RootsChat.Com

Thanks for all your input and suggestions.

Just to answer a few of your questions.

William Fanning in the newspaper article is most definitely my grgrgrandfather. Also the article was taken almost word for word from the inquest files, which are now online at PROV. I found the article fascinating. I love a mystery.

I am posting here to put it out and maybe a descendant of Catherine Doyle Fanning will see it. I have done lots of research on my Fanning Irish ancestry that I think would interest them and that I would be happy to share with them. I've visited the Fanning farm near Thurles in Co Tipperary and also the Fanning graves in Ballycahill Cemetery and met with a number of cousins there in Tipperary. If William was the father then I will share some dna with descendants of Catherine Doyle Fanning. Perhaps proof will come via a dna match.
 
I have also found that while family stories can't be taken as fact, they almost always contain some elements that are true and are worth following up.

I do find it strange that I can't find any records for Johanna or Catherine. I have just looked on Vic BDM and will look on Ancestry at my library. I was excited when I saw the Halton record until I realised that Doyle was Johanna's married name. Rats.

Even before I was contacted by Catherine Doyle Fanning's grgrandaughter I thought that it looked like William was the father. Why would he assume there were human remains in the sack? Wouldn't you look before contacting the police? No easy matter in those days? He had dismissed her about the time the baby most likely died. He had employed her for two and a half years and suddenly decides a man can do the job better. The most telling thing for me was this admonition by the coroner to William Fanning and his wife Catherine:"neither these last two witnesses gave evidence in a willing manner and the coroner was obliged to warn the woman that he had the power to commit to goal any person who withheld evidence or who gave evidence in an equivocating manner".
And then why would Johanna Doyle tell her daughter that her former employer William Fanning was her father? I guess she could have just lied to her daughter and gave her any old name.

It is a mystery to be sure.

Kathleen Fanning

It wasn't proven that the child found in the sack was fathered by William Fanning, although it seems quite possible, even likely. The body was found in 1862.
Catherine Doyle Fanning, according to her grgrgrandaughter, was born in 1865 in Bulla and she gave her father as William Fanning and mother as Johanna Doyle. It would seem that William continued his affair with Johanna.
I haven't been able to find any birth records for Catherine and as I don't know who adopted her or her married name I am hoping a descendant will see this post.

This article and some information I was given by Catherine's grgrgrandaughter who contacted me in 2009. Unfortunately, she has never replied to any of my emails.
The grgrgrandaughter wrote that "My great great grandmother was Catherine Doyle Fanning born 1865 Bulla Victoria to Johanna Fanning, according to our family records she was placed for adoption, but she retained the name Fanning. With some of the records she names her father as being a William Fanning and her mother as being Johanna Doyle. There is also mention of other children, but unfortunately no christian names only that she has three siblings and one sibling that died."

Hi and thanks Marienne for finding these Fanning graves and solving the mystery of Ellen Fanning.
regards
Kathleen

Thanks Marienne for looking and finding James Fanning's grave. The one you found is the right one as his address was on the 1911 census.
Could you see if there are any other Fannings in Ford Cemetery for me please? I know he had three infant children who died around 1903 and two of them were buried in Ford. I am also still looking for his wife Ellen's grave. regards Kathleen Fanning