james wallace horan I
one of my passions is my family history. from my childhood until he died, my father loved to tell stories. he was irish to his very core and loved irish history. he loved to tell us that we were descended from brian boru…first high king of ireland. i hated to break it to him but i had to tell him that we were actually, most likely, descended from niall noígíallach, in english: niall o’ the nine hostages. this was later confirmed by a genealogical dna test that a family member took. my dad would have been tickled that the horans were guardians for the high kings but were thought so unruly that they were banned from inside the castle walls. they were still guardians but were not allowed to mingle with the rest of the castle population. that type of story would have been his type of thing!
i think my dad’s great interest in genealogy was not only pride in his irish heritage but probably the fact that his father deserted him at the age of 3, never to be seen again. he always said he never cared what happened to him and was better off without him.
it is exhilarating to make a breakthrough! i spent 13 years trying to locate my dad’s real father but with little to no information to go on, i couldn’t make headway. my grandmother refused to talk about him (with good reason) so it was difficult. i kept hoping to find that one little piece that would open the door.
in 2002, 4 years after my dad died, my cousin attended his college reunion. he happened to notice a woman with the same last name printed on her name tag – “horan”. they sat down to talk and realized that we probably shared the same grandfather. sometime later, she sent him the information that her father had been able to procure. that, along with stories that her father and grandmother passed on to her, pretty much sealed the deal. it was the same man.
peter with his father, stepmother and siblings. he's the one with his father's had on his shoulder...
i had a similar conundrum on my mom’s side of the family. my great-grandfather was the 4th child of jan henrik and susanna van engen. after his birth, susanna became ill and six days later, died. jan had 3 other small children to care for and between them and his farm, he had his hands full.
the picture is hazy but it seems that jan decided to give peter to the sister of susanna and her husband, the sluis family. from what i heard later on, peter was always welcome at his family home. he was included in the family photos and special occasions.
my grandmother knew very little about peter’s real parents. she didn’t even know his name when i asked her the first time. it was through an accidental discovery, that i found it. we were visiting my aunt nellie and looking through old photos and she found a family tree that she had to do as a high school project. on it was the name of peter’s father. it was like striking a vein of gold for me! i wasn’t aware at the time that the mother listed was actually peter’s step-mother, jan’s second wife. it was a wonderful discovery which set me on the path to finding peter’s birth family.
the netherlands keeps fantastic records so i was able to take both sides of my grandmother’s family way back. one line to 1475. those records are fuzzy but the links are there.
so to make my long story a bit longer, genealogy is a passion and one that i know will never be finished with. i’m excited every time i open family tree maker and ancestry.com.