More help needed!

dido2 · 22-09-2011 2:59pm #1

I had a facinating conversation with my aunt last night about my nan, she's filled me in on a lot of info...

The story goes that this woman, Elisabeth Moran, was married with either kid or kids, had an affair with John Finn and as a result got pregnant with my GM, this is supposed to have happened in Kildare, but that wouldn't be 100% certain due to story being passed down.... She apparently moved to cork befriended a woman, dissappeared to give birth to my GM, came back maybe up to 6 months after my GM was born, and gave her to this woman she befriended, and no one knows what happened to her after that, my GM was christened and Elisabeth Moran was put down as mother, John Finn as father, this all happened in 1926 in Cork.... My Aunt has tried to find out more about where my GM was born, but as her name on baptismal cert is Mary Monica Finn, it's possible she could have been registered under another name possibly Monica Moran, even elisabeth mary moran, I guess all combinations are worth exploring...
But my question is would there have been any type of general way of this situation being dealt with in the 1920's?? My aunt has tried Bessboro in cork but is going to try again with monica and moran as possible names, but as we don't know if Elisabeth stayed in cork to have her it just makes it a bit harder, I have found a few possibles in Dublin and Kildare, Mary Morans, I think even a Monica Moran so we may try them to see if they are right......

zagmund · 22-09-2011 4:40pm

When laying out something like this, it might help to use bullet points or something to keep the points distinct and also to indicate which points seem odd or incongrous to you and which points make perfect sense. It just helps others to focus in on the actual query.

If I read this correctly, you're saying that your grandmother was given to someone at age 6 months and nobody knows what happened to her since then. This doesn't add up as there's obviously a link to you through one of your parents, and they presumably know where they grew up . . . whether or not their mother was present, etc . . .

What am I missing ?

z

CeannRua · 22-09-2011 6:15pm

I'm not clear on when your grandmother was baptised. Was it by Elizabeth Moran or the woman your grandmother was given to?

Others might have experience of this from their own research but it might be that if Elizabeth Moran registered your grandmother's birth with the civil authorities that the father's name is not there and that she was registered as a Moran. I'm not sure it's safe to generalise though as I'd guess that different things happened in different situations.

Wyldwood · 22-09-2011 6:34pm

Afraid I can't follow story too well either. Was Moran her married name or her maiden name? Could the child have been christened under the maiden name?
I presume your grandmother didn't disappear off the face of the earth?

CeannRua · 22-09-2011 6:54pm

Good thinking Wyldwood - I didn't think of that

dido2 · 22-09-2011 11:23pm

I have to apologise, I didn't explain it all properly, think some of it stayed in my head.....

I'll start again....

Elisabeth Moran got pregnant with my GM in either 1925 or 1926.
She was married at the time and got pregnant by another man John Finn
Not sure if Moran is her maiden or married name.
Possibly living in Kildare at that time, maybe somewhere else though, that bit of info isn't 100% certain.

Elisabeth moved to cork while pregnant and befriend lets call her Mrs N.
Elisabeth dissappeared to have my GM, then re appeared and gave my GM to Mrs N.
My GM they think could have been up to 6 months old when Mrs N was given her, this would have been I think August/September 1926, must check that info again.
Mrs N Christened my GM Mary Monica Finn, but the mothers name was put down as Elisabeth Moran, Fathers name John Finn, so baptismal cert has these names, but again theres a kind of vaugueness about this so it's possible that even though Elisabeth had given my GM to Mrs N, Elisabeth could have christened my GM with Mrs N

After my GM was christened Elisabeth seems to have dissappeared and my GM was brought up by Mrs N, who was known to my dad and his siblings as their GM, and no one knows what happened to Elisabeth or John...

So even though we've names theres a lot of vagueness about some bits and we're trying to figure out if we could use the info we have now to see if we can find out what happened to both Elisabeth and John....

Once she discovere

tyview · 23-09-2011 10:50am

dido2 wrote: »

I have to apologise, I didn't explain it all properly, think some of it stayed in my head.....

I'll start again....

Elisabeth Moran got pregnant with my GM in either 1925 or 1926.
She was married at the time and got pregnant by another man John Finn
Not sure if Moran is her maiden or married name.
Possibly living in Kildare at that time, maybe somewhere else though, that bit of info isn't 100% certain.

