Library Forum

Without addressing the broader topic of all possible resources for locating estate records, I can report that the British version of Ancestry.com has a record for Letitia Foster with a death year of 1908 and place being Ireland, on a new online database called National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations),1861-1941. I accessed it via the "Find a Person" section of the British National Archives website, which apparently has an arrangement like the U.S. National Archives has with Footnote.com in order to provide digital searches of its collections. The results are provided after a subscription to the commercial source is paid. What appears without payment is a reference to a record, with no details beyond the information I inputted, not even a full death date.

Sharon C.

The only Letitia Foster entry in the 1908 England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations) is:

FOSTER Letitia of 33 Bridge-street Morpeth Northumber-
land widow died 9 February 1908 Administration (with
Will) Newcastle-upon-Tyne 5 March to Mary Ann Paulin
(wife of Abel Schofield Paulin). Effects £ 155.

I think we can safely rule out that one - not a wealthy spinster!

Here's the entry in the Irish Civil Registration Indexes for the lady we are looking for:

Name: Letitia G L Foster
Registration District: Dublin South
Event Type: DEATHS
Registration Quarter and Year: Oct - Dec 1908
Estimated Birth Year: 1820
Age (at Death): 88
Mother's Maiden Name:
Film Number: 0101604
Volume Number: 2
Page Number: 561
Digital Folder Number: 4201708
Image Number: 00190
Collection: Ireland, Civil Registration Indexes, 1845-1958

She was the sister of James Thomas (1821-1893). Their mother `assumed for herself and her issue addl. surnames of VESEY-FITZGERALD (after that of FOSTER) by R Licence 7 May 1860 in accordance with the will of her brother 2nd Baron Fitzgerald & Vesci' but Letitia does not appear to have used all the handles.

This quote is from the Foster-Vesey-Fitzgerald entry in the 1976 version of Burke's Irish Family Records. Let me know if you want me to e-mail you a PDF version of this entry.

I thought the Irish Times archive might throw up a death notice for Letitia but have had no success so far.

She should appear in the Calendars of Wills and Administrations, held in the National Archives of Ireland, and I think her will (if she made one) should have survived - I think wills were kept in the Probate Office for about 15 years before being sent to the Public Records Office, and so a 1908 will should have been spared from the 1922 conflagration.

The Irish Times archive did throw up an advertisement to creditors of the Hon. John Leslie Foster (father of Letitia) who died about the year 1842 (9 July 1842 according to Burke). This notice was published on 14 May 1913! An estate whose administration took over 70 years must have generated a very voluminous file. Let us hope that it too was spared from the 1922 conflagration!

Thank you Sharon and Paddy W. for all this very useful input. Sharon also just sent me the following info off-forum and for the sake of completeness I am reproducing it here:

Letitia Geraldine Foster-Vesey-Fitzgerald
F, #387905, d. 1908

Letitia Geraldine Foster-Vesey-Fitzgerald was the daughter of Hon. John Leslie-Foster and Hon. Letitia Vesey-Fitzgerald.2 She died in 1908, unmarried.1
Letitia Geraldine Foster-Vesey-Fitzgerald was baptised with the name of Letitia Geraldine Leslie-Foster.1

Citations
1. [S47] Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, editor, Burke's Irish Family Records (London, U.K.: Burkes Peerage Ltd, 1976), page 428. Hereinafter cited as Burke's Irish Family Records.
2. [S47] Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, Burke's Irish Family Records.
http://www.thepeerage.com/p38791.htm

Census
1901 house 89 Baggot Street Lower (Fitzwilliam, Dublin)
Foster Lititia G L 81 Female Head of Family Church of Ireland
Foster Vesey Fitzserald James J 54 Male Nephew Church of Ireland

Power, Joe: The Vesey-Fitzgerald family, 48-51
http://www.xs4all.nl/~tbreen/Journals/Clare.html


I also found two interesting synopses about the estates of these families on the NUI Galway Database of Landed Estates at http://landedestates.nuigalway.ie:8080/ ... sp?id=2404

I'll be following your leads and am also scratching around the WWW to see whether someone, e.g. a member of the family, has already done a comprehensive history of the family which might reveal that that Someone has/had access to the family archives. I cannot imagine that a family like this doesn't have a chronicler somewhere in its midst (unless, of course, all the family lines have become extinct). Heaven knows, we might stumble on a dusty archive or solicitors' office containing all the rent books for that part of Clare from the year 1500.

Watch this space.

Paddy

Extracts from Joe Power's article in The Other Clare Volume 14 (March 1990):

Gerald Fitzmaurice Fitzgibbon ... was transplanted to the borders of Clare and Galway sometime after the Cromwellian victory in 1652 ... [his grandson] dropped the Fitzgibbon surname and thereafter the family became known as the Fitzgeralds ... Moyriesk House was accidentally burnt on 17 April 1875 ... today, there are members of the Foster-Vesey-Fitzgerald families in Australia, Canada, England and Ireland ... Although he died unmarried in 1843 Lord William Vesey-Fitzgerald acknowledged a son, the Right Hon. Sir William Robert Seymour-Vesey-Fitzgerald ...

\pw

pwaldron wrote:Extracts from Joe Power's article in The Other Clare Volume 14 (March 1990):.......... today, there are members of the Foster-Vesey-Fitzgerald families in Australia, Canada, England and Ireland ... Although he died unmarried in 1843 Lord William Vesey-Fitzgerald acknowledged a son, the Right Hon. Sir William Robert Seymour-Vesey-Fitzgerald ...\pw

Super ! Thanks, Paddy. Now to find the living Foster-Vesey-Fitzgerald with the dusty old room full of rent books and other estate papers....

Paddy

Paddy Casey wrote:Now to find the living Foster-Vesey-Fitzgerald with the dusty old room full of rent books and other estate papers....

Or, as was the case with the William and Lady Gregory papers now in Atlanta GA at Emory University, those could be residing in the deep recesses of an academic institution which has catalogued them and now it is just a matter of time before I see their listing as I scan the Web with my search term "clare." I will keep this Foster-Vesey-Fitzgerald family on my radar for that purpose.

Sharon C.

In yesterday’s Irish Times newspaper, John Grenham writes enviously of the new Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. After describing the new building, he goes on to say, “Proni’s online offering (proni.gov.uk) also continues to grow. The eCatalogue is providing deeper and deeper insight into their holdings, often linking to detailed analysis and summary of the collections. One example: clicking on the “view” link in the eCatalogue entry for the Earl of Erne papers (D1939) takes you directly to a 19,000-word essay giving a history of the family, a detailed description of the evolution of the estates in Dublin city and in counties Donegal, Fermanagh, Mayo and Sligo (including listings of the townlands covered by rentals and tenants lists), as well as painstaking accounts of all the original wills and deeds and much more. And this is only one of hundreds such essays accessible through the eCatalogue”.

I entered “Vesey Fitzgerald” and saw that, under the Alphabetical Index to Privately Deposited Records, “Fitzgerald, Vesy” (T3145) and “Fitzgerald and De Vesci” (D574) appear. Some day soon these may be on view on-line, but there may not be any estate records among them of course.

Sheila

Hi all,

Great to read all the posts/replies here, some great research/knowledge here.

The reason for this post is that I have house built beside the ruins of old Lahardan house "An Cabhal Mhor" (which burned down in 1875). I am wondering did anyone ever come across a photo/drawing/painting of this during your research, or, do you know if one exists. I have trawled through the Ennis library and all local publications with success.

Thanks in advance

Joe O'Donovan