Ireland XO

My great grandfather William Fleming first appears on records in England in October 1878 in Liverpool when he married my great grandmother Anne Mina. On the marriage records, he lists his father as William Fleming. From that point, in his employment records (in the merchant navy) and on census returns, he listed his birth year as variously 1855, 1857 and 1858 and his birth place as Dublin,Ireland.

Searching in Irish records,I have not been able to find a William Fleming with a father also called William born in 1855-8 in Dublin. William was a Roman Catholic later in life, so presumably would have been baptised in a Catholic Church.

One thing I did find was a boy called William Fleming born in 1855 in Belfast who was an orphan living in Loftus Lane, Dublin in 1868 when he was sent to Glencree Reformatory for 5 years for stealing lead with some other boys. I wondered if this might be him,and he reported his birthplace as Dublin later because that is where he had come from rather than his place of birth. I did a bit of research into Glencree and one of the common outcomes for boys who were sent there was a career in the merchant navy – which would fit with my great grandfather.

The results of my Ancestry DNA test have revealed no close Fleming relatives in Ireland, but there are more distantly related clusters of Flemings in and around Ballina, County Mayo that I have tried to work out my connection to without much success. One such relative was John Fleming (1788-1837), who came from Ballina and was sponsored by the British Government to compulsorily migrate to Australia in 1825 for being part of the “White boy” agrarian uprisings. After John had served 7 years in Sydney, he was able to bring out in 1833 his wife and family of 4 children.