A FAVOURITE NAME

Yes I have a favourite name: Zenobia, it sounds so grand, yet sweet and pretty.

I first heard this name when my mother told me a story about her mother. Jane Marion Gladstone-Mahany. Jane Marion as I have always called her was my grandmother. This story took place before 1913 because Jane married in 1913.

This was the story, Jane Marion was single and decided with some other single women friends to go to America. I searched for her entry and found she entered via Canada, I found her listed at a border crossing, as Jane Mahany.

I could not find how she left America nor by which route nor who she travelled with, but she travelled to England.

My mother told me that Jane Marion needed funds to return home so took a job as a nanny and returned to Australia with a young girl named Zenobia, what a lovely exotic name, I imagine her with long blonde flowing curls, in frilly dresses, with blue ribbons in her hair.

I was searching for Jane Marion returning from England to Australia, there was nothing for her under the name of Gladstone-Mahany, so I started to search for the name Mahany over a number of years there were very many with surnames spelt in many ways, then I commenced searching for Zenobia it was then I found Jane Marion listed as J Mahany she was the listing above Zenobia Dunn, age 10 proving I had found Jane Marion’s return to Australia and in fact Melbourne on the ship Miltiades in 1907.

The only reason I was able to confidently  say this listing is my Jane Marion, was only because of the girl with the lovely and unusual name of ZENOBIA.