You just never know where the next link in the genealogy puzzle will come from or when.
Yesterday I discovered an article written for the The Irish News in November 2012 about a number of articles recently donated by an 80+ year old woman that were gifts given to her mother by the Delap family when her parents married. Her parents work for the Delap family as servants at Monellan Castle/Monellan House. What caught my attention was this - the woman who had donated the items had the last name of Farren. The same last name as my great great grandfather, William James Farren.
The article provided me with enough information to link my great great grandfather's place of birth to his family who were still living on the estate at the time of the 1901 census.
http://www.irishnews.com/news/heirlooms-shed-light-on-donegal-s-downton-1210156#
I expected, after reading the article to find a large Farren clan who had spent generations on the estate in service to the Delap family. Perhaps I was a very distant relation of the woman mentioned in the article. What I found instead was a single entry on the 1901 census for a widow with the last name of Farren and her 2 sons, Thomas and Joseph, ages 15 and 12. The widow's name - Letitia Farren. The only previously known fact of my great great great grandmother was her name, obtained from the enlistment records for my great great grandfather William James Farren. That name was Lettie Farren. With no other Farren's listed on the grounds of Monellan in 1901, it had to be the same woman.
William was not listed as living with his mother and brothers on the 1901 census, and so far I haven't been able to exactly locate where he was living at the time but from the article Ms Farren's father had 2 brothers, one who was a coachman and the other the estate carpenter. Ms Farren's father was the head gardener of the estate.
Since William would have been about 18 years old in 1901 and the era and circumstances, I assume being the eldest son he would have already have been working for a number of years by that point. Since I know that he was working as a railway porter in 1911 and had left the Monellan estate, I feel it would be reasonable to assume that William was the brother from the article that worked as a coachman on the estate. Head gardener and estate carpenter would have been trades that were learnt over many years of remaining on the estate grounds in service to the Delaps. Since William didn't stay at Monellan, it would stand to reason that the skills acquired as a coachman would be the most transferable skill set to that of a railway porter.
So who was Letitia Farren? A widow by the age of 46 and no children younger than 12 years old, her husband John must have died sometime about 1889, at the very latest 1901 before the census. According to the census she was a seamstress. The article states that Ms Farren's grandmother was a lady's maid for the Delaps and would have traveled with the family. Ms Farren's grandmother would have been the same Letitia Farren. A seamstress's skills would be easily transferable and much needed to the ladies of the House.
1901 census records show Letitia and her sons living in House 3 on Monellan estate. It was a sizable, for the time, dwelling of 3 rooms, a cowshed, a barn and a turf house. The house was listed as owned by James Delap. Compared to the other houses sizes listed on the same page of the census do not appear to have as many additional outbuildings attached to them. Perhaps this indicates that Letitia Farren held a fairly high position in the Big House, perhaps a lady's maid?
It just goes to show. You never know where the next link in the chain will come from. It's not every day you find a distant relative in a newspaper article. Especially a 1st cousin 3 times removed.
