April 25, 2020

Visit from a Lost Nephew

In my early days of genealogy, my mother gave me a copy of a typed story written by Margaret Nash Harriman (1881-1976) about her family.  Margaret was my mother’s great aunt on her mother’s side.  My mother received the information from her Aunt Margaret in January of 1962, however I don’t know when it was actually written.  In the narrative, Margaret talks about her father, James Nash, and his family from Ireland and she included an anecdote about his older sister Mary’s family.  I share it below:

“My father’s sister Kate lived in Cohoes, New York, about three or four miles from Waterford where we lived.  His oldest sister Mary came to America when he was a boy and after the passage of years they lost contact.  He had never heard from his sister after he came to America.  One day when I was about fifteen or sixteen, I do not remember exactly, a man came to our door and asked if James Nash lived there.  He was the son of my father’s sister Mary.  My father’s sister Mary was dead but she had tried to find my father’s whereabouts during her lifetime and the children continued the search.  One of her sons was a pilot on a boat in San Francisco Harbor and whenever someone came in the pilot house and said he was from New York he would ask if he had ever heard of James Nash.  And, finally, after years a man said, “Yes, I know a James Nash.  He lives in Waterford, New York.”  So he wrote to his brother in Erie, Pennsylvania and he, John Shaughnessy, was the one who came to our house.  My father was overjoyed and our cousin stayed with us for several days.  His sister was a sister in a convent, Sister M. Claire, and she wanted to see her only uncle on her mother’s side of the family.  The mother Superior sent her and another sister to Boston on an errand, with the privilege of a two week stop-over at our house.  There was no convent in Waterford so they were allowed to stay with us.  Aunt Kate was dead at that time.  My father was the only one left.  He was much younger than his sisters and brothers.”
- excerpt from notes written by Margaret Nash Harriman and send to her great niece, Ann Hart Hughes Scribner

- Margaret Nash Harriman;
original photo is the property of Judy Wheatley
When I received this information written by Aunt Margaret, it was before the time when there was much, if any, genealogy material on the internet, so I couldn’t really search to verify it.  Thus, I noted in my paper files that James Nash had 2 sisters:  Kate Nash (possibly a married name unknown?) who lived in Cohoes, New York, and Mary Nash Shaughnessy with one son who was a pilot on a boat in San Francisco Harbor, another son named John Shaughnessy who lived in Erie, Pennsylvania, and a daughter called Sister M. Claire who was in a convent.  Aunt Margaret also stated that she was “about fifteen or sixteen” at the time, so the visit from John Shaughnessy was likely sometime in the mid-1890’s. 

Fast forward to more recent times and I can tell you that Aunt Margaret’s story was almost perfectly right!  It was like a puzzle, but I gradually put the pieces together and found the Shaughnessy family in Pennsylvania, linking their branch as cousins on my tree.

Aunt Margaret’s story reveals that Mary Nash married someone named Shaughnessy, and I found that verification in the Catholic Parish Registers now available in Ireland.  Mary Nash married John Shaughnessy (Mariam Naish m. Joannem Shaughnessy) in the parish of Shanagolden, Limerick, Ireland on October 11, 1843.  And as we know, Mary & John immigrated to America at some time after they married.  Knowing that Mary & John Shaughnessy had a son also named John Shaughnessy, I began my search in Erie, Pennsylvania.  I found the family in the 1870 Federal Census for Concord, Erie County, Pennsylvania listed as John (railroad laborer) age 55, Mary (wife) 60, and children Kate 17, James 13, John 9, and Ellene 6.  Also, the 1880 Federal Census shows John & Mary living in Union City, Erie County, Pennsylvania with Ellen 15 and two additional older daughters:  Mary 31 and Alice 29.

Later research revealed that the son, James Shaughnessy was a steamboat pilot, however he was in Sacramento, California, and not San Francisco.  And the youngest daughter, Ellene/Ellen, entered the convent of the Sisters of St Joseph in Erie, Pennsylvania in December of 1880 (at 15 years of age!) and was ordained in 1883 as Sister M. Claire.  John, the nephew that visited James Nash had a career, like his father, with the railroad and his 1913 death certificate states that he was a “R.R. yard master”.  Both John Shaughnessy and his sister, Kate/Catherine married and had children.  Kate married Patrick Carroll in 1873, and John married Margaret Norris in 1898.  Of the older sisters, Alice Shaughnessey died in 1926, and Mary Shaughnessey died in 1930.

Aunt Margaret also wrote:

“My father was the youngest of eight and he stayed with his mother until she died – then came to America at the age of twenty-seven.  This was shortly after the war between the states.  Soon thereafter, he met and married my mother – he was twenty-eight years old – my mother eighteen.  My father was from Limerick on the Shannon and my mother was from County Waterford.  It was quite a coincidence that my mother came from Waterford, Ireland to live in Waterford, New York.”
- excerpt from notes written by Margaret Nash Harriman and send to her great niece, Ann Hart Hughes Scribner

In recent years as the Irish Catholic Parish records have become more readily available, I have learned a bit more about James Nash’s family in Ireland.  He was born and baptized in September 1835 in the parish of Shanagolden, Limerick County, Ireland.  And he was the son of Maurice Nash or Naish & Mary Quinlivan Nash.  James probably came to America about 1863, and possibly aboard the ship “Energy” that arrived in New York City on May 11th of that year.  That ship’s manifest has a James Nash listed aboard that was born about 1836, age 27.
*  *  *  *  *

Names & key dates for some of the individuals noted above:

     James Nash  (1835 – 1910)
     Kate Nash  (1830 – bef. 1910)
     Mary Nash  (1818 – 1876)
     John Shaughnessy  (1820 – 1897)

     Kate/Catherine Shaughnessy Carroll  (1853 – 1940)
     James Shaughnessy  (1857 – 1939)
     John Shaughnessy  (1861 – 1913)
     Ellen Shaughnessy/Sister M. Claire  (1863 – 1942)
     Margaret Esther Nash Harriman  (1881 – 1976)

Notes:
There is one piece of the puzzle that I have never been able to put together.  What about James Nash’s other sister, Kate, that lived in Cohoes, New York?  According to Aunt Margaret, at the time of Sister M. Claire’s visit, James’ sister Kate was already dead, so Kate died before James did in 1910.

I have never been able to find James’ sister, Kate Nash or a Catherine Nash, living in Cohoes prior to 1910.   Am I just missing her?  Or did she marry and have a different last name?  And were there children or not?  I just don’t know.  I would love it if there is someone who can fill in that blank for me.

- Jane Scribner McCrary

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