Hi Carleen,
It's quite a long story! It began more than 15 years ago when I tried to track down a copy of my grandfather's Irish birth certificate so that I could apply for an Irish passport. I could find no record of James Leonard Fletcher son of James Davoren and Amelia Quinn - but I did, almost by chance, find a record of a man called James Leonard Casey with very similar sounding parents. The name Davoren was the key. My uncle is called Davoren Fletcher. Mum knew that her father had been married before, but the story went that his first wife, and the father of his two elder daughters, had died.
It seemed to me that they Casey and Fletcher may be the same people. They had the same birthday - except Casey was born in 1886 and Fletcher claimed to be born in 1890. And Casey was born (to Irish parents) in SA, not Ireland. I obtained a copy of casey's marriage certificate to his first wife, and compared it to a copy of Fletcher's certificate to my grandmother, and their signatures were identical, except for the surname!
My uncle Davoren said that after the death of my grandfather in the mid forties, my grandmother (who lived in Armidale in nsw) advertised in the Melbourne papers for his family, but we don't know if she knew he had changed his name and advertised under Casey or Fletcher. My guess is she never knew.
I'll get my mother to send me the details that she has. From memory they were living in Melbourne when he died - because of the war they'd come south to live with my grandmother's sister. My mother has always wondered about her elder half sisters, but has never been able to track them down.
Let me know if you have any more questions and I'll ask mum.
Best,
Ralph
