James Calvert - The Next Chapter

My last blog post was in regards to James Calvert, my 3rd Great Grandfather. That post was over 2 years ago. I have more news on this, and it is very awesome, to say the least.

I had mentioned that I had someone dig up information on James Calvert via his military records. As part of that digging, it was discovered that James listed his city of birth as "Rockcerry", county Monaghan circa 1824 and was a farmer by trade prior to his joining the Dragoons. His marriage certificate listed his father as Michael Calvert who was also a farmer by trade.

First, let me emphasize that my family has been searching for ANY information on James Calvert and his family for many, many generations. Up until my discoveries with James' military records, there has been precious little known about where James was born or anything about his family. I am totally excited to say that there is even more known now than ever before, and it may be the opening door to an exciting vista of my family's heritage in Ireland.

I took my information about James and did some contacting around to try and get a better bead on his family in Ireland. Ireland is a difficult nut to crack for genealogists. The majority of Irish people were/are Catholic, and it was technically illegal to be Catholic in Ireland until the mid- to late 1800s. So records going that far back are difficult to locate, as it was also illegal to keep such records. When the Irish gained some measure of independence and were able to practice their preferred religion, they were able to keep and maintain better records. Even so, the Catholic Church has been very suspicious and reluctant to allow any access to their records for people researching their families. You can speculate to the reasons why, but the simple fact is, that for a long time, it was hard to access any such information.

Even so, it was not a solid given that the Calverts were Catholic. In fact, given that James joined the British Dragoons, it would seem that he, at least, was loyal to the Crown, and thus unlikely to be Catholic. Regardless, Irish records are difficult to access, even for the Protestant records. Unlike the willingness of the Church of England, in England, to allow digitizing and indexing of birth/christening/marriage/death/etc. records. Even so, the number of records in England alone are staggering. I believe I've heard that less than 15% of the records in England have even been digitized yet.

But I digress. The popularity of genealogy now has opened new doors and allowed people to research things more, even in Ireland. After some digging, I made contact with an independent researcher in Ireland who took on my project and began to dig on James given the information I had from his military records.

And it seems I hit the jackpot! The were able to locate solid proof of James' christening, and also identified his mother, father, and 7 siblings, including one other brother who also joined the British Dragoons.

So, here is the family found by the researchers:

• Thomas baptized 18 November 1811 of Michael Calvert of Tanmacnally
• George baptized 24 September 1815 of Michael Calvert and Jane Burnie of Milltown
• Elizabeth baptized 14 February 1817 of Michael Calvert and Jane McBurney of Milltown
• Susanna baptized 15 August 1819 of Michael and Jane Calvert of Tanmacnally
• Margaret baptized 14 November 1821 of Michael and Jane Calvert of Tanmacnally
• John baptized 8 September 1822 of Michael and Jane Calvert of Tanmacnally
• Edward baptized 5 October 1828 of Michael and Jane Calvert of Tanmacnally

In the same parish registry, they found James, who was baptized on 1 May 1823, to Michael and Jane Calvert, which the name matches to the name on James' marriage record. 

This opens new windows. I have been out to an Irish records site and have confirmed the existence on that site of the records mentioned above. I haven't dug in yet to find any others or any other records; the site requires a subscription and I want to get my act together before I pay to dig through records. It's not terribly expensive, but I want to minimize my time subscribed to get the maximum information out of it before I start to transfer information to familyhistory.org. 

The information I had was enough to establish the existence of the family and qualify them as being eligible for submission for temple work. I took the 9 names (7 siblings and mother/father) this week with me to the temple and performed the baptisms with my son Ethan as proxy for the males and my daughter Savanna as a proxy for the females. 

Now, I can tell you that in my over 20 years of experience as a Young Men's leader, I have performed baptisms and confirmations for the dead many, MANY times. I haven't ever had a problem getting through the prayers for those ordinations. But doing these names, knowing it was me, a great-great-etc-grandson performing the ordinance for them with my children as proxies, and also knowing the GENERATIONS of my family that have been searching in vain for this family, was deeply emotional for me. I also believe it was something more than just that. This family has been found and has had the work done for them in the temple. I can't say they will accept it, or they would even want to, as it's still their choice. But I just have a very, very strong feeling that at least a few of them were very interested in the events of that day. 

I have heard stories of members of the church doing this kind of work and KNOWING those people were there for their ordinances. Some even say they could see them there. I have had no such experience. But I can tell you, that I am not really that emotional of a person, and I felt something there for those ordinances. I can't deny that at all. It was real; I know that much. And I really firmly believe that there are members of James' family that have waited a long, LONG time for what was done for them that night. And they are very happy now.

I believe this is a new door opened for my family. The Calvert family has been found. There is more to find, and the hints and clues are way more available and tantalizing than ever before. New technologies are available, more availability to records are there, more ability to find families are a new reality. There is more to do here, and I intend to continue my efforts. 

Once again, my post is getting long, but I hope you have felt some of the joy I and my family have experienced in this journey. I am humbled that I have been given this opportunity to open doors that have been closed for so long for my family. I know my Mom for one would be overjoyed to know that James' family has been found and their work is being done. In some ways, I would suspect she had a hand in this.