Digging into the family tree a year or so ago, I happened along a branch with a member whose death certificate listed him as passing away in Randolph, MA. This was very interesting to me as Randolph is where I have lived for the past 10 years. When my husband and I bought our house we were under the impession that neither of us had any friends or family in this area or with any with ties at all to the South Shore community.
But then, at first Kiran Kilday born of Ireland didn't have any either, what brought him here, I wonder? Did he and his wife see a realtor advertisement stating that homes in thier price range were available in a town they never heard of, like us?
Kieran Kilday was my Grandmother's maternal Uncle. I have no idea why neither myself or my Mother (who also now owns a house in Randolph) had ever heard of him before finding his name on a list of birthdates in a notebook buried in the attic of my Grandparent's home but such as it is, it is true. We never heard of him and yet here he is, joined to us by DNA and a commonality in choices of where we made our homes.
Never heard of the guy at all and then suddenly here he is, family and all, in a cemetary right across from the town ice rick where my husband plays hockey once a week.
A cemetary I used to drive by every day on my way to work at the mall.
Go figure...
Even living here, it still took some searching to find Mr. Kilday, there are 20 cemetaries in the immediate Randolph area. I had gone through about 5 of them on foot, sent emails and letters in regards to some of the others and done some more searching on line. All efforts with no luck until on a whim today, I turned into St. Mary's cemetary and as I was about to give up and leave,
there he was:
Having searched for other family members I knew it was entirely possible that he could be buried in the cemetary without a stone or I may have found him buried under a stone that mearly read KILDAY (a common enough name), he also could have been buried in a plot under another name entirely (a plot owned by his wife's family or children perhaps).
The chances that I would just luck across him,
well, as slim as they were,
the odds apparently were in my favor after all.
So, one mystery solved, here lies my Grandmother's Uncle and his family, but then it also begats another mystery or 2.
Who is this metioned behind the main head stone, but clearly in the same plot joining the Kilday's for eternity?
How does Joseph McElroy fit into the family tree puzzle and considering he passed away this year, is there someone still living in Randolph, tending this plot who may be able to add information to my branch?
Then there is also the question of what happened to John R.? It seems that he must have been a child of Kieran and Sabina but to have died so young, in a time of war without military mention on his stone. What was his story?
It may take me years to come to find out more but the fun of discovery in the process of the search makes it all worthwile.
