I've long since learnt to ignore the various spellings - Kavanaugh, Kavanagh, Kavana, Kavenagh, Cavanagh, etc. - used by various Australian clerical people since my family came to Australia in 1858. I assume the same mistakes were made by Irish and American officials as well.

My Daniel, a blacksmith, arrived here from Co. Wicklow with his wife, Margaret Murphy, and their eight children - twins James and Michael, Thomas, Patrick, probable twins Julia and Mary, Daniel and Margaret. Ages of children ranged from 7 to 19.

The only place names in Wicklow that are definites are Glendalough, where Daniel and Margaret married about 1834 (suggesting that Margaret was from Glendalough), and Coolbeg, Parish of Glenealy, where Griffiths Valuation and Mary's Australian Death Certificate of 1868, confirms that the family lived there from at least 1847 to 1854, where Daniel rented a house and blacksmith's forge.

Oral family history says that the family came from the Meeting of the Waters and one of couple's grand-daughters, in later years, named her house Avoca. I have not been able to prove this one way or the other. It could be that Daniel was born there. Or it may have had something to do with the enormous popularity of the song "Sweet Vale of Avoca" when this woman was a young girl. And having watched Ballykissangel, I'd be more than happy to claim Avoca as my own.

A letter written by another grand-daughter refers to Daniel's brother, James, as being a Professor of Arithmetic (a teacher perhaps?) and a great-grand-daughter, graduating from university in the 1930's, wore what was reputed to be James' gown for the ceremony. However, I have been unable to find any trace of James in Australian records and it could be that he returned to Ireland or went to America, if he had been here at all.

Oral family history also says that Daniel had a brother in America (could this have been James?) and this was the family's initial destination, but then Daniel decided that Australia held more potential.

Your list of children's names gives me quite a tingle. Could there be a connection??? Could this be the elusive brother, James??

Daniel was born about 1807 to parents James Kavanagh and Mary Byrnes/Burns. Blacksmithing tended to be a family trade in Ireland and it is quite likely that father James was also a blacksmith.

Do you have any information at all on where in Wicklow your family may have been from? Were there twins in your family? Or a history of epilepsy (from which Mary died aged 22)? Blacksmiths perhaps?? Anything!