Connection to John Samuel “BaBa” Oram 1847-1913:
BaBa married Jane Clark, daughter of Gilbert and Jane Clark.
Gilbert Clark 1825-1898 married Jane Robinson c1813-1879
Offspring:
Jane Clark 1846-1890 married John Samuel “BaBa” Oram 1847-1913
Offspring: see Oram family page
William Clark 1862-1943 married three times, one son.
The families first met in Co Mayo, Ireland where Gilbert Clark 1828-1898 was stockman on the estate that BaBa’s father John Oram 1824-1907 managed. In 1864 Gilbert, his wife Jane, daughter Jane and son William emigrated to Cleveland, OH. BaBa followed in 1867 and married Jane Clark within a few months.
Love probably propelled BaBa across the Atlantic. We have strong suspicions that William Clark was not the son of his nominal mother, who was almost 50 at his birth. Rather we suspect he was the result of a birth out of wed-lock by his nominal sister, Jane Clark 1846-1890, who was age 16 at his birth and his true father was John Samuel Oram 1847-1913.
In the 1960’s our mother, Daphne Oram, without knowing the age of William’s nominal mother, just looked at the photograph of William, standing at the back of this website’s banner image above, and stated “he is an Oram”.
We have shared our speculation with a member of the Clark family who was born in the 1920s. His comment was that it backed up what he was told in his childhood.
Follow our reasoning on this page.
We note that in all official documents we have subsequently seen the age difference between William and his nominal mother is lower than was the true case. This was achieved either by increasing William’s age (by four years for the sailing to the USA) or decreasing his nominal mother’s age (by various amounts in census data).
Parents assuming the born out of wedlock children of their female offspring was common in Ireland at this time. Other options were potentially much worse for the family.
Chris and Carolyn