Thomas Quinn and the mystery mining accident 1897

[dickiesam]

On the marriage cert he names his father as Thomas Quinn deceased so if he had just been a stepfather why would he have named him and not the next stepfather Jarvis?

Frank Wilcox may have felt it necessary to put a name in the 'father' column on the marriage cert so as not to admit to the world he was illegitimate. Happened a lot! He may have been told Thomas Quinn was his father, but that alone is not proof. It is hearsay. Further, he could not have used Thomas Jarvis as his father because he was most definitely not his biological father. His mother was a widow when she married Thomas Jarvis and Francis was at least 10 years old.

Also my mum's writing refers to Frank spending time with his uncle and grandfather Quinn. Would they have bothered if he was a stepson?

Similarly, his uncle and g.father may have been told the same 'father' story. But it would have been hearsay not proof.
Had Thomas Quinn been the father and acknowledged Francis as such, he could have put his name on the birth cert when the birth was registered or as an amendment when he married Francis' mother.

[HT100]

just another thought,
my mother wrote that Margaret was a protestant and Thomas a catholic but my granddad was raised a catholic and had a catholic marriage to my Gran
would finding out if Margaret was a protestant prove anything, e.g. that he must have been Thomas's son to have been raised a catholic? (by the way, i do have some paperwork for Margaret)

also, just to be devil's advocate, even if a man believes himself to be father to a child and is named on the birth cert, only the mother really knows if he is, so we could all be chasing false ancestors...
just because something is on a legal document doesn't make it true
in the end do we all just choose the narratives we prefer? or is that heresy on a genealogy forum?

[dickiesam]

just because something is on a legal document doesn't make it true

But the fact remains that it is much more likely to be true than hearsay.

And yes, it may prove to be a false truth. My maternal g.father Thomas [born 1878] persistently claimed his father was a Robert Emery. It was on 3 marriage certs and a number of Hackney Cab licence applications. Robert was a cabbie when he died in 1904 and his 'son' took over the cab. While Thomas' four older siblings were, according to their birth certs, definitely Robert's children, Thomas was not! Initially I wasn't able to find the family in 1881 but through the older children I had Robert Emery and his wife back to 1790.

Then with the help of this forum I finally located Thomas in 1881. I discovered his biological father was a 'blow-in' who lived with his mother while Robert was in India in the Army and Thomas' birth surname on the cert is McAnaspie with his parents named as James and Mary McAnaspie! I hadn't found him in the 1881 census because his mother called herself and the rest of her family [5 children in total] McAnaspie!

There's nowt as quare as folk, so we steer as close to the 'truth' as possible, without assumptions. And we all have family 'stories', some simple, some complicated, some have become elaborated on with the telling, and some are fictions to conceal mistakes or family embarrassments. Among my stories I have one of the latter which is a downright slander on the person named, an aunt's ex-husband!

[MaryA]

just because something is on a legal document doesn't make it true
in the end do we all just choose the narratives we prefer? or is that heresy on a genealogy forum?

You have hit the nail on the head, any document is only as good as the information given by the writer, and they could easily have been lying through their teeth.

Hearsay or heresy - no matter which, there is a school of thought that says don't accept as gospel any fact unless it can be supported in three ways. I think every one of us has probably come across an illegitimacy in our ancestry which we can never prove ..... unless of course you want to go down the DNA line, and even that may well prove inconclusive, but we'd be interested in hearing the results if you decide to try it.

[Blue70]

Gather as much information as you can from records and family information and try to build a true picture of past events. It's your narrative so if you want to document the Quinn line there's nothing wrong with that. They do have a connection to your family although it may be only through marriage.


Blue

[dickiesam]

Following Blue's post I am coming back to add that despite finding my g.father had a totally unexpected twist to his lineage and I had a new trail to follow, none of the research into Robert Emery was 'pruned from my tree' and dumped. He was the father of half-siblings of my g.father and as such was still part of my overall 'narrative'.

[HT100]

I suppose I'm interested in the Quinn line for a couple of reasons.
Firstly because there was vague talk about the link to Ireland in the family (one great grandparent on each side) which i don't really know anything about. We didn't have any Irish relatives etc, but having been brought up as Catholics it seems likely that there would be at least some connection to Ireland. It would be nice to find out what.

Secondly, I'd like to know more about Frank as he died a few months before I was born.
His life fascinates me.
He was born illegitimate in poor conditions, worked as a miner from very young. Then joined the navy and served for 8 years inc during WW1.
Later he became a barman and eventually ended up as a manager of a number of Threllfall's pubs. To me this is a meteoric rise (one mirrored by my grandmother who was working as a mill girl at 13 and ended up as a pub manageress with a fur coat!!!)
Sadly Frank's life ended quite tragically.
I suppose I'd like to know who Quinn was (great grandfather or not) to find a bit more about Frank.

Re skeletons in cupboards, I haven't started on my other brick wall - my paternal grandfather. And the fact that I discovered a couple of weeks ago that it's almost certain my Dad was illegitimate too. This is a complete shock - not in any moral sense - just a massive surprise and I'm pretty sure my Dad didn't know.

Thanks for all the interesting pointers and debate.
Helen

[dickiesam]

Helen, Once you have that marriage cert with Thomas Quinn's age and his father's name, we can see if there is a trail leading back to the Emerald Isle.

BTW, there is a possibility that Wilcox came from Ireland. In the 1901 Irish Census there are 74 Wilcox individuals and in 1911 there are 81. Seem to be concentrated in what is now Northern Ireland and County Cork. You never know!