The importance of being Ernest

Article for September 2016

Fellow genealogy enthusiasts amongst our readership will no doubt be aware of the pitfalls of online research, especially using the popular commercial websites such as Ancestry, Find My Past or The Genealogist where members post up their family trees and then cross-reference them with others, sometimes adding whole generations of newly discovered ancestors from someone else’s tree to their own at two clicks of the keyboard. The risk of this otherwise fantastic facility is when an inaccurate connection or piece of information is replicated by many other amateur researchers and we accept something as a given-truth simply on the basis of the volume of other people publishing a particular fact. Some of those so-called facts will also come from other sources, such as Wikipedia or seemingly authoritative websites.    

I’m pleased to say I served my apprenticeship in the years before the explosion of online data, when research required endless viewing of scratchy old microfilm reels on the 6^th floor of the old Birmingham Central Library. The records were more scarce, even random and took a sharper focus to transcribe, but it did therefore make you more discerning as to what you accepted as relevant fact. It can be both frustrating and demoralising to discover you have been following the wrong branch of your family tree, but one has to be always open to the possibility of red herrings and wishful thinking. The prospect of having to delete three or four generations and dozens of earnestly adopted ancestors can be initially devastating when you suddenly discover you’ve been barking up someone else’s tree, though genealogy, like history generally, is an objective science and our responsibility is to seek the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth (the embellishment can come later).            

Back in the November 2015 edition of The Harp I wrote about an Aston Villa player named Ernie “Mush” Callaghan who won a bravery medal in WW2 for rescuing trapped workers from a Birmingham factory which had been bombed in a German air raid. I also wrote in my article that Ernie held the record of being Villa’s oldest player until his record was taken by Brad Friedel in 2011 and I attempted some research into his Irish heritage.  

I wish to thank John Vaughan for responding to my article, pointing out that I had quoted the wrong year of birth for Ernie which had therefore led me to researching the wrong age, marriage and general ancestry of the Villa hero. In my defense (no pun intended as Ernie was a defender), I had obtained his birth year of 1907 from other sources including Aston Villa themselves who based their (now superseded) player record on 1907 instead of his actual birth date of 1910.

John explained that there were two men named Ernest Callaghan born in the Newtown area in the early 1900s, one being Ernest Henry Callaghan (1907-1972) who married Edith Partridge in 1937. The other was Ernie Callaghan (1910-1972) who married Winifred Alice Thorne in 1934. The two men were second cousins, the older Ernest became a transport engineer, found living at 27 Church Vale in the 1939 Register, whilst the slightly younger Ernest (or Ernie) was the Aston Villa defender nicknamed Mush.

I am relieved to say that the main points of our story are still factual, Ernie Mush Callaghan was the man awarded the British Empire medal for his rescue efforts as a volunteer police officer in WW2 and he also became the groundsman at Villa Park on his retirement as a football player …and lived in a cottage in the ground!

John told me: “I've written to the club, as they have used Ernest Henry's dates. This may make the oldest player record incorrect, although Brad Friedel now holds that! Ernie’s brother Henry Victor played at least one game for Villa reserves and another brother Arthur used to help with the Holte End scoreboard. Ernie's father was Thomas Callaghan a canal boatman who was in Upper Sutton Street as was Ernie in 1939.”

“Thomas' father was also Thomas and his father was James who was both Ernie's and Ernest Henry's great grandfather. Coincidently my 2x great uncle was Thomas Callaghan (Ernie's first cousin x1 removed) and he was also a professional footballer who after a season at Manchester City moved to Scotland and enjoyed some success with Partick Thistle and St Mirren. He was killed near Ypres in 1917.”      

As for the Irish heritage of both Ernest Henry and Ernie Mush Callaghan, John filled in the family tree for us:

“James Callaghan the tailor who was born about 1806 in Navan and married at St Bartholomew's, Edgbaston in 1835 started quite a dynasty. Another great grandson of his, William George Callaghan, was a boy sailor who died on HMS Indefatigable at the Battle of Jutland.”

I wish to thank John Vaughan for his help in sorting out the story for us and for flagging-up the difference between Ernest and Ernie. If you have a story concerning the Callaghan dynasty or any other great Irish families of the West Midlands, do get in touch and we will make every earnest effort to publish your tale.