Update:
Well slow drop by slow drop I am beginning to squeeze small things, which help a great deal from various older members of my family. today I found out the name of the regiment my GG was in during WW1. I looked it up and, Bingo, his medals record :-)
This has raised a number of questions;
The Regiment is different (Connaght rangers) to the one on the signing up form (Irish Fuisiliers) I discovered which has the signature so like my Dads which he and I were so convinced about. However that was in 1893 so Dad says he probably signed up in 1893 when he was 18, was demobbed at some point after that and then signed up again at the outbreak of WW1. The more recent record is all about events during WW1.
Would that have been possible?
Which brings me back to the census return of 1911 at Kilnaleck where he is described as a 'vagrant', why would a soldier be described thus?
I need somehow to follow the earlier information a little more to see if there is any more about what he did in the army during that time, or if it is in fact him at all. But, I have no idea how???
And Rose Ann, during all this time, must have been somewhere with 2 children all on her own, or was she?
These are the early years of my Grandads life which NOBODY knows anything about! It's as if he just materialised the day before he married my Grandma and his history begins there- so frustrating!
