Angela’s hunt to unearth family

Angela’s hunt to unearth family

17 July 2013

AN Englishwoman tracing her family tree in County Down has found “an area of her life that was once grey is now so full of colour.”

Angela Bushill has been travelling to County Down to trace the roots of her father, Lawrence Henvey, and she has found help from a Rossglass artist and the retired keeper of St. John’s Point Lighthouse.

In 1937 Lawrence Henvey left his home in Castle Street, Killough, when he was just 14 years-of-age, to join the Royal Navy and was posted to the HMS Ganges naval training base.

In the 1960s Lawrence returned to his Co. Down home on a family holiday, bringing with him his 11 year-old daughter, Angela.

Lawrence passed away 10 years later, but in February this year Angela Bushill travelled to Co. Down from her home in Plymouth to start the process of tracing her ancestors.

Angela said: “I had thought about tracing my family tree for a really long time, but then started to do it about a year ago.

“I started to look up the surname Henvey, but they were worldwide. I knew my father had an uncle called Paddy Henvey who emigrated to Australia.

“Then I thought I would look in Killough and I found out about Henry Henvey, the former lighthouse keeper, got his address and wrote him a letter.

“He is younger than my father, but he remembered him and the family. He knew my grandmother well and she was at the lighthouse every Christmas.

“My son Richard, daughter Joanna and I came over for three days in February. We spent a lot of time with Henry and his wife, Mary, heard different stories about the family and saw lots of family photos that I had never seen,” she said.

In one letter to Henry, Angela had explained that Richard is artistic and he arranged for the family to meet Rossglass artist Bernard Magennis.

One of Bernard’s paintings caught Joanna’s eye and he presented the family with a smaller version of the artwork, but as soon as they got home Angela contacted Bernard again and ordered a full sized version as a wedding anniversary present for Joanna.

Angela continued: “We are doing more work on the family tree and Joanna has traced my father’s side back four generations. My great-grandmother lived on Palatine Row in Killough and we looked at the cemetery where a lot of our relatives are buried in Rossglass.

“A lot of places where the Henvey family lived have been refurbished and look different to the way I remember them, but that’s life.

“The search of my family tree is still ongoing and I have made a lot of friends as well. The people in County Down are so friendly and willing to talk, maybe that’s due to Henry, but the people are very friendly.

“Through Henry I have met his sister Bridie, who lives in Kent now, so it has taken me all sorts of directions and it has taught me a lot about my father too.

“As my son said when we came here in February, ‘of all the things about it the one thing is that an area of my life that was once grey is now so full of colour’,” she said.