Too Many Toms

Thomas Brady

In many families sons are named after their father or grandfather. Carrying a family name into the future is a wonderful tradition. However, it can cause much confusion when there are multiple relatives with the same name. In my Brady family there are seven men named Thomas Brady that I know of.

I recently found a World War I Draft Registration form for Thomas Brady.  He was born in County Cavan, Ireland in December 1887. In June 1917 he lived on Amherst Street in East Orange, New Jersey. This is where our family settled when they came over from County Cavan, Ireland. This Thomas Brady was also a police officer, an occupation held by others in the family. This just has to be one of our family, but which one?

I decided to make an excel spreadsheet of my known Thomas Bradys in order to get them straight in my mind and to help me link this registration form with one of these men.

The spreadsheet helped me to clearly see the following:

ü  Thomas Brady #1 & #2 lived their lives in Ireland, not coming to the USA.

ü  Thomas Brady # 6 & 7 were born after the registration form was filled out.

ü  Thomas Brady #5 would have been too young to be drafted.

ü  Thomas Brady #4 did serve in World War I. However, there is a nine year differences in the birth dates of this man & the man in the military record.

ü  Thomas Brady #3 was in New Jersey at the time. He was a police officer. In 1917 he had a wife and two children. In 1920 he lived on Amherst Street. The difference is the date of birth, about two years.

I believe Thomas Brady #3 is the winner but more work is needed to uncover his correct birth date before I can say it with 100% certainty. The spreadsheet was a useful tool for me but my work is not done yet. I need to go back and check my original source for his birth. Hopefully I will discover if this is the right Thomas and which date of birth is correct.