As is my wont ...

... I spent much of my day researching my family tree. I am currently focusing on the family of my great grandfather (my mother's mother's father) Joseph Timmons. His grandfathers, father and mother and various sibblings and half sibblings all made their way to Dundee from County Offaly in the late 1840s, no doubt as a consequence of the Great Famine. 

I am gradually exploring each person who came over and recording their lives and that of their descendants.  It makes for grim reading at times -  most of the first generation died in their 40s and 50s often from respiratory diseases. Each buried at least one child in infancy, if not more. 

My great grandfather was the youngest of 10 children. His mother died aged 46 when he was just 12. Shortly afterwards he was caught stealing plums from a garden along with another boy. The case came to court and his father was reporting as saying that "the boy was beyond quite beyond his control" and he wished him sent to the Old Mill Reformatory where he had another son. The wish was granted: Joseph was sentenced to 10 day imprisonment and afterwards to be detained in reformatory for five years. The other boy was dismissed with an admonition.