EUREKA MOMENT
How Sheila Foreman uncovered a heart-breaking story of lost and found
How long have you been doing family history?
I began researching my family history in 1983 when I inherited a Bible that had belonged to my mother’s paternal grandparents. Although I managed to research my mother’s ancestors fairly extensively, my father’s side of the family was almost completely unknown.
What had you uncovered before hitting your brick wall?
All I knew about my father’s origins was the name by which I knew him, Terence Patrick O’Connor, and the date and place of birth he declared when filling in the 1961 census. I was a nosy child even back then!
I also had my parents’ marriage certificate, which gave his father’s name and occupation. He had been a “medical practitioner”, but I couldn’t find him in any medical registers.
My father’s place of birth was given as Montreal, so I applied for a copy of his birth certificate, but the Canadian authorities were unable to find a matching record in the 10 years either side of 1907. I then tried searching in Ireland and England, but there was no trace of one there either.
What was stopping you from progressing your research?
Nothing checked out. I even went on holiday to Montreal and searched in person, using every variation of the name I could possibly think of. I began to think that I would never find my father’s family.
How did you try to solve the problem initially?
When the 1911 Irish census went online ( census.nationalarchives.ie), I found a child matching my father in the Nazareth Lodge Junior Industrial School, Belfast. It was then I remembered a comment that my mother had once made, saying she was sure that “some kind of children’s home” had been involved in his upbringing.
The child I found in the census was five years older than my father’s declared age, but I still considered it a possible match because my father had always seemed older than might have been expected.
I managed to obtain some school records from the Sisters of Nazareth, but they only gave me minimal information: just his name and the date he had been admitted. Apparently he was only about three-and-a-half years old and had been found “wandering the streets with no proper guardianship”.
At the age of 11 my father was then sent across the country to St Columba’s Industrial School in Killybegs, Co. Donegal, where he remained until he was 16.
What was the ‘eureka’ moment?
I am a member of A Letter from Ireland ( aletterfromireland.com), a genealogy website that has a private ‘Green Room’ where subscribers can talk about their Irish research. Its members provide a lot of mutual support through the various discussion boards, and it was there I discovered that a local historian had written a book about St Columba’s Industrial School.
Feeling curious, I contacted the author, who told me that the school records were held in the Raphoe Diocesan Archives in Letterkenny. I then wrote to the archives to tell them what I was looking for, and took myself over to Ireland armed with a camera and a mobile scanner.
Thanks to the help of fellow researchers, my brick wall of 30 years had been broken
Once again, the information they had was fairly minimal, but they did have the child’s date of birth and – in a pencilled note at the bottom of the page – the address of a Mrs O’Connor in Belfast claiming to be his mother. I thought I was getting somewhere at last, but I still could not find a matching birth registration.
Later, when browsing the Ireland Reaching Out message boards ( irelandxo. com/ireland-xo/message-board), I noticed that someone had mentioned that Industrial Schools sometimes changed children’s names.
I posted what I knew about my father, and within 24 hours a wonderful man in Belfast had cross-referenced the information with local civil registration indexes, finding that the date of birth matched an entry for a boy named Cairns O’Connor.
The boy’s father, also named Cairns, was then located in a Belfast street directory living at 77 Stanfield Street – the same address from the record I had found at the Raphoe Diocesan Archives. The mystery was solved!
How did it feel?
I couldn’t believe it! Thanks to the help of fellow researchers, my brick wall of 30 years had been broken. It was fantastic to finally obtain a copy of my father’s birth certificate – something he never had himself. Incidentally, I don’t think the change of first name was deliberate. I think “Cairns” was simply misheard, because it was so unusual.
Have you discovered anything else as a result?
I began to trace backwards from my father’s birth record and soon identified all four of his grandparents.
On his paternal side, I have managed to get as far back as my great great grandparents, but I have hit another brick wall as they would have been born in the 1820s and 1830s and the parish registers are quite scarce.
I also suspect that my great great grandfather had more than one name, one of which might have been used to distinguish him from the multitude of Patrick (O’) Connors! On most of his children’s records he is “Kearns” Connor, but on the record of my great grandfather’s second marriage he is simply “Patrick”. I assume Kearns was a surname in a previous generation, but that brick wall still has to come down.
I haven’t yet had time to get beyond my great grandparents on my father’s maternal line (McPolin/McPoland), but I will do this soon.
What would you say to another researcher who’s got stuck?
People with local knowledge can help you break down apparently insurmountable walls. So if there is a group with local experience – be it a family history society or a Facebook page – then make full use of them.