Census search leads to long lost family grave

Kate Pendred

Publication of the 1926 Census prompted Maureen Whyte from Turin to delve deeper into her ancestry and led to her discovering the grave of her maternal great grandparents in Ballyglass Cemetery.

Maureen and her partner Sean have been busy restoring the grave of James and Brigid Fagan in the old part of the cemetery. It was first opened in 1921 and last opened when her grandmother died in 1950.

“I always had an interest in my ancestry, but even more so since my mother Noreen passed away in 2010 and my uncle Brendan, who was a father to me, died four years ago,” Maureen said. “When your nearest and dearest pass, you realise all the questions you should have asked them.”

Maureen’s father Patrick Whyte died in a hit and run accident outside the Roadhouse, Mullingar, in the 1970s when she was just 18 months old and her younger brother was three weeks old.

The family were living at Rathwire, and Maureen’s maternal uncle Brendan Fagan stepped in to help his sister raise her 10 children. Brendan, who died in June 2022, was one of the first children Baptised in the Cathedral of Christ the King, Mullingar, and one of the oldest residents and last remaining Fagan on Patrick Street. He had worked for 30 years at St Loman’s Hospital, and was a well-known and popular character in the town.

“My uncle used to talk about an uncle of his, Kit Fagan from Patrick Street, who had passed away. He couldn’t remember where the grave was and when he died I thought it would be nice to find it,” Maureen said.

She managed to get the date of Kit’s death through a genealogy website. “You can get birth and death certs for free online, or you can look them up in the general records office in Roscommon County Council,” she advised.

Having found out when Kit died, Maureen walked around Ballyglass Cemetery until she discovered his grave. She then decided that his parents must be buried there too “as they only lived down the road”.

“Westmeath County Council has the Ballyglass records online, except for some of the older ones that you can’t make out,” she said. She started trawling through the records for James and Brigid and found them on the website and then she found the grave.

“We had to scrape away at the headstone. The grave hadn’t been opened since 1950 and it was overgrown. The headstone had fallen over and was covered in moss. We straightened it and the kerbing up,” Maureen explained.

Her great grandfather James had featured in the 1911 Census but was dead when the 1926 Census was taken. Brigid lived to be 88 and died in 1950.

“The sad thing is that Brendan, who was great man for the church and visiting the graveyard, would have walked past this grave many times and not known it was there. I would love to have told him. He would have been only 14 when it was last opened,” Maureen mused. She pointed out that there are many old graves in that part of the graveyard and it is “very historical”.

“Nowadays, with so much change and so many diversions, we need to remember the people who built this country. They had a harder life than we have and we should remember and honour them by keeping their graves, if we can find them,” Maureen said.

She is determined to maintain her great grandparents’ grave. She intends to get the inscription restored and to put flowers and chippings on it in time for Cemetery Sunday in August. She hopes that in 100 years’ time someone will do the same for her. Maureen would encourage people to explore the 1926 Census as it can be helpful in finding ancestors and their final resting places.