‘A gravestone helped solve a family mystery'

When Alan Hillier visited his great grandfather’s grave, he was shocked to solve a 20-year puzzle about another ancestor,

- Claire Vaughan

How long have you been doing your family history?

Over 20 years – my wife joined Bucks Family History Society first and then I caught the bug too! Our two young children also got involved when we visited churchyards in Buckinghamshire to hunt for memorial inscriptions.

What had you managed to uncover before hitting your brick wall?

I was researching the family of my great grandfather Thomas Wilson (1859-1912). He was baptised on 3 August 1859 in Killymuck Glebe, Tamlaght O’Crilly, Londonderry in Northern Ireland and his baptism record revealed that his father was dead. Thomas Senior had been a farmer. He was baptised in 1832 and married Jane O’Neil on 6 January 1853. The couple had two other children: James, baptised 25 September 1855, and Margaret, baptised 19 March 1854. As Thomas Junior was born in July or August 1859, his father had to have been alive until late 1858 up to August 1859, giving me a rough window for when he died. I desperately wanted to find out what had happened to him.

What was stopping you progressing your research?

When I first started trying to break down my brick wall 20 years ago, there wasn’t much information available online. I knew very little detail about the family and I couldn’t find any further records for the small hamlet of Killymuck Glebe, where Thomas Junior was baptised and the family had lived.

As no further records were accessible for Northern Ireland, that halted my research for that branch of the family for a long time.