Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Ann McStay was born about 1844 in Ireland. She married Michael Hennessey, a labourer at an iron foundry, on 13 November 1863 in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, Scotland.
They had three children, one who appears to have died in infancy before the family emigrated to Otago in 1874 on the Invercargill.
They had a further two children after their arrival and when Ann signed the suffrage petition the family were living in Orepuki in Southland and Michael was working as a miner.
Michael died in 1897at the Orepuki, New Year’s Day races when a horse swerved off the course and crushed him.
Ann died on 21 April 1923, she is buried with Michael in the Orepuki Cemetery.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
Family Search https://www.familysearch.org
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
Southland District Council https://www.southlanddc.govt.nz/
Find a Grave https://www.findagrave.com/