Searching for Uncle Wally

Imagine thinking you are the last person left in your family and never knowing that you actually weren't. My latest search has been for information about the life of a man named Walter Daley who never knew his family.

Walter was born on the 2nd May 1924 in Newcastle to Elizabeth Brown. Elizabeth had three other children too, (Elizabeth, Joseph and Mary Jane) but she had not seen or heard from them for over 5 years. In 1919, Elizabeth's husband Joe moved to Bristol to work on the shipyards to help send money home to Newcastle for his family. One day when Elizabeth was at work, Joe's sister felt Elizabeth was neglecting her children and made a life changing decision. She tied luggage labels around the children's necks and put them on a train to Bristol to live with their father. When they arrived he put them into Catholic homes where they remained until they were old enough to work. Sadly, Elizabeth never saw her children again, thus, the family never knew about the child she had years later called Walter.

Now, almost 100 years on since the day the children left for Bristol, Elizabeth's granddaughter is searching for more information. Pat is the daughter of Mary Jane Daley, one of the children who was put on the train Bristol. Mary Jane died in 2002 and as far as Pat knows, she never knew about her half-brother Walter; nobody did.

Here are some highlights from an interview I filmed with Pat. She was informed of Walters' death last year but never knew he existed. From knowing nothing about her Uncle I researched and uncovered some moving information for our interviewee as you will see in this clip.

Click the image to view the video

Walter Daley passed away in 2009 and it was only a year ago that Pat was informed of his death by an heir hunter. Since then, I have uncovered a lot of information to try and help Pat understand why her Uncle never knew of his extended family. There is still a lot more to find in this search including the mystery of Walter's Mother and whether or not he knew he had a family.