Jon's mother was born in Rangoon, Burma and up until a few years ago we knew very little outside her immediate generation, other than the fact that her paternal grandfather, John William Lawrence O'Hara, was killed by a lion in near Tsavo, Uganda in the 1890's, whilst involved in the construction of the Ugandan Railway and I had the book to prove it!.
Two years on, things are rather different. We have established the first related O'Hara in India was Lawrence, born around 1770, he is proving to be a rather elusive character, for the current state of affairs on tracking down Lawrence see the commentary on him. He had at least two surviving sons and one daughter. The first son was John Lawrence O'Hara born 1808 (died in 1849) to Lawrence and an as yet unknown woman and from then on there are a succession of John William Lawrence O'Hara's. His other son George born 1820 (died in 1898) or as we shall hence forth refer to him as 'Mauritius' George, as he was born in Mauritius to Lawrence and a native woman Gungha. Married twice with at least 15 known children, is the main reason there are 180+ O'Hara's descended from Lawrence. His daughter Elizabeth born in 1 815 to Lawrence and an as yet unknown woman married into the Conwell family and died c 1860.
The families of the two sons John William and George almost certainly knew each other up until the turn of the 20th century and for reasons unknown seemed to have lost touch with each other. Re-uniting the two sides of the family 100 years later, has been an unexpected pleasure as has been joining Denzil and Clement O'Hara in trying to track down Lawrence's father.
In all the excitement, Jon's maternal grandmother's family, the Stuart's have not had so much TLC
Mainly using the British Library India Office, a picture of two families who stayed in India for over 150 years is beginning to emerge and hopefully this site will reflect some of this in due course.
During the course of the research I have had to sift the wheat from the chaff and this has turned up over 200 other O'Hara's all apparently unrelated which may help others
I am indebted to Christopher (Vane) for the initial sketch of the O'Hara and Stuart, and to Celeste Goulding who continues to fill in many gaps in India