My name is Christine Andersen and I started this site.
This site was created using MyHeritage.com. I am a Manhire by birth. My father was Frank Manhire and we are descendants of Richard Manhire and Mary Williams.

Richard came to Australia from Cornwall in 1849 with his sister Jane Henwood Manhire aboard the ship "Marion" and married Mary Williams in Adelaide, South Australia on 10th November 1853.

 This site is an attempt to bring together the Manhire history from Cornwall to Australia, America, Canada and New Zealand and also South Africa.

It is a work in progress and mistakes do happen during research, but are fixed when additional research shows otherwise. From time to time you will see corrections being made to family associations,birth dates, death dates etc.

The Manhire name was often mis spelled during the prior centuries and has been written as

Manneer,Manheer,Manear,Mannear,Menhier,Manhior,Minear,Menear,Mennear,Menhire

just to name a few, as people were often illiterate in those days.

It was often written down by the Parish Priest as the name was spoken to them during marriages, baptisms etc  and possibly the variations were more a result of different accents and illiterate priests than anything else.

It has been explained to me that the Manhire name is Cornish and came from the word  menhir or  "Pillars of Stone" such as those in stonehenge and that our name was originally pronounced "Menheer".

It took the death of my own father to make me wonder where my heritage lay and give me the passion for genealogy.

 I recently went through every Manhire recorded in the English 1911 Census and traced them back 5 generations.

From this, I discovered that ALL were either descended from William Manhire and Prudence Cowling (Roche) ; Richard Manhire and his first wife Frances Thomazine Benny or his second wife Mary Behenna (St. Enoder) and John Manhire and his wife Jane Scoble (Truro).

My ancestry belongs to John Manhire and Jane Scoble - their grandson Richard Manhire , son of John Manhire and Grace Henwood , emmigrated to Australia.

His other two brothers , William and John stayed in Cornwall and their descendants formed part of the 1911 census. Some of their descendants emmigrated to America and New Zealand.

Many of William and Prudence's grandchildren (descended from their sons George Manhire and wife Mary Snell and his brother William Manhire and his wife Elizabeth Brokenshire) emmigrated to America and Canada.

The son of Henry Manhire and Rebecca Key - William Manhire and his wife Elizabeth Grigg were the first Manhire's to emmigrate to New Zealand along with their children.

There is a distinct possibility that some Mennears of todays generation are actually related to us , but kept the old spellings. It will take further research to ascertain if this is the case. 

   If you have any comments or feedback about this site, please click here to contact me.
Our family tree is posted online on this site! There are 7252 names in our family site. The earliest event is the birth of Johnes Manhire (Dec 26 1583). The most recent event is the death of Kym James Manhire (Aug 7 2012).
The site was last updated on May 23 2013, and it currently has 47 registered member(s). If you wish to become a member too, please click here.   Enjoy!