Shields and Sullivan Ancestors
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
The Shields and Sullivan Ancestors by Kate Stout 8/10/2016 Table of Contents Introduction 1 Reading the Reports 3 The Shields 5 Family of Edward Shields 7 Family of Patrick Henry Shields 8 Descendents of Michael Shields 9 Kinship Report for Michael Shields 29 Family of Delia Sullivan 33 Family of Timothy Sullivan 34 Descendant Report for John Sullivan 35 Kinship Report for John Sullivan 43 Ancestors of Elizabeth Donovan 45 Index 47 Shields and Sullivan: Introduction Introduction About this book This book provides a relatively short version of the genealogy of the Shields Family, who lived primarily in the Lenox and Pittsfield Massachusetts area from about 1840. Many members of the family are still in the area. This book is contains my current research on the family, and may have errors. If you find an error, or have more information, please let me know! In this book, I have not included all the references for each fact, because it would make the book much longer, but I do have them. See the section Sources, below, if you’d like to know more about the main sources for this book. Contact me if you’d like more information about an individual or a group. I have several ways I can get them to you. Most of the information is also in a tree named “KateStout” onancestry.com About the Author I’m Kate Stout. I am a descendent of the Shields through my maternal grandfather, Edward Basil Shields. I do genealogy as a hobby, and have always had a love of history. For me, history is not just dates and events, it’s all about the stories. How the book is organized The first section describes the Shields side of the family, including the descendants of Michael Shields, the first Shields we know of. Michael Shields is the father Patrick Henry Shields (b. 1842), and is the great-grandfather of Edward Shields. The second section shows the Sullivan family, starting with John Sullivan, the great – grandfather of Edward Shields, through his mother, Delia Sullivan. The very brief third section shows the parents of Elizabeth Donavan, the wife of the older Patrick Henry Shields. I don’t have much information about certain families. These include the Donovans and the Flynns. There are two problems contributing to this. One is that many of the people are recent Irish immigrants, and so they may not be living with their family. The second problem is that there were many Irish immigrants in the area, and so there are many people with the same name. The Berkshires are filled with Daniel Sullivans, Mary Flynns, and other Irish names. About Sources How do I claim to know some of the things about the family that are listed here? Doing genealogy is a bit of a puzzle, and you end up piecing together a story from many pieces. One thing to realize is that what is available for records is not perfect – some of the census records are missing, a newspaper may put certain years of publication online, but not others. Not every state makes public records available online. When you do genealogy research, you are not working with perfect information, but you can still put together a compelling picture. Here are my main sources of information. Census records The Federal census, which occurs every 10 years, is a great source of 1 Shields and Sullivan: Introduction information. Almost all the censuses ask for the place of birth for each member of the household, as well as their parent’s place of birth. This gives a lot of good information about where families come from. Some states also do their own census. Birth, Marriage and Death Records In addition to the obvious facts on these records, they also often contain information about family members, such as parents or spouse, the maiden name of a mother, and other great clues about the family. Town Directories Town directories are similar to phone books, listing people and their address, and were common in larger towns in the late 1800s and into the 1900s. Often, the listings also include additional information such as the person’s job or place of work. The Berkshire Eagle The Berkshire Eagle, the newspaper for the Pittsfield and surrounding towns, are available online for some years. I was able to find many small details to add to the stories we have about the family, in part because there was no fact too small for the Eagle to publish. Findagrave.com An online site where people can post information about where people are buried. In addition to obvious information like date of birth and death, you sometimes get clues about family relationships, based on who is buried together. Family members also sometimes post a short biography or copy of an obituary on the site. Family stories Genealogy research often starts with family stories and photos. My mother, Anne Shields Stout provided me with family information, which I used as a basis for this research. Nancy Shields Vosburg shared a family tree with my mother many years ago, and I also used that to fill in details. I have tried to identify the source of any stories in the notes. Contact Info If you’d like additional information, let me know about an error, or just say hello to a distant cousin, my contact info is: Kate Stout 46 W Julian St PH33 San Jose, CA 95110 [email protected] (Best) My website is http://www.katestout.com 2 Shields and Sullivan: Introduction Reading the Reports This section describes how to read the reports included in this book. How to Read a Descendent Report The desendent report numbers people according to how they are related. The first person in the report is numbered “1”. He or she is the person that everyone is descended from. All of his children will be numbered starting with 1, followed by a “.” then a number based on their birth order. So if 1. David Jones had three children, they will be numbered: 1.1 Steven Jones b. 1850 1.2 Mary Jones b. 1852 1.3 James Jones b. 1852 This numbering scheme continues through the generations. If 1.2 Mary Jones married Edward Harris, and they had three children, it will look like this: 1.2.1 Robert Harris b.1875 1.2.2 James Harris b. 1877 1.2.3 William Harris b. 1881 Notice how the number for the children connects them to their mother - they all start with 1.2, which is their mother’s number. There are another set of numbers that may be, at first, confusing. These are the generation numbers, which show what generation the person is in, and then names of their ancestors in this line. For example 1.2.3 .Willam3 Harris (Mary2, David1) was born on Dec 01, 1881 The 3 next to William indicates he is of the 3rd generation. His director ancestor to the top of the line is his mother, Mary, and she’s of the second generation. His grandfather is David, and he’s at the top of the tree. As you can imagine, this gets complicated when you are at the later generations. Here’s an example from the Shields tree. 1.1.4.5.1. JAMES GERARD5 SHIELDS (James David4, Patrick Henry3, Patrick Henry2, Michael1) However, you can quickly see that James Gerard Shields’ father was James David Shields, his grandfather was Patrick Henry Shields, and so on. 3 Shields and Sullivan: Introduction IMPORTANT: There are several Descendent reports in this document. The number someone is assigned is not the same in all reports - it depends on who the starting person is. Unfortunately, there is some duplicate information in the descendent reports. The children of Delia Sullivan and Patrick Henry Shields in both reports, because of the report tool works. The Kinship Report The Kinship Report is a simple report that lists how people are related to the person who is named on the report. It’s arranged alphabetically. In a report on Michael Shields, the top of the Shields family line, you’ll see Shields, James Gerard Mar 11, 1939 2nd great grandson This is the same person we saw in the descendent report as 1.1.4.5.1. JAMES GERARD5 SHIELDS (James David4, Patrick Henry3, Patrick Henry2, Michael1) The Kinship report is useful for quickly understanding relationships. 4 Shields and Sullivan: The Shields The Shields and Sullivan Families The Shields family is one of our “through and through” Irish families in our family story. Edward Basil Shields married Mary Grace Fenwick in 1934. Edward, known as “Eddie” was born in Lenox MA, in 1905. Eddie’s grandparents were Irish immigrants. His grandfather, Patrick Henry Shields, immigrated to the US from Ireland in 1858. He was in the US Army in the Civil War, serving from August 1 1862 and mustering out on June 16, 1865. He was a private, and served in Company B of the 39th Regiment of the Massachusetts Infantry. In 1862, Patrick’s regiment served around and in Washington DC, mostly doing guard duties. In 1864, Patrick Shields probably participated in a number of battles, including the Battle of the Wilderness, which happened in Virginia, and was a devastatingly bloody battle. It is estimated that about 2,220 Union soldiers died, and another 8,000-10,000 Union soldiers were wounded in this battle. His regiment also participated in the battle of Petersburg, Virginia, which was a long drawn out siege, with the ultimate goal to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, VA.