"Neither of my grandfathers was very practical..." was how my grandmother started her story back in 1978. She took her teeth out after supper so her speech was slurred and we strained to hear her over the clackety window airconditioner.

She related the story of her grandfather Heffernan who fought in the Civil War on the Union side and after the war ended wanted to keep fighting. He was of Irish descent and really hated the English so he and some of his Irish friends invaded Canada. For all I've known over the past 30 years this was a family legend with not much truth to it, but I have recently found out it really happened and there is quite a bit about it on the Internet.

Fenian Raid into Canada 1866

This sums it up for me because that's the impression I got of my great-great-grandfather's reasons for joining up.

"We are the Fenian Brotherhood, skilled in the arts of war,
And we're going to fight for Ireland, the land we adore,
Many battles we have won, along with the boys in blue,
And we'll go and capture Canada, for we've nothing else to do."
-Fenian soldier's song

So now I know that it really happened, and this revelation came to me by way of a cemetery researcher in Durango, Colorado who was investigating the stories behind the various old tombstones in the local cemetary. She provided us with several speeches, military history, and immigration records that straightened out a lot of questions about family history. Overall, I think she sent 15 emails with little bits of additional information, and I just sat here and took it in.

At some point I will settle down and write out a summary of all this new information for my family records. I used to have a website for the family information, and I could revive that just to get it out there so researchers could use it if they wanted.


This is my great-aunt Anna Heffernan holding probably my Uncle Joseph Heffernan Ismay, and her mother Anna Miller Heffernan (strong resemblance to my grandmother Eleanor Heffernan), but I don't know if the older lady is Great-Great Grandma Miller or Heffernan.