My interest in who went before me was sparked after the death of my mother in the mid 1990s. Amongst her papers was a copy of a small Whelan family history document compiled in 1976 by my father's cousin Eileen for the occasion of my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary. I had not previously been aware of the document. It seems likely that the material Eileen had gathered was by word of mouth; but Eileen and most of those who contributed to that material are gone, and the knowledge they had is lost forever.

This website contains a summary of some of my family history.  The Whelan, Hildebrand and Ballantyne lines are on my father's side; the Williams line is my mother's side. Click on one of the family group links above to read more. Genuine family history researchers wishing to know more about a family group should email me (see below for email address).

If you have a query I will respond to your email promptly. You may like to include a phone number so I can call and have a chat if that seems appropriate.

If you are a relative, I am happy to provide specific descendant charts in PDF format for any family branch relevant to your research, and am also keen to get more information from you to fill in the "gaps" that inevitably exist.

I can also give relatives restricted online access to the birth, death and marriage certificates (and some other documents including photographs) that I and some of my relations have collected to date.

In particular I would like to get more photographs of the older generations of ancestors. If you have photos of our ancestors, please get in touch with me; we may be able to help each other.

Enquiries: history AT tonywhelan DOT net

Search Tony Whelan's cemetery records at by entering a surname and clicking search: This contributor's records All of Find A Grave (162.4 million names) Restrict search to Surname