When I began researching my husband’s family history, I was given photocopies of four very old letters, written by someone named ‘Fannie’ and addressed to ‘Dear Uncle’. Having no idea who Fannie was, or how she fit into the family history, I put the letters aside. I recently came across the letters again, and suddenly I was hooked! I needed to know: Who was Fanny? Who was the Uncle? And how did we end up with a copy of these letters?
The letters were written between 25 January 1869 and 28 November 1870. The first letter had no address, but indicated that Fannie was in the United States. Subsequent letters provided an address in West Troy, on the Hudson River, north of New York.
From the first letter, I knew that Fannie married Robert Humphrey, a widower who had several children, noting that now being married, the in 1852 and married James McCrossin in Armidale, New South Wales, in 1854. Her brother, James Starr, was already resident in New England. He married Sarah Ann Moore in Armagh, Northern Ireland, in 1839 and emigrated to New South Wales prior to 1847.
