May I just say - mine might be a very rare case - but I received an e mail 4 years ago from an Irish TV Director asking me if I would travel to Ireland to participate in a TV programme about a collision between The Oceanic and the SS Kincora off Tuskar Rock off the coast of Ireland 8th august 1901...I had been researching my gg grandfather who was lost at sea and was one of the 7 killed in that collision - my family were told my gg grandfather was lost at sea and his body never found ....a bit like your scenario.
this is what happened when I went to make the film - it transpired his body WAS found - but my family were never told ??....why
...we will never know - but we believe it may have been about "compensation"
...
The SS Kincora sank seven miles south of Tuskar Rock after colliding with The Oceanic, a huge liner that belonged to the White Star Line company. Seven men on board lost their lives, with the remains of only one of them – a Carl Freidrich Sacht – ever being found, as they washed ashore a few weeks later. Following an inquest, he was buried in Fethard-on-Sea. However, his family never knew this until they were contacted earlier this year by the director of the documentary, RoseAnn Foley.
After combing through church records and researching the events which followed the discovery of Sacht's body on the Ramston foreshore near Fethard, local historian Declan Ahearn was able to pinpoint where it is believed Sacht was buried. In the program, Sacht's great great grandson Allan Oakes, and his great granddaughter Jeannette Pimblett, travel there to visit the grave of their missing forebear, who was originally from Heligoland, off the coast of Germany. In a moving sequence, they pay their respects and lay flowers on his grave in St Mogue's Cemetary, finally putting the soul of Carl Freidrich Sacht to rest, 110 years after he was lost at sea.
so - you never know - this thread you have posted - may bring the same good fortune I received out of the blue ........after 110 years we were able to pay our resects to my gg grandfather - he was a British Subject - he was born 1846 on the island of Helogoland -British owned at the time of his birth.
if I hadn't have posted my research on
www.genealogistsforum.co.uk - that TV Director Maryann Foley would never have realised that the family of Carl Freirich Sacht were not aware that he had been washed ashore and buried without his family knowing ...22 days after he was lost at sea...
the very best of luck in your research....as I say - very rare - but you never know
Allan Oakes - Garstonite
