Hi all,

I'm trying to trace the history of my grandfather, Thomas Finnigan, but we don't have too much to go on.

He was born in Ennerdale Street, Liverpool in 1884.
I can't find him in the 1901 census reports in the UK.

He was a merchant seaman who seems to have been on a Liverpool to Australia route. The first time he shows up back in any UK records is in 1915, when he marries my grandmother Bridget Walters. By 1917 (the same year my Dad, also Thomas, was born) he's back in Australia, where he signs up for the Australian Imperial Expeditionary Force. He signed up in Rockhampton, Queensland. He comes back to Liverpool after the war and has a daughter Mary.

He left the family sometime in the twenties or thirties. Family legend has it that he's buried in Townsville, Queensland Australia, but I can't find any proof of this.

His parents were Thomas Finnigan and Catherine Scahill (or Seahill?). This is where the trail ends...I think.

In the 1881 census there is a Finnegan family headed by Thomas (b Ireland 1845) and Catherine (b Ireland 1847), in the next house to the one my grandfather was born in three years later. It could well be the same family(?). If so they had other children:
James b Ireland 1871
Mary b Ireland 1877
Martin b Ireland 1876
Anne b Ireland 1878
Johnn B Ireland 1880

However they have disappeared from trace by the 1891 census.
Did they emigrate from England?
Did my grandfather go with them, then come back as a seaman?
Did he go back to them after he left his Liverpool family?
Where did they come from in Ireland?

Does anyone have any links that might help, please?