Copyright (1876) Brad Hearn

James Daniel Hearn in Connecticut -- 1876

Rosa Antonia Tessima Cerg Kassimatis (Cassimatis) had three children to the Irish surgeon Charles Hearn.

In 1856 before marrying Greek-Italian Giovanni Cavallini* of Cerigo Island, Rosa Kassimatis sent her three-year-old son, Charles Kassimati Hearn, - with a wet nurse - from her home in Cerigo to the Hearn family in Dublin, Ireland. The Dublin Hearn family changed the three-year-old boy's name from Charles Kassimatis Hearn to James Daniel Hearn. The Hearns sent James immediately to a boarding school in Scotland. James emigrated to the USA. James died in Michigan, USA, at the age of 80 in 1933.

"This is the picture of James Daniel Hearn that was in Grandma Hearn's album. It says Connecticut on the back. So we suppose this was taken when Grandpa Hearn came to America the second time and went to Connecticut to learn about growing tobacco." In the January, 1923, Atlantic Monthly is an article written by Henry Tracy Kneeland called "Lafcadio Hearn's Brother", an interview with Grandpa.

Excerpt: "After being in Wisconsin nearly five years, --I was now twenty-one, -- I went back to England. I intended to go out to India to enter a tea business. Dr. Stewart had a son who was a civil engineer for a tea company, and I expected to go in with him. But young Stewart got another idea--for me to return to the United States and get a knowledge of tobacco-growing in Connecticut before I went to India. So I came over again and stayed with a Mr. Smith at Poquonock. I had worked for him several years when I heard that young Stewart had died; so I gave up the tobacco scheme and came West. When I was twenty-four years old I went into the milling business at Gibsonburg, Ohio."

From http://www.lafcadiohearn.net

The descendants of James Hearn are very keen to track down his birth certificate.
David Baldwin writes that "...we still have no record of where on Kefalonia James was born (Charles Hearn would be the name on his birth certificate). Rosa took him to Kythira soon after his birth.

He also points out there "was a devastating earthquake on Cephalonia (Kefalonia) in 1956, that could have wiped out thousands of government records."

Is there a kythera-family.net user, knowlegeable about Cephalonia Birth Records, who may be able to help us track down this birth certificate?

Submitted by George C Poulos.

Based on information provided by David Baldwin
Dojima/Osaka, Japan.

* Sometimes spelt Kavalini, Cavalinis, or Cavalenes.