Roots

For some reason, ones I am still not so clear on, I decided that composing a family tree was a good idea.

Maybe it's my age, maybe it's the fact that I want the boys to know where they come from, maybe it's because I am a little bit sad and disappointed that I have lost touch with some of my family or maybe it's a combination of all the above.

Starting this journey has been slightly complicated by a lack of information, particularly on my Irish ancestors and my Dad's.  I've come to realise how little I actually know about my father and where he came from.  There have been rumours of adoption, but I actually have NO idea how true or otherwise that may be.  I don't know who his parents were and his sister died, unbeknownst to me at the time, in 2005 so I can't even ask her.  My mother is vague on the details and I haven't been able to find any tangible information on him other than what I already know.  So I am trying to think of ways to find out the information that I need so that I can at least have a copy of his birth certificate.  Luckily for me, or maybe not as I have no idea what it contains yet, I can have a copy of his Military file.  I am hoping that this will have something like an emergency contact form with some names I don't already know on it.  Because he is dead, I have to send proof of that before they will send it to me, so I have ordered a copy of his death certificate today and hopefully in the next couple of weeks I will have some new leads.

I have also sent a letter to my cousin, one of a few living Murphy relatives. I sent him one nearly 5 years ago, just after Alex was born and when I learned that my aunt, his mother, had died 2 years earlier.  I don't know if he had already moved, or he just didn't want to talk to me...but thought I would take a punt, and try again, after I found an address on-line that is more than likely his current address.

My mother's side..well on her paternal side, has been slightly easier to trace and actually have quite a bit of info on them, confirmed back to my great, great grandfather.  The maternal side of her tree, however, is complicated by a couple of things.  One, the fact that I am having to deal with Irish records, or perhaps a lack thereof; and two, when my grandmother married my grandfather she was McFadden...but there are no McFadden's on the island I know they came from; they appear as Padden in both the 1901 and 1911 Census.  I have no idea how she got from being a Padden to a McFadden, and I have no idea how she got to England from Ireland.

It's been an interesting journey so far, and I still have a bit of work to do on my side of things to try and leave some stories and memories for the boys, and for any future ancestors who want to know where they came from.