The Trail of a Family
from
Donegal & Fermanagh
Ireland
Through London, Ontario, Canada
and
Akron, Ohio, USA,
then
back to Fermanagh
The facts as presented:
An email was received from a woman living in England, where the initial request was to search for and obtain a copy of a woman's mother's 1919 Ontario Birth Certificate. I explained that in mid-2022, Ontario birth registration records from 1917 and earlier were not within the public domain, and details were provided which would allow for the woman herself to apply for a certified copy of the registration record. Subsequent to this, more information was forthcoming concerning gaps in the woman's understanding of facts surrounding the woman's grandparents, her mother, and her mother's siblings.
The challenge:
Could I verify stories related to the woman by her mother with respect to 'speak-easies' in the United States, time in an orphanage, and the family's deportation from the United States to Ireland? The chase was on, or, in Sherlock Holmes's terminolgy, 'the game was afoot'!
The results:
Facts concerning the woman's mother's older brother were picked up in London, Ontario, Canada, arising from his birth there in 1916. London City Directories were surveyed, and it quickly became apparent that the grandfather had moved to Akron, Ohio, with a widowed sister [she had been married in Quebec City in 1916, and her husband died just a short while later], just before the birth of the woman's mother in 1919. The grandmother followed on to Akron shortly after the birth of her daughter in 1919. Akron City Directories were surveyed, along with federal US census records and a number of other records. The woman's mother and older brother were settled in to an 'orphanage' in Akron after the father was imprisoned for abandonment, even as at least one more sibling was born. The grandfather's prison record was obtained, and he and his family were traced through eventual deportation from the USA via New York, landing in England at Southampton, and final residence 'back home' in rural reaches of County Fermanagh in Ireland. The grandfather's family in Fermanagh was expanded upon, and his grandparents, parents, siblings, and many nieces and nephews were identified and tracked through time. The grandmother's family in northern reaches of County Donegal was expanded upon, and the mother's grandparents, parents and siblings were also identified. The woman's mother eventually made her way to England, where she married and raised her family, including the woman who contacted me initially seeking her mother's Ontario birth certificate.
The response:
Thank you Bruce, that's fantastic! I'm very pleased.... That information is impressive.... I'm very excited about all that you have found out".
- - - - Project #220624 (completed 11 August 2022)
- Bruce D. Murduck
- Category: 2022