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; |
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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