7,000km trip to uncover family links

7,000km trip to uncover family links

7 September 2016

A CASTLE in the family, valuable paintings and a church monument dedicated to a family member — when Canadian Graham Bell decided to trace his ancestry, he had little idea of the surprises ahead.

Recently retired, the Vancouver man knew he needed plenty of free time to explore his roots, based 7,000 kilometres away in Downpatrick.

To get started, Graham turned to a silver trinket and paintings his family had purchased from a family estate following the death of an elderly relative in Scotland.

When his great great aunt Minnie Bertha Jordan died, her extended family was given the option of purchasing an item from her estate before it was divided.

Graham admits the silver snuff box caught his eye as a “kind of cool item to have”, while his dad chose some landscape paintings.

While he enjoyed owning the little piece of history — despite admitting little intention of trying snuff — Graham said the paintings bought by his dad and other relatives maintained a link to Northern Ireland through their scenes of County Down.

Little did he know that when he began to research his family tree, he would discover that not only were the paintings originals of the popular 19th century County Down painter JW Carey, which are valued at several thousand pounds, but the snuff box was that of his great-great-great grandfather Hugh Martin, a prominent founding member of the Downpatrick Freemasons.

Recently making a concerted effort to read faded inion on the snuff box, he realised it was dedicated to Hugh Martin in 1855, with later research revealing an obelisk to this same ancestor in the Down Parish Church graveyard.

Visiting Downpatrick this week to visit the obelisk for the first time, Graham said he has enjoyed visiting the spots depicted in the Carey paintings and capturing updated images of the scenes for his family.

He has now sent these pictures of Jane’s Shore, the Mourne Mountains, the Quoile Bridge and Rossglass back to Canada for his family to compare to the original illustrations.

“We visited my aunt in Glasgow when I was younger and I remember her talking about art classes in Downpatrick and holidays in a rented cottage in Killough,” he said.

“The family must have chosen to support Carey as an artist as there are about eight of his paintings in the family and now we realise he was a very popular watercolorist at the turn of the last century. Two of his paintings are held by Down Museum.

“We also have an original sketch by him, which we believe is quite rare.”

During his trip this week, Graham was granted a private visit of Jordan’s Castle in Ardglass after tracing Jordan ancestors back to the twelfth century when they arrived in Northern Ireland with John De Courcey. 

He was also invited to a farm owned by distant relatives outside Ardglass, which can be traced back to the 18th century, while enjoying a visit to Downpatrick Non Subscribing Presbyterian Church where relatives worked as Sunday School teachers before emigrating.

Keen to hear from anyone else who may know of his ancestry, Graham says his discoveries have been so rewarding that he understands why exploring lineage is becoming an almost natural part of the ageing process.

The familial contacts he has made, he says, has made his trip completely different to other holidays with his new-found connections giving him access to areas he might never have seen.

“There are all different reasons to travel and I have travelled a lot,” he said.

“You can go for scenic beauty, history, food, wineries or distilleries, and now there are more and more of people who travel for genealogy. It has been fascinating and adds a layer to what people might normally do when they come to an area.

“The bigger the world gets the smaller you want to make it. This, for me, has been a very positive experience.”