Show Posts
1
The Common Room / Re: Help Needed to find Army & BMD Records for Alexander Walsh in Ireland & India
« on: Thursday 28 January 21 21:19 GMT (UK) »
Yes, David - what a nice surprise to pick up a reply after this time! - I am indeed descended directly from Margaret McConnell née Walsh, daughter of Alexander and Catherine.
Margaret Walsh married William McConnell at St Mary's, St George's Fort, Madras in 1870. William was in the regular Army. They had a daughter, also Margaret, who married my great-great grandfather George Saul in Madras in 1890. He was also there with the regular army (i.e. not East India Co). They returned to England, to Oldbury in the West Midlands, after the birth of their first child. Their second child, Martha, is my great grandmother. My parents have a recollection of Margaret, known as "Granny Saul", as being of Indian appearance, and that links to a 1% incidence of Indian DNA on the first occasion that I submitted my own DNA sample for analysis. I actually spent a week in Chennai a couple of years ago to try to see some of the relevant sites.
I need to check what the rules and methods are about sharing contact details (it's been a while since I've been on here) but in principle I'd be happy to fix a Zoom or Skype chat sometime to share my findings and scanned images with you via email. I haven't been actively searching for a year now, having reached a practical limit, so I would need to have my notes in front of me to add any more detail.
For Alexander Walsh himself, the Loughree that is repeatedly given as PoB in his service records (2015 is correct by the way) is an oddity. An Irish expert explained to me that there is a body of water of that name in Co Westmeath, but the town is Loughrea and is in Co Galway. I seem to recall just one document with that county against his name, and at the time I thought it was an error. Now I wonder whether that was the original, and that the Co Westmeath connection is a repeated error on successive copied documents. Who knows? It would be unlikely for anyone to give Loughree as a place of birth. If he was illiterate (quite likely), this could conceivably just be a bureaucratic error and really we need to look at Co Galway, but of course that is only my speculation.
Best wishes,
Graham Yapp
Margaret Walsh married William McConnell at St Mary's, St George's Fort, Madras in 1870. William was in the regular Army. They had a daughter, also Margaret, who married my great-great grandfather George Saul in Madras in 1890. He was also there with the regular army (i.e. not East India Co). They returned to England, to Oldbury in the West Midlands, after the birth of their first child. Their second child, Martha, is my great grandmother. My parents have a recollection of Margaret, known as "Granny Saul", as being of Indian appearance, and that links to a 1% incidence of Indian DNA on the first occasion that I submitted my own DNA sample for analysis. I actually spent a week in Chennai a couple of years ago to try to see some of the relevant sites.
I need to check what the rules and methods are about sharing contact details (it's been a while since I've been on here) but in principle I'd be happy to fix a Zoom or Skype chat sometime to share my findings and scanned images with you via email. I haven't been actively searching for a year now, having reached a practical limit, so I would need to have my notes in front of me to add any more detail.
For Alexander Walsh himself, the Loughree that is repeatedly given as PoB in his service records (2015 is correct by the way) is an oddity. An Irish expert explained to me that there is a body of water of that name in Co Westmeath, but the town is Loughrea and is in Co Galway. I seem to recall just one document with that county against his name, and at the time I thought it was an error. Now I wonder whether that was the original, and that the Co Westmeath connection is a repeated error on successive copied documents. Who knows? It would be unlikely for anyone to give Loughree as a place of birth. If he was illiterate (quite likely), this could conceivably just be a bureaucratic error and really we need to look at Co Galway, but of course that is only my speculation.
Best wishes,
Graham Yapp