Tag: Liverpool

When a genealogy search ends in disappointment

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Ford Cemetery
There are thousands of gravesites at Ford Cemetery in Liverpool, England.

Genealogy searches can be both rewarding and frustrating and it sometimes end in disappointment. Today I experienced both highs and lows when researching my ancestors in Liverpool, UK.

The rewards were that I found the plot numbers of my great grandmother’s and great grandfather’s grave sites. I found the plot numbers when I was searching microfilm in the Liverpool Central Library which has an excellent family search section. The entire top floor of the library is dedicated to family research. Also, on Tuesday afternoons members of the Liverpool Genealogical Society are there to assist others in their family research.

My cousin Erin and I traveled from Dublin, Ireland on the ferry and then took a train through the Wales countryside to Liverpool. We arrived Monday afternoon and are staying near the Albert Docks, a recently renovated section of docklands in Liverpool. The Albert Docks have museums, shops, restaurants and the Liverpool Eye, a ferris wheel much like the London Eye. After exploring the docks and then getting some rest, we set aside Tuesday for genealogical research.

gravesite
I’m standing on my great grandmother’s grave. She is buried there with her second husband.

Both my paternal grandmother’s parents died and were buried in Liverpool. Peter McEvoy and Mary Ann Clarke emigrated from County Monaghan, Ireland to Liverpool from Ireland in the late 1800s. Peter died in 1900 when my grandmother, Rose, was six years old. Mary Ann Clarke married again to a man named William Harold. I believe William (no relation to me) died in 1922. Mary Ann (Clarke) Harold passed away in the 1960’s.

While Erin scanned microfilm for family obituaries, I looked at indexes of Ford Cemetery, the Roman Catholic Cemetery in Liverpool. I was extremely lucky and found plot sections and numbers for both Peter McEvoy and Mary Ann Harold my great grandmother’s name after she married her second husband

Armed with the information, Erin and I ordered an Uber ride and headed for the cemetery in drizzly weather. When we arrived all we saw were thousands and thousands of grave markers. There was no map, no directory or no person to assist us in finding the grave. Searching for our ancestors would be like searching for a needle in a haystack. We had no idea how we were going to find the graves and wandered around for awhile looking for someone to help us. Later, we even got lost looking for the front gate.

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James O’Rourke: A life cut short by a devastating disease

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James O'Rourke
James O’Rourke

I have wanted to know the cause of my great grand uncle James O’Rourke’s death and to find out why he only lived to his mid-30s. I went online to General Register Office in Northern Ireland and did a search for James’ death certificate. I was unable to read the horrible handwriting on it, so I ordered a copy to be mailed to my home. Yesterday, after at least two weeks waiting, I received it in my mailbox. James died April 20, 1902 in the Kilkeel Workhouse. James’ cause of death as phthisis (a word I had to look up) or in other words, tuberculosis.

When I think about what happened to him, I’m deeply saddened. James died at the age of 36 in 1902 in Kilkeel, Ireland. He was in the prime of his life. He was married and had a young child — Mary Catherine O’Rourke. James also had a job in Liverpool, maybe not a very desirable job, but he was earning money and supporting his family. The family frequently came back to his home in Ireland to visit.

We know little about James’ life before he died. What we do know is this: He was born in Ballintur  near Killowen in what is now Northern Ireland in 1864. His parents were James O’Rourke and Mary Hughes O’Rourke and he was the couple’s third child. Tragically their second child, Francis, died in infancy from cholera. James was named after his father and had three brothers growing up: my great grandfather John, who was older than he, and two younger brothers, Thomas and Francis.

James at some point — probably in the early 1890s — left Ireland for Liverpool because there was little work in Ireland outside of farming during the late 19th century and early 20th century. James married Rose Rogers, the sister of his elder brother’s wife. He worked on the docks in Liverpool as a coal porter, probably loading and unloading coal on the many ships that docked in England’s busiest port. James and Rose had two children, both girls, though one, Annie Josephine Ivy, died tragically when she was eleven months old  in 1901.

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