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An unexpected bonus

  • 10-05-2015 3:43pm
    #1
    OU812
    Registered Users Posts: 6,035 ✭✭✭


    I was discussing my wife's family with her mother, unfortunately she's the last of them so there's very little information or others to verify with. She said that she thought there was a small box of documents in the attic.

    Today she arrived with this...

    There's insurance policies, photos, letters, death certificates & interestingly a death certificate for someone she thinks was her uncle who died in 1975 aged 82, but nobody ever talked about... Dum-De-DumDum-Duuuuuummmmmmm !


Comments

  • #2
    rhapsody
    Registered Users Posts: 450 ✭✭rhapsody


    What a find! That'll keep you busy for a quite a while :)


  • #3
    OU812
    Registered Users Posts: 6,035 ✭✭✭OU812


    It's been a very productive day. She didn't now much about the family at all, other than the fact they lived in on the southside. However, backtracking the apparent uncle's DOB from the death certificate, I've managed to find the whole family on the 1901 census in Kingstown followed by several of them in 1911.

    Annoyingly though, her father, aunt, Grandmother & Grandfather aren't on the 1911.


  • #4
    Hermy
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,300 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    OU812 wrote: »
    Annoyingly though, her father, aunt, Grandmother & Grandfather aren't on the 1911.

    Any idea why that is so?
    Were they abroad or could a spelling mistake be making them hard to find?

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • #5
    OU812
    Registered Users Posts: 6,035 ✭✭✭OU812


    The aunt (3) and her father (2) were the youngest kids in 1901.

    I've found the other kids all living around the same area, including the next oldest who would have been 16 in 1911, he lives with the oldest brother (25) and his family (or at least is in the house that night).

    I do suspect that they're away, although her grandfather was an illiterate general labourer, so I can't see them having the money to go abroad.


  • #6
    chughes
    Registered Users Posts: 1,740 ✭✭✭chughes


    It's great when something unexpected like this turns up. In my own case, I spent a long time trying to locate my paternal grandfather's grave. My father was only a few months old when his father died so little or nothing was known of the grave's location. When I eventually did locate it, not only was my grandfather in it but also his father and his brother. An unexpected but nice bonus.


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  • #7
    Coolnabacky1873
    Registered Users Posts: 556 ✭✭✭Coolnabacky1873


    OU812 wrote: »
    I do suspect that they're away, although her grandfather was an illiterate general labourer, so I can't see them having the money to go abroad.

    Some suggestions for you:

    the grandfather might have been a spailpín (migrant labourer) and could have been 'down the country' working or in one of the industrial cities in Scotland/England.

    If the family fell on hard times he could have been in prison or another institution. Inmates and patients are all listed in the census by their initials only.

    Do a keyword search in digitized newspapers for his name+any address you know: Irish Times, Irish Newspaper Archives, Irish papers on British Newspaper Archive/FMP


  • #8
    Thomas from Presence
    Registered Users Posts: 1,151 ✭✭✭Thomas from Presence


    Congrats OU812! I was out at my Dad's yesterday and came home with an iPhone full of photos that were rediscovered going back to the early 1900s so know that feeling of delight! :)


  • #9
    Jellybaby1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,108 ✭✭✭Jellybaby1


    You've hit the motherload! Congratulations!


  • #10
    OU812
    Registered Users Posts: 6,035 ✭✭✭OU812


    Amazing how one document was able to give me so much. My MIL was wrong about her dad's age by twelve years which meant I could never find him. She thought he was born in December 1911, when in actual fact it was December 1898.

    Using the Dead uncle's death certificate (still no idea why he wasn't spoken of), I backtracked to the 1911 census first. & found him living with his oldest brother, brother's spouse & two children aged 16. I still couldn't find the father so I went back to 1901 & found him again aged 7 (the father was 2) along with the older brother, three more brothers, a sister & their parents.

    Armed with the names & DOBs of the others, I bounced back to 1911 & found them apart from the parents, the father (13) & his sister (12).

    I'm satisfied I have the right people after finding a letter containing the name and address of one of the other brothers from 1922 to the uncle. But I've no idea where the two parents & youngest kids are. It's logical that wherever they went, they went together, but I don't know where.


  • #11
    Hermy
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,300 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    OU812 wrote: »
    Amazing how one document was able to give me so much...

    A good topic for a thread. It's amazing how one little piece of information can unlock whole swathes of detail that might otherwise remain unknown.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



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  • #12
    OU812
    Registered Users Posts: 6,035 ✭✭✭OU812


    I think I've just found the father (the birth & death dates match up) on ancestry.co.uk. He was in "Lancashire, , England". Unfortunately I need to pay to get more info so that's where it stops until payday.

    Happy to know it though.


  • #13
    TOMP
    Closed Accounts Posts: 328 ✭✭TOMP


    OU812 wrote: »
    I think I've just found the father (the birth & death dates match up) on ancestry.co.uk. He was in "Lancashire, , England". Unfortunately I need to pay to get more info so that's where it stops until payday.

    Happy to know it though.


    Lancashire is well served by online free genealogy resources. Try this link to start off. Many Irish people emigrated to Lancashire in the 19th century. http://www.lancashirebmd.org.uk/


  • #14
    CassieManson
    Registered Users Posts: 693 ✭✭✭CassieManson


    OU812 wrote: »
    I was discussing my wife's family with her mother, unfortunately she's the last of them so there's very little information or others to verify with. She said that she thought there was a small box of documents in the attic.

    Today she arrived with this...

    There's insurance policies, photos, letters, death certificates & interestingly a death certificate for someone she thinks was her uncle who died in 1975 aged 82, but nobody ever talked about... Dum-De-DumDum-Duuuuuummmmmmm !

    Thats brilliant I am so jealous. Every time I visit the old family home in Cork I keep looking for an old box full of papers. Unfortunately I dont think it exists.

    Every now and then my father surprises me with some new information - like recently he produced a load of memorial cards (I think they used to be called mourning cards or mortuary cards). These had been kept by his parents over the years and went back 75+ years in some cases. A great resource as they have dates of death, ages and sometimes photographs. Makes me wonder what other stuff he has hidden away that he does not realised is pure gold for an amateur genealogist like me!


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