Elisabeth moved to cork while pregnant and befriend lets call her Mrs N.
Elisabeth dissappeared to have my GM, then re appeared and gave my GM to Mrs N.
My GM they think could have been up to 6 months old when Mrs N was given her, this would have been I think August/September 1926, must check that info again.
Mrs N Christened my GM Mary Monica Finn, but the mothers name was put down as Elisabeth Moran, Fathers name John Finn, so baptismal cert has these names, but again theres a kind of vaugueness about this so it's possible that even though Elisabeth had given my GM to Mrs N, Elisabeth could have christened my GM with Mrs N

After my GM was christened Elisabeth seems to have dissappeared and my GM was brought up by Mrs N, who was known to my dad and his siblings as their GM, and no one knows what happened to Elisabeth or John...

So even though we've names theres a lot of vagueness about some bits and we're trying to figure out if we could use the info we have now to see if we can find out what happened to both Elisabeth and John....

Once she discovere

Hi,

So do you actually have the baptism cert? If so, what address does it give on it? Does it give the sponsors names? I would imagine that if Elizabeth was the one who christened your Gm them was Mrs N one of the sponsors?? Looking on familysearch it looks like there are a few finns born in 1926 in cork, have you looked at these for possible matches?

dido2 · 23-09-2011 11:22am

My Aunt has the baptismal cert and did go to dublin a good few years ago to the birth register to see if she could find my GM's birth record, but I'll ask her to see if theres an address on the birth cert and who the sponsers are, I'm assuming now because my aunt never mentioned anything about the address that theres nothing much to go with from the baptismal cert other than the parents names and possibly Mrs N as the sponser, but I'll check when I'm talking to her again..

I'll also get a list of all the finns born in 1926 in cork aswell and find out if she's ever checked these..

dido2 · 23-09-2011 11:24am

I just looked for finns born in cork and I've found 5 births one of which is female, but I know I came across something about Bessboro where sometimes they registered boys as girls and girls as boys too....

tyview · 23-09-2011 11:27am

You could order the cert from the GRO. Give the details of all 5 and ask that they only send you the one that has the mothers name as elisabeth moran or the one with an address that is nearest to the church your GM was christened at...

If bessboro are involved anything is possible really!

ps; Census: I did note that there are only 2 john finns on the 1911 census in kildare. One 8 and the other 11, just to bare in mind if you do find anything more about him. If you find the birth cert it may give an occupation for him.

dido2 · 23-09-2011 11:32am

I'll check with my aunt if she has seen any of these records and if not or she can't recall, I might order them like I did last week asking that they only send ones with the mothers name as Elisabeth Moran....

My Aunt did go to bessboro before but got nowhere but a lot of info has come out about their ways of dealing with things anything indeed is possible!

CeannRua · 23-09-2011 11:34am

If there's no address on the baptism cert, you could try the parish in case there is extra detail in the actual register.

Do you have your grandmother's date of birth for comparison to date of baptism? Up to six months after birth seems like an extended period of time to leave a baby unbaptised.

dido2 · 23-09-2011 11:39am

My aunt actully got the cert from the church based when she went to look at the records...

The up to 6 months after she was born is a loose time frame because no one knows when she was born and the about 6 months old has been passed down through the family, but that could have been 6 weeks too...

I'm going to send my aunt an email to check some of these things to see if she has the info from then..

dido2 · 07-10-2011 8:24pm

My aunt went to dublin to try and see if she could find a birth record for my GM but she didn't....
we've been trying to figure out where or who to look for next...

Last night I did find a marriage match with the names of both of the parents named for my GM, married 3years after my GM was born in 1929 in mayo, well I found 4 people married in the registration with matching numbers, obviously it's possible that they didn't marry each other but the other matching pairs, i'm going to order the cert anyway but even with that it still doesn't prove anything, the only hope I have is that it might list an occupation that may have involved moving about the country..
We're still not sure how much of all the story is right or was embellished over the years..
Bessboro is in the spotlight at the moment so my aunt is going to try there again too...

But after that is there anymore options for us in trying to track down a birth record for my GM??

CeannRua · 07-10-2011 9:19pm

Can I ask a couple of questions:

When you say that no one knows your grandmother's date of birth are you saying that she didn't know it either?
Have you checked with the national school she attended? Date of birth is normally written into the register. It would be worth checking this to see what is in the register(s).
Did she hold down any job? Was she in receipt of any pension? Date of birth might be available through these records.

