The back story
My grandmother Edith Kathleen Grimes was born in Palghaut, India on 4 August 1877 and her baptism record gives her parents as James and Sophia Isabel Grimes. I wanted to find out about Edith Kathleen’s parents and their ancestors. In researching her father’s line I stumbled upon a sequence of four generations of James Grime(s). Here I outline my findings.
DEBBIE’S GREAT-GRANDFATHER
James Grime(s) (4)
What did we know? We knew that Edith’s father was called James Grimes and had fought in the Indian Mutiny: my father had his medal for the Relief of Lucknow (see example, facing page). I also found an obituary for him, which said that he was the son of an English church clergyman at home. A starting point.
His birth
The website Fibis.org (Families in British India Society) Graves and Monuments gave his date of birth as 22 January 1838, but where was he born? I found out that he was born on 22 July in Roscrea, Tipperary, Ireland and baptised on 24 July 1838 at Roscrea parish church, the son of Sgt Major James Grime and Jane his wife.
Life in Australia
His father was a soldier in the 99th regiment, who had been stationed in Ireland and married a local widow Jane Mulvey, née Murphy.
In 1842 the family embarked for Australia with the 99th regiment, on board the ‘Earl Grey’, a convict ship. Three convicts died on the voyage and James, aged four, and his sister Mary Jane aged three, described as ‘guard’s children’, caught scarlatina. James was discharged from the sick list on 2 November 1842 well, but sadly Mary Jane died six days later.
The family settled in Australia where James lived until he was 18, at which point the family returned to Ireland.
Bound for India
Almost as soon as he had arrived in Ireland, on
