Mystery dinner invitations

It's one of those interview or cocktail hour questions: If you could invite [insert number here] people, past or present, to dinner, who would you invite? Common responses are people like Albert Einstein, Johnny Cash, and even Anakin Skywalker. 

But to the family researcher, this would be an amazing opportunity. I would love to hear from my great-grandmother Julia about the love affair that brought her daughter into the world--and how she felt about that daughter finding her birth father as a grown woman. I would also ask if she actually married my great-grandfather, and what on earth they were doing having a baby in a mining town in Nevada when their lives were in San Francisco. 

I would also invite my great-grandfather, who accepted Julia, a woman with a past (and a young daughter), and gave them his name and heart. I would want to talk to him about why he split from his family in New York, how he got across the country (was he aiming for San Francisco, or is it just where he ended up?). I'd also love to know how, if he wasn't speaking to (or about) his family, did he end up with his older brother's trophy. I actually would love sitting down with the entirety of the New York Walshes, even if they might well empty my stores of whiskey. 

I think I would enjoy talking with my great uncle Vincent, who drove a flashy car, married a new-age German woman (who sang opera and penned poetry), and who left his house to his secretary, a spinster who kept the business running while he was living it up with his wife. He's also the younger brother who stepped up for his nephew when my grandfather died prematurely. As an aside, I would let him know that we share a birthday, and ask if he knew the circumstances of his birth. We'd probably share some laughs, too. Of course, I'd set the table with his wife's silver, which was passed on to me. 

I might also include my Grammie, with whom we shared meals every Sunday, and for all her commitment to family research left us precious little about her own life and family. I know she was social, and I would love to sit with her, and have her tell me who the smiling people in the group pictures were. I'd really like to ask about George, who is clearly her beau, but did not become her husband. We would use her silver, monogramed with her maiden initials on the table.

I would be beyond ecstatic to fill my weekend calendars with dinner parties for each and every one of my brick walls, but alas, that is not part of the question, and those amazing conversations will never take place. 

They say that dead men don't speak, but the fact that part of them literally forms part of us in the form of inherited DNA, does give voice to them, confirming the family lore, or exposing secrets buried over the generations. Those of us with stamped letters and envelopes sealed with a kiss and Victorian hair art will hold on to them, as they may allow our ancestors to speak once more, even if we can’t invite them to dinner.

A message from the past that may speak to us

Edward and the mystery pitcher

My mother was the family historian, inheriting family charts, oodles of photographs, and of course, the odd family heirloom. The Civil War blanket that belonged to 3GGF George, the silver teaspoon from colonial cousin Polly, and the ornate Victorian Pitcher, won by Edward Walsh.

It is this latter item that was a mystery: the Walshes, family lore told us, came from Bandon in County Cork, Ireland; the immigrant ancestor was named Thomas, and his wife (according to a bank signature card) was Mary O'Brien. My father managed to track down Thomas and his large family in New York in 1850--a beautiful, clear hand had transcribed all the names legibly. A daughter born in Ireland, and other children are listed, but no Edward. The youngest son, David is the man my father remembered as his grandfather, a man who had left the Catholic Church and his family behind in New York. 

In the mid 1990s I had the opportunity to spend a month in Ireland. I took advantage of the Thursday evening hours to search microfilms of Irish Parish registers, and even ventured down to Bandon to walk the local cemeteries. I came home with some seemingly close matches, but nothing that popped out as "our people." For another twenty years, my father and I searched any index we could find to no avail; he built up a stack of microfilm request cards at the Family History Center. The path had grown cold.

My father and mother passed away, and I found a note that Edward's pitcher should go to our son, since he was studying fire science--somewhere along the line she had decided that Edward must have been a fireman, but it was a guess at best. And there was still no Edward in my tree, and I had no idea how to add him.

And then, in 2017, the family decided to do DNA testing; me, my brother, and son. At first, there were only strong matches on my mother's side, but after a couple of years, more, unidentified matches emerged--and by using Leeds sorting, I discovered three new surnames that could only be from my father's paternal side. I excitedly messaged each of them, and eagerly awaited their reply--could they help solve the Edward mystery?

To this day, none of the matches have responded, but I spent my waiting time building a tree for them. Based on the six relationships they posted, I traced their line up and down, and sideways. And then I found it: one set of matches connected to the Irish-born daughter, Mary! I turned my efforts to the next line, and there it was in a New York Times article: "Police Captain Edward Walsh died late last evening, after lying at the point of death for several weeks, at the home of his son-in-law." The son-in-law's name was in my DNA list, and the line seemed to fit, but I wanted to be sure.

I went through some of the more distant DNA  matches, and on a whim, contacted one in Ireland--in County Cork, but not in Bandon. Not only did she respond quickly, she was able to verify the two children born to Thomas and Mary--in Ballinhassig, County Cork. And one of them was named Edward. It all fit together, and the numbers in the DNA don't lie. Once I found a picture of him there was no doubt--he looks like his brother and nephews. 

And the pitcher? It was an award of valor for his role in defending his fellow officers during the Haughmont riots in New York, and it set him on a path to becoming a well-respected police chief.

The mystery pitcher