Mishal Husain

Mishal Husain, one of the country’s most respected journalists and broadcasters, is using her investigative skills to delve into her family history. Mishal has written a book about her grandparents’ lives but knows very little about her paternal grandmother’s line – the Quinns. She knows they were from southern India and thinks that they were of Irish descent. There’s also a family rumour that her great-great-grandfather, Thomas Quinn, was a doctor to a maharaja. Mishal wants to know if there is any truth to the rumour.

Mishal travels to Visakhapatnam in India to see if she can find out more. She meets historian Projit Bihari Mukharji, who has tracked down several documents relating to Mishal’s great-great-grandfather Thomas. She learns, despite the fact he was a prizewinning student, that he remained an assistant apothecary, a fairly lowly position. Projit explains that this was probably because he was mixed-race, or at least had been born in India. Mishal then sees a reference to Thomas working at the maharaja’s central dispensary in Vizianagaram. Mishal is delighted to discover that perhaps there is some truth in the family story.

In Vizianagaram, Mishal meets expert Merin Simi Raj and learns, in spite of Thomas’s heritage, that he managed to rise through the ranks and become surgeon to the maharaja. Mishal reflects on how happy her late father would have been to learn about Thomas, as he himself was a doctor. Mishal still wants to know if there’s any Irish heritage in the family.

Writer Gillian Wright has been looking into this but sadly hasn’t found any documentary evidence taking the family back to Ireland. However, Mishal’s great-aunt Anne’s DNA test shows that 31 per cent of her paternal line is Irish, meaning that the Quinns' origins can very likely be traced back to Ireland. Having gone as far as she can down the Quinn line, Mishal now turns her attention to Thomas Quinn’s wife, Mishal’s great-great-grandmother, Mary Louisa Farley. A series of documents give the names of Mary Louisa’s parents and her grandparents. Mishal is intrigued by a baptism record for her three-time great-grandfather, written in Danish. Gillian explains the record doesn’t come from Denmark itself but from a Danish enclave in India then called Tranquebar (now called Tharangambadi).

In Tharangambadi, Mishal meets Harry McClure to see if she can find out what her four-time great-grandparents, Joseph and Harriet Farley, were doing in Tranquebar. A ledger reveals that Joseph was trading textiles to the USA. Another letter shows Joseph left Tranquebar to travel to Java (present-day Indonesia), where he was hoping to set up as a plantation owner. Mishal is concerned that her ancestor might have become involved in forced labour. She’s then astonished to discover that Joseph Farley was from the US – she had no idea she had any American heritage in her family. Harry shows Mishal a record of a baptism for a daughter to Joseph and Harriet, which took place in another coastal settlement in India in Pondicherry (now called Puducherry).

Mishal meets historian Dr Avishek Parui, who has bad news – a death notice which shows that Joseph never made it back from Java but perished at sea, leaving behind Harriet and six children. A letter from their youngest daughter, Susan, sent some years later, reveals that she never met her father, and her mother died when she was six. Mishal reflects on what a precarious existence it must have been for the family. Mishal then discovers that before Joseph left for India, he was a student at Harvard University, Massachusetts.

Mishal leaves India for the United States on the trail of her Farley ancestors. She starts at Harvard, where she is horrified to discover that Joseph risked his university career when he was expelled for having taken part in a protest about the food. She’s relieved to hear he was reinstated and then won first prize for his dissertation. She now wants to push further back. She knows that the family came from a small town just outside Boston called Ipswich, and at the local library, Mishal meets Penny West, who she discovers is a distant cousin. Penny tells Mishal how their ancestors were involved in some of the key battles of the American War of Independence, also known as the Revolutionary War. Penny shows her a memorial plaque which lists the family, including Mishal’s six-time great-grandfather, Michael Farley.

In the Old State House in Boston, Mishal meets Professor Bob Allison. Bob tells Mishal that Michael played a pivotal role at the start of the Revolutionary War, organising behind the rallying cry of no taxation without representation. Mishal asks Bob if he knows how the Farleys came to the States in the first place. He can’t tell her where they came from in England but knows it was in the 1670s. Mishal reflects that the family has gone full circle, from the original Farleys’ journey from England to the USA and her father coming from Pakistan to England.