29. One Billboard in Kilnaleck: The Search for His Great, Great Grandfather Hart Heats Up

Speakers: WJB — William J. Bowe; JH — Joseph Hart. Transcribed from the recording; punctuation added and obvious mis-hearings corrected.

JH: But let me answer your question about DNA. I think I was aware that at some point DNA had become a new tool for genealogy, but didn’t pay much attention to it. I was still kind of busy with doing the traditional genealogy, which was trying to follow the paper trail, and really I have to say that even with the advent of DNA, there’s no substitute for that research where you’re digging up records, where you’re digging up maybe history books that have biographical sketches. That was one of the most interesting bits of information I found about the Canavans, was looking up a history book about Kankakee County and finding a biographical sketch for Anthony Canavan Sr., the gentleman on the poster in the back. And I thought — it talked about Ann Hughes, it gave the names of her parents, and I’m thinking, “Oh my gosh, how did I miss this? How did I not see this earlier?” But anyway, so a lot of this research was done on the computer, something that wasn’t available to your mother, but she may have found that history of Kankakee County and —

WJB: No, I stumbled across that. She never saw that one.

JH: Yeah. So, I mean, that information has been around for a while, and so you just have to dig. It’s surprising where these things pop up. But anyway, so, I was kind of getting frust— Well, let me not talk about the frustration. I’ve always been fascinated by Irish history or Irish genealogy, and it’s always been frustrating because of the lack of records. So you can only do so much when it comes to trying to follow the paper trail.

But in County Cavan, again, I was interested in finding something about my great-grandfather, and so occasionally I would ask people, or I would mention to people that I was trying to trace my Irish roots, and they’d say, “Oh, who are you trying to find?” And I’d say, “Well, my great-grandfather, James Hart.” And so in one of these situations where I was talking to somebody about my interest in genealogy, he came up with a sign, big billboard that he had seen going into a town called Kilnaleck in County Cavan, where there was a business called Hart Peat, meaning Hart turf. Hart, the peat coming out of the bog. They sold turf as a heat source. And so he said this was painted on the side of a big barn that they had for their business. And I thought, “Well, okay.” I kind of filed that away.

And so one spring morning, it was kind of nice weather, and I thought, “Well, I’m going to go for a bike ride, and I’m going to go out to Kilnaleck and see if I can find this Hart Peat sign.” And so I rode for a couple of hours, and I came into Kilnaleck, and I was under the impression that I would see this as I came into the town. When I came into the town, I didn’t see any signs. So I rode out the other end of town and turned around thinking, “Well, maybe he thought I was going to be coming into town from the other direction.” So I come back into Kilnaleck from the other direction, still no evidence of this sign. So I stop at the little shop in the town, and the shop is the word that they use for the little convenience store, the little grocery store in the town. So I went to the clerk in the town, and that’s one of your main sources of information, whether you’re just looking for directions or whatever you want to find out. If somebody lives in the town, you go to the shop and you ask the person there, and that’s the hub. That’s the crossroads of information right there.

So anyway, I asked about Hart Peat, and they said, “Oh yes, that business went out of business a few years ago, and the family moved back to Northern Ireland.” So I thought, “Okay, well, that takes care of that clue,” because if they moved back to Northern Ireland, I don’t think that’s my branch of the Hart family. And so as long as I was there and it was still a nice day out, I thought, “Well, I can keep riding around for a little bit.” So I asked the clerk, “Do you know of anybody in this area with the name of Hart?” And I wasn’t too far from Kilbride Parish, which is where one of these two candidates that I got from the genealogy center was baptized. So she said, “Yeah.” She thought about it a second, then gave me some directions to find some Harts.

So I followed the directions, and eventually, I was kind of lost a little bit, so I’d stop and I’d knock on a front door and say, “I’m looking for the Harts. Can you tell me if I’m still on the right track?” Eventually, I got directions right up to the doorstep of James Harte. And I knocked on the door and this gentleman came to the door and I said, “Hello, my name is Joe Hart and I’m trying to trace my Hart roots in County Cavan.” And his eyes got this big and he got this smile from ear to ear and he said, “Come in.” And Jimmy Harte thought, “Here’s a Yank coming back to County Cavan and he’s going to tell me everything I ever wanted to know about my Irish ancestors,” because he was having an equally frustrating time tracing his family as I was tracing mine.

So we went in and sat down, had a cup of tea and discussed what we knew about our direct male line, the Hart line, and we quickly realized that we weren’t going to be much help to each other in answering the burning questions that we had about our Hart ancestors. Jimmy wasn’t the main genealogist in the family. His cousin Norbert, who lived just a couple houses down — he called Norbert up and Norbert came over with all his notes and we went through Norbert’s notes and still nothing was adding up yet. So Jimmy and I decided that we were going to keep in touch because we felt like we were probably on the right track somehow, especially when I realized how close Jimmy and Norbert lived in a parish called Crosserlough, and Kilbride was just one of the neighboring parishes. So that still was kind of adding up to me.

And actually one other question: Jimmy’s surname was spelled with an E on the end. So I asked Jimmy, and Norbert confirmed, that when you’re doing research on the Hart branch, the difference between an E on the end or not an E on the end is insignificant. You can basically forget it.

WJB: But what was the resolution to this continuing mystery? It sounds like you actually got an answer at the end of the day. How did that come about?

JH: Well, as much of an answer… Well, let me add to the name thing first because that’s going to tie in when I start talking about DNA. Norbert said that in his research he had come across some references in documents for his grandfather that actually gave him the surname Hartin, with an I-N at the end. So Norbert indicated that if he was doing research on the Hart name in that area, he would not discount a reference to the name Hartin. He would consider that to be just as valid as trying to follow a trail with the surname Hart with an E or not an E. So anyway —