A Nagging,Niggling Mystery solved

The McGuires were occasional visitors to the house. They were there on the day of my grandmother's funeral. I never understood who they were but knew there was a connection.

I thought of them over the years and wondered . Yesterday, out of the blue ,or ether. or wherever e-mails travel, came the answer. From Lindsay in Cumbria, England. Her mother was a McGuire. Efforts to trace her great- grandfather had heretofore come to a dead end.

There was a record of death of James McGuire aged twenty-three at Bartonholm. His death was registered by his mother. There was a record of marriage between James and Janet Fox and birth of John. After James death, Janet and John disappeared from records.

James and Janet had come separately from County Antrim in Ireland with their parents .They married in Kilmarnock.

There was record of a marriage between James McCafferty and Jane Fox of an address in Irvine. Jane was twenty-five and James, a bachelor, twenty-seven. They had a large family. The name John McGuire did not appear again.

Until this week. Lindsay was still searching and googled the name Bartonholm. It brought up my Blog ;"Setting the Record Straight" I had watched a T.V.documentary about an unknown soldier, buried where he fell in the mud in France in the first world war. along with sparse belongings. Research indicated he had been a Scottish coal miner who joined the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders hoping things could become better for his family.

I had a powerful negative reaction to the degrading depiction of life for coal mining families in the piece. The presumption that poor people who work hard to provide for their families have no sense of dignity, status or even self-respect has always grated.

I promptly posted a Blog of what I knew from my mother's stories of her childhood and my own experience. It was substantially different to the T.V. documentary . Writing it afforded me great satisfaction.

This week , it was read by Lindsay in Cumbria. Social conditions for past generations of her family has become as much an interest as family history. She was enjoying reading the Blog when the names James McCafferty and Jane Fox "jumped out at her "

An e-mail started an excited exchange that allowed us to fill in for each other a missing piece of the same puzzle. The McGuires who came to visit, were the family of my grandmother's half-brother,James son of Jane Fox, who is my great-grandmother and Lindsay's great-great-grandmother.

Lindsay found her lost great-grandfather and I learned more than I ever hoped to know about a woman who has been a strong and secret source of pride.

James and Jane had many children. After Jane died(I think) James bought a house at 100 Fullarton Street and lived in it with Mary his eldest daughter and her family,the Kennedys.

Several of his grandchildren became teachers. One, George McCafferty , became a priest and then a Canon in the Ayrshire Diocese of Galloway. Great grandchildren became teachers. At least five great grandchildren emigrated to Canada . The first, myself, became Mayor of Aurora, a small town in Ontario in the 1970s and continues to serve as a Councillor in the year 2009.

James McCafferty, had the advantage of an education .In the eighteen hundreds, it was not universal in Ireland. Only one member of the family might learn to read and write, usually a son. But that person was expected to assist whoever had not the advantage.

Jane could neither read nor write. But as well as raising a large family, she "kept a pig and knitted socks"

James lived until he was one hundred years old. Jane died years before him and five years before the birth of my mother.

Grandfather was remembered sitting up in bed with a long white beard ,wearing a red stocking cap and people still coming to see him with official papers to read and write responses for them.

There was intelligence, enterprise and a substantial contribution to their community. By any standard, their lives were successful.







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