This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: durkin corcoran kerwin rudolph walsh spaulding and others brooklyn Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/hBU.2ACEB/292.295.2.1 Message Board Post: We have most of the family history from Swinford. The james durkin you are looking for, if his trade was being a carpenter was my grandmother's father. The family business is still up and running in swinford owned by the last of the clan over there her name is peggy McCormick. If these are the durkins you are looking for the history is very colorful and also involves a family mystery of the disappearing durkin who went off to church one morning with her financee and just disappeared for over 60 years. most of the family is buried in Brooklyn in holy cross cemetery on New York Ave. Grandma lived to be almost 100 and told tales of intrigue, battles with the tans and a host of other things too numerous to mention. Many of the people i see here being searched for sound familiar from her stories Aunt Birdie, Aunt Winnie, Tommy Johnny and Charlie durkin to name a few they were all colorful characters in their day. Most were registered in the parish register in either St mar! k's church in sheepshead Bay brooklyn or in Resurrection parish in brooklyn. If any of this sounds familiar i would love to help with the lost durkins. One of the clan is on the wall of heroes in one polce plaza being killed in the line of duty in the 1930's. aher of the clan is the famous movie cop of NYCPD having a NBC movie made about him and his partners exploits and showed nationwide some years ago on the Dupont show of the week. This list of characters include the famous and infamous rascalls and heroes but they were all characters in their day. Grandma and her brothers never became citizens of this country as they went to city hall together to get their certificate (pronounced cer-ti-fi-cate in her brouge) and when asked the last question "what be flying over city hall" by the official they discussed it for a few minutes and after looking out the window they promptly replied "Pigeons" whereupon they were escorted out and treated rudely by all concerned. She told! many stories about the family through the years and at my age now i wish i listened to all of them........