EUREKA MOMENT
Rosemary Collins discovers how Michael Brennan tracked down an ancestor with a common name
A family story inspired Michael Brennan to take his research in a new direction
How long have you been doing your family history?
I began researching my family history in January 2014, after I got talking about family history at my aunt’s funeral.
What had you managed to uncover before hitting your brick wall?
First port of call was to ask my father. He explained to me that, around 1900, two brothers had emigrated to Durham from Castlecomer, Ireland. More surprisingly, these two brothers (Brennan) had married two sisters (Mealey).
This is where the first headache began. I found Brennan-Mealey marriages but there were three not two! To make things more complicated, all three of the Brennan men appeared on the 1901 census and all of them had originally come from the same parish in Castlecomer.
To sort out this mess, I ordered all three marriage certificates from the General Register Office and discovered that the two brothers were Michael (my great grandfather) and John (also known as Jack). The third Brennan ( James) was from a different family, but they had all known each other in Ireland.
The two brothers and their families lived in neighbouring houses on Lemon Street, South Shields, and both worked as miners in Harton Colliery. Sadly, a series of tragedies hit the family – my great grandmother Elizabeth and her sister Sarah died within four months of each other in 1916, and four of the two brothers’ children and three of their sisters also died young.
What was stopping you progressing your research?
Jack Brennan’s son, also called John, was a mystery. John Brennan is probably the most common name in Castlecomer in the 20th century and a lot of John Brennans were born in South Shields. Tracing a John Brennan born in 1915, with no idea where he lived or worked or when he died, was difficult. It was going to cost about £ 300 to verify all the possibilities.
How had you tried to solve the problem previously?
I decided to start my search by geographical proximity to South Shields, hoping he had married locally. All John Brennan marriages in the area drew a blank as the name of the father did not correspond with Jack Brennan nor his profession.
Next I looked at death registrations on Ancestry but none matched a John Brennan being born in 1915 in Durham. I had his birth certificate and knew his exact date of birth but this also drew a blank, proving to me either he emigrated or died before 1970, when exact dates of birth began to be recorded on death certificates.
The closest I could find was a John Brennan who died in Morpeth in 1960,
but the death registration said John Terence Brennan, so I discounted it.
What was your eureka moment?
The answers I needed were closer to home that I ever realised. My aunt Patsy told me about a little girl she used to play with when visiting her father Abin’s cousins, Mary and Winnie, in Lemon Street. The story took an interesting turn when she told me the girl was related to Mary and Winnie and she thought they were her aunts. I asked her who the girl’s parents were. She had no clear idea, but recalled that the girl’s father had died young, only two years before her own father, my grandfather Abin, who died in 1962.
Suddenly the brick wall collapsed; I was looking for a child of John Brennan who had died in 1960 in the Durham area. The closest possibility I could find was the one I had first discounted, John Terence Brennan.
About the same time, I was tracing my grandfather’s Catholic roots. I myself am baptised Church of England. It was when investigating and looking at photographs of their confirmations that I discovered the Catholic practice of taking a second Christian name at confirmation. John Brennan had become John Terence Brennan.
Another problem was finding his marriage certificate and children. I asked members of the Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine forum for help and one of them found that, according to the General Register Office (GRO), John Brennan had entered into a same sex marriage with an “Alan Douglas” in August 1944 in Morpeth! There was a mistake in the name, obviously. I sent for the certificate. It turned out to be marriage to an Ann Lavinia Douglas and then the eureka moment: the groom’s residence was Lemon Street and the father of the groom was Jack Brennan.
How did it solve the problem?
I found John’s daughter on the local electoral register and wrote to her. Everything was verified and we agreed to meet up in Newcastle at the home of another second cousin in Gosforth.
It was an astonishing meeting – like a reunion of old friends. This side of the family had been lost to us for 30 years. We swapped many tales and details and they gave me some extraordinary gifts – two photos showing two sets of my great great grandparents from Ireland (Brennan and Mealey). I had never dreamt of finding that!
They also told me all the history of John Brennan. He had worked as a medical officer in the Royal Navy and had three children with Ann Douglas, all still alive. Sadly, he died of a brain tumour in 1960 at the age of 45.
Did you discover anything else interesting along the way?
While watching the Who Do You Think You
Are? episode featuring Julie Walters I decided to pay a visit to the land of my ancestors’ birth: Ireland. I discovered a lot of second cousins in Castlecomer who were the descendants of my great grandfather’s youngest sister, Catherine. We had a great time. They pointed me to the place where my great great grandparents were buried, Kilgory. Another cousin showed me a handwritten letter from Thomas Brennan, my great grandfather’s cousin, who emigrated to America and ended up working with the NYPD. My next move will be to go to the United States!
What would your advice be to other family historians who hit an obstacle?
Never discount something at first glance simply because it does not match exactly what you are looking for. There may be more to the story.
Never trust a GRO registration or even the certificate itself. Mistakes are often made and not only in the spelling! Always try and verify with another source if you can.
It was an astonishing meeting – like a reunion of old friends