Zeff Anyogu confirmed that Jacob was married for some time and had no children. The natives were now aware of the Roman Catholics doctrines and quite a few significant conversions were being made, so it must have been around 1897 that he converted to the Roman Catholic faith.
Zeff related the story of how Jacob prayed for a child during the Eucharist of the Mass, when the prayers of Transubstantiation began. According to the teaching of the Roman Catholic this the change whereby the bread and the wine used in the sacrament of the Eucharist become, not merely as by a sign or a figure, but also in actual reality the body and blood of Christ. The Catholic Church teaches that the substance or reality of the bread is changed into that of the body of Christ and the substance of the wine into that of his blood, while all that is accessible to the senses remains
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The various versions are similar enough to draw a conclusion. Jacob and Anna end up with a brood of 12 children after a very long period of waiting and hoping. They continued to support seminarians and missionaries in their homes.
We first hear that the natives’ were shocked that the missionaries had not come to trade.
They were not asking for the natives’ money either.
Shanahan immediately noticed 4 main similarities between the natural native faith and the Roman Catholic faith. The Ibos seem to have retained some of the Roman Catholic traits from Benin. Even Shanahan recognised and emphasised some traits:
1. Chukwu - creator of all
2. Spirits -angels and saints
3. Offered sacrifices through priests for their sins and sins of these dead
4. Honour for mothers the holy mother – the most common female name of Annika – the mother is