Re the loose timeline... If there was six months between birth-baptism-living with the friend, it really begs the question of where they (your gran and her mother) were all this time. There is a Bessboro thread on the Adoption forum on Boards. It might be worth your while posting there to see if anyone can shed light on normal practices there. One thing I'd be very dubious about is that if your grandmother was in Bessboro or somewhere like it that was under the charge of nuns for an extended period that she wouldn't be baptised. But this is just a guess on my part and maybe someone on the Adoption forum would have hard info. Catholics are only supposed to be baptised once btw.

dido2 · 07-10-2011 9:27pm

No My grandmother didn't know her date of birth, she used the day before she was christened as her date of birth....
I'd imagine she went to school locally, I'll ask my aunt if she ever went looking for school records..
The time frame is a very loose time frame, it could well have been weeks rather than months, but months is what has been passed on, so we treat it like everything else, loosely!

yeah its my GM being christened is probably what we need to find out in terms of what was the norm, I might ask on the adoption section to see what was normal...

CeannRua · 07-10-2011 9:53pm

Reference here to Bessboro and length of stay. Bit later than your grandmother's year of birth though:

According to Fr James Good, who was appointed chaplain in Greenmount Industrial School in mid-1955, the following arrangements were in place in the Cork area for the receipt of children. Babies born in the home for unmarried mothers at the Sacred Heart Convent, Bessboro, normally stayed there for two and a half years with their mothers.
from http://www.childabusecommission.ie/rpt/04-03.php

If it were me, I would ask on the Adoption forum about what practices were in place in Bessboro re (1) who registered the birth civilly and (2) timing of baptism.
All this presuming Bessboro is the place of course!!

dido2 · 07-10-2011 10:09pm

Everything is so vague about how things went at that time, I think because anything went, no one really questioned anything and kids appear to have been able to be just passed to someone to look after with nothing official..

I've posted on the adoption forum to see what the norm is...

My GM had a son too in 1945 before she got married that we are trying to trace too and it's more or less the same, no way to find out...

I just sent the GRO an email to see if it's possible to get a birth cert based on knowing roughly when she was born along with possible parents name on the birth cert...

thats an interesting link, really gives an idea of what it was like to live in those times..
Its hard to know what to do next though

dido2 · 20-10-2011 10:49am

A little bit more info...

I went to the church where my GM was baptised..

On it were a date of birth of 6th May 1926, date of baptism 8th May 1926, Parents listed as Elizabeth Moran & William Finn, in the box for putting parents place of residence there was Parents of Dublin, C/O of woman who brought my gm up...
In the box for confirmation there was no record which means she didn't make her confirmation there, the woman in the office said normally the parish in which they do make their confirmation are supposed to notify the church they were baptised in...
My aunt also said that my GM said she went to school in a school in cork city, whereas she lived in east cork, not too far away but it would still be a bit of a trek....

I did order a marriage cert for 2 people of the same names as my GM's parents, but they were in Mayo, the man was a Gaurd Sargent, his father a railway worker, woman not much info other than her father was a farmer, not sure if these are right, but will keep them in mind, just in case....

Anyone any ideas as to what we could check next, I have emailed the school my GM said she went to to see if they've records for then, but other than that I'm not sure what we ca do next..

CeannRua · 20-10-2011 7:00pm

Have you ruled out that she ever attended her local national school, Dido? Do you know what age she was attending the school in Cork? I'm finding it a bit difficult to believe that a little kid was sent any distance to national school??

When you mentioned Cork in your earlier posts, I wrongly assumed that you meant that your grandmother was city. Depending on where she was living and if the school was a day school, would the Midleton direction train have been an option?

Did you check your grandmother's marriage record (or other paperwork they may have) with the parish to see if the confirmation details might be recorded there?

dido2 · 20-10-2011 7:37pm

We're going to contact the local school too to see if she ever attended there too at some point...

I have her marriage record from the same church and My aunt asked when she was looking at the marriage record about confirmation and was told that confirmation records hadn't started at that stage when my GM was making her confirmation, yet on her baptismal record it clearly show's other kids all baptised around the same time as her, all made their confirmation on the same date and the woman I was speaking to today said that when theres only a date on the record for confirmation that it's in the same church, I took some pictures of the register today too just so I'd remember..

She lived in little island, so on the train route and not that far away from the city but I too find it hard to understand that she travelled up and down every day unless she went when she was older and made her confirmation up there, I'll be checking St Patricks church too for a confirmation record for her...

dido2 · 01-11-2011 1:11pm

I managed to get the Garda Record for the William Finn in the marriage cert, he was in Galway 1923 to 1930, then transferred to Dublin, born in Limerick though, think they can be ruled out as my GM's parents now as the dublin connection wasn't until 1930.. But I'll be keeping the info "just in case"

More help needed!

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