My husband’s grandmother’s brother Vincent Doran was an interesting person to research. I don’t know if my father-in-law or his siblings ever knew their uncle had been married and had a child, but none of the younger generation knew about it.
From looking at census records, I had always assumed that Vincent was an Irish bachelor. I always found him on the US censuses living at home with his parents in Oswego, NY. But then I found newspaper articles at http://fultonhistory.com. (It’s a great site for newspapers, especially ones from New York state.) Much to my surprise I found out that Vincent was for a time living in Utica, NY and had married Frances Kulow in February 1919. The wedding announcement says that he had been living in Utica for 2 years. Both Vincent and Frances worked for the G.R. Kinney Company. They do appear together on the 1920 US Census still living together in Utica. In May 1921 there is a newspaper baby announcement. All it says is that the baby was a boy. By the 1925 New York state census Vincent is living back with his parents and Frances and their son Robert are living with her parents and siblings.
Through Ancestry DNA testing we found a very close match to my husband. Based on the fact that we knew all the other cousins who were that closely related, the only possible way for this person to be that closely related was for her to be a descendant of Vincent’s. It turns out that she is Vincent’s great-granddaughter. We corresponded a bit, and she said she was interested in learning about her family, but then she went ghost. I don’t know if I scared her off because I gave her a bunch of information that I knew. It’s a real shame. My husband’s cousin found a book when she was cleaning out their aunt’s house that she thinks belonged to Vincent. I tried to contact the DNA match to see if she wanted it, but I never heard back from her. One thing she did tell me when we did correspond was that the story she had heard in her family was that Frances’ family didn’t approve of Vincent because he was Irish and convinced her to move back home with the baby. We have no idea if Vincent ever had any more contact with his son Robert, but it’s very sad if he didn’t get spend time with him.
Here’s the link to the Doran family https://myfamgen.com/doran-family/. I would suggest reading through it because there are a lot of snippets from newspaper articles about several of the family members.