Closing in on the Bennetts

The O'Dea Album

These photos are from my grandmother's album and provided a puzzle now solved. My DNA results indicate that I am related to a descendant of this Clement Bennett and I have now to worked out how he was related to my maternal grandmother Georgina Ellen Bennett (O'Dea). He was her nephew.

Monnie and Clem as they were labelled in the album, were the children of John Raymond Bennett and his wife Margaret Bridget Healy. This couple had married in Hamley Bridge in January of 1918. when they were both 23 years old. John Raymond's father is listed as a George Bennett. 

This is gt-grandfather George Bennett, father to Mary Olive, Georgina, James and Ronald.

If John Raymond Bennett was 23 when he married in 1918 that suggests the birth year of 1895. 

I have been unable to find a birth record for John Raymond Bennett in NSW, Vic or SA just as I have been unable to find a birth record for grandmother Georgina but indeed her father was George Bennett. Her elder sister Mary Olive was born in Broken Hill, NSW in 1888 where grandmother also claimed to have been born in 1890. 

By 1892 George Bennett and his wife Bridget Kelly were living in South Australia as their son James George David is recorded as born at Goodwood. Could John Raymond have also been born there and his birth unregistered? The Bennetts are next recorded in Edithburgh where another son Albert Ronald Victor (known as Ron) was born in 1902. Another move was made away from Edithburgh possibly before the birth of Mary Olive's son William Rose in 1904.

Mary Olive and Georgina both married Hamley Bridge men in the following years. That John Raymond was also married in Hamley Bridge, suggests a relationship.

Five children were born to John Raymond Bennett (c 1895 - 1962) and Margaret Healy 

Francis James - b. 9 November 1918 - d. 24 Nov 2012 - I have found no evidence of a marriage record for Francis

Joseph - b. 13 Jan 1921 - died just 2 days later

Vincent John - b. 30 Dec 1921 - died in Woomera, S.A. on 24 Apr 1968 as a single man

Monica - b. 11 Jan 1924 - 10 November 2023

Clement Ronald - b. 2 Oct 1925 - d.16 November 1997

Monica and Clem

Monnie and Clem Bennett as titled below the photos

Monica Bennett married Stanley Whittenbury in 1948. 

BENNETT—WHITTENBURY. —The marriage of Monica, only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Bennett, Hamley Bridge, and Stanley H. B, youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. J. L. Whittenbury, Short street, Wayville, will be solemnised at St. Mary's Church, Hamley Bridge, at 10.30 a.m. on January 3, 1948. Reception at Dublin Hotel.

Clement Ronald Bennett married Elizabeth Cant in 1949

CANT—BENNETT. — The marriage of Elizabeth D. (Bette), daughter of the late Mr. G. and Mrs. S. G. Cant, to Clement R., youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Bennett, both of Hamley Bridge, will be solemnised at St. Marys Church, Hamley Bridge, on Saturday, August 27, at 7 p.m.

Clement died in 1997 and is buried with his wife in the Bremer Road cemetery in Murray Bridge, South Australia. Their headstone can be viewed here at Find a Grave.

One of my DNA matches at 176 centimorgans on Ancestry is a grandchild of Clement and Elizabeth. Clement and my mother were first cousins that certainly explains the presence of those photos in my grandmother's album. 

If you are a descendant of either Clement or Monica I am happy to send you copies of these photos at a higher resolution. 

Now (2024) with several descendants of both Monica and Clem identified by DNA matches there is no doubt that John Raymond was Georgina's brother and son of George Bennett and Bridget Helen (sometimes Ellen) Kelly. 

Post updated June 2024

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1948 'Family Notices', The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1931 - 1954), 1 January, p. 8. , viewed 29 Nov 2021, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article43750613

1949 'Family Notices', The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1931 - 1954), 20 August, p. 20. , viewed 29 Nov 2021, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article36682306

This post first appeared on earlieryears.blogspot.com by CRGalvin