelly and Mary Cane.

Where is Mary Jane Kelly? She does not seem to appear under the names Kelly/Davis/Davies anywhere in Wales. If this is her family, then she would be the oldest child. There is a possible birth for her in Ireland although there are problems with it and I'm not completely satisfied that it's the right one. The birth is on the 5th June 1868 in Banagher, Kings County. This was the adjoining county to County Limerick and is a few miles from the border. The parents are John Kelly and Mary Coyne. The maiden name of the mother is an acceptable variant of Cane, considering illiteracy and general bad handwriting but this would make her four or five years younger than usually thought. There is no marriage in Wales for her to a Davis/Davies between 1878 (when this family left Ireland for Wales) and 1881. As in later life, she used the name Kelly, it is possible that she was never legally married. My reasons for believing this to be her family are: the composition of the family (six boys, one girt) the father's name and the place of residence. As the first girl child it would be normal to name her after her mother as indeed the first boy (John Jr.) was named after his father.

As my main business is locating missing heirs it wasn't a problem to locate the descendents of this family. I've spoken to several members of this family but regretfully no-one can remember back to the family so I haven't managed to confirm yet the connection between Mary Jane Kelly and the William Street family. My investigations are continuing on this, on proving or disproving the so-called Maybrick descendents and on trying to make a living!