Hi,
I don’t know if anyone can help me but I’m having a lot of difficulty finding my grandfather’s family.
He was born out of wedlock In August 1928 and from the pieces of information we have been given over the years, I actually think I have found his biological father (though, of course, I can’t be 100% certain). The tricky thing has been tracing his mother and the grandmother who raised him. These are the things I know for certain:
My grandad was John Joseph Murphy he was born in 1928 and lived in Clonegal, Carlow. He has actually lived all over the country and married my grandmother, Maura McNamee, in Offaly. He had 9 children and moved to England in the 60s and after returning to Offaly in the 90s, he came back to England and eventually died of cancer in Smethwick England in 2010. His mother was Harriet Byrne nee Murphy who died in 1992. Her husband was James Byrne and, when married, they moved to O’Hanrahan road in Carlow. My grandfather’s half siblings were Maura and Jimmy (Jimmy died 10 August in the 1960s and I know Maura was a nun at one point and moved to Queens, New York). I know his grandmother was Annie Murphy and she always lived in Clonegal - she died when he was about 15, after which, he went to the army as his stepfather wouldn’t let him move in with them (as I understand it).
It seems mad that I have (more than likely) found his unknown father and can only find information on my great grandmother as it relates to her husband (ie family grave, house move and marriage) and even more crazy that I can’t find his grandmother who stayed in clonegal. I know I’m up against it with the name “Murphy” but clonegal wasn’t a large place so I would have thought it would be easier than it’s proving to be. I have been using ancestry.co.uk, findagrave, family knowledge and articles from various Carlow history publications. I am new to this but I used to undertake investigations as part of my job so I’m a bit like a dog with a bone when it comes to these things.
I loved my grandad very much and have been thinking about him a lot lately. He was quite inscrutable in many ways because he had a tough auld life and he was very reluctant to talk about his history as it upset him too much. Now he has passed I don’t want my family to disappear into the annals of history just yet and I think it’s time that we reclaimed our identity. more than that, I don’t want my grandfather’s legacy to be one of shame - we are not ashamed of him, we love him and I hope he knew that it the end.
Any help or tips would be gratefully received.
