Alexander SHAW, born 1845 Co. Cavan, emigrated to New Zealand 1865

Hi Kelso:

Do you have any other information such as parent's names that you would like to share?  I will pass the query onto a Cavan volunteer.  You should receive a reply within a week or two.

All the best,

 

Jane

Hi Alison,  

I had a quick look for the name Alexander Shaw, Killeshandra in Roots Ireland (a subscription site)  and I found another one born much later, but still in Killeshandra, there may be a connection.                                                                                                                         Alexander Shaw Date of Birth:19-Nov-1898

Date of Baptism: 03-Oct-1898

Address: Drumcarey Parish/District: KILLESHANDRA Gender: Male County Co. Cavan

Denomination: Church Of Ireland
Father: George Shaw Mother: Jane Shaw Occupation: Farmer 

THESE ARE THE DATES GIVEN DESPITE THE FACT THAT THE CHILD WAS
CHRISTENED BEFORE IT WAS BORN

Also utilise all the records on https://genealogy.nationalarchives.ie and on https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/civil-search.jsp both are free sites and also search New Zealand records, you find mention of his parents on marriage or death certificates. Getting back to when he was born is difficult but you may find references to other siblings/relatives that died since 1864 etc.

Regards Carmel O'Callaghan

 

Hello Jane,

Unfortunately I know nothing about Alexander's parents and that is what I am trying to find out. Apparently he claimed that he was an orphan with no siblings, and he did not list his parents' names in the appropriate column on his marriage certificate in Auckland in 1870, so perhaps he did not want to be found. Or perhaps he was illegitimate? But surely his birth must have been registered somewhere! I do know that he was educated and he could write, and probably read as well. He came to New Zedaland because he had heard that there was a lot of flax here and he wanted to get into the linen business, but when he arrived he discovered that N.Z. flax is totally unsuitable for making linen. Perhaps he worked in the flax linen business before he emigrated?

He is my mystery ancestor! My maiden name was Shaw and I would love to find out more about this elusive great grandfather's past life in Co. Cavan. He must have had some parents at some stage!

Cheers, Alison Kelso (nee Shaw)

 

 

Hello Carmel

I have a copy of Alexander's marriage certificate to Esther Logan in Auckland in 1870, and the column for his parents' names is blank. Also there is no mention of them on his death certificate in 1909, although it did confirm that he had lived in Auckland for 44 years and that he was 64 when he died, so that ties in with the fact that he was 20 when he arrived in Auckland in 1865. I have not been able to trace any siblings and he apparently claimed he had none anyway, so I have only his descendants on my family tree. If he did have siblings, that Alexander born in 1898 could have been a nephew I suppose as there seem to have been very few Shaws in Co. Cavan around that time. It would be great to find out who his parents were, but that is my biggest brick wall right now.

Cheers, Alison Kelso (nee Shaw)

Sounds tricky- I found a marriage in Howick for an Alexander son of Alexander in papers past and lots of references to Alexander Shaws - but in Otago so not much use to you. Sounds like he may have wanted to put his past behind him?

Your best bet might be to get a DNA test through (eg) Ancestry and see if you can link up to anyone else that way? I've just had a hit that way which looks to confirm one of my Irish relatives. he could be a famine orphan with that birth date? Orphanages i Ireland?

I was gong to suggest the death cert but that's obviously been no use.

There is a family tree posted on Ancestry that says Alexander Shaw was born in Co. Tyrone, not Cavan:

https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/154293394/person/10203…

Hi Patricia

Yes, that's our family tree and we always believed he was born in Co. Tyrone, but I discovered recently on the birth certificate of one of his children that he was in fact born in Co. Cavan. His wife Esther was from Co. Tyrone.

Cheers, Alison

JNZ

That Shaw marriage in Howick was definitely my family as my great grandfather owned a lot of land there from the 1870s  onwards and my grandfather (also Alexander Shaw as he was the eldest son) married the daughter of the vicar of All Saints, Howick. She was Irene Boler. I had an Ancestry DNA test done about three years ago but so far have not found any Shaw ancestors. One day perhaps? Actually I have just found a passenger list from the Dauntless, the ship that my great-grandfather arrived in Auckland on in 1865, and it states that he was 24 when he got here not 20 as we had always believed. This would put his birth year at around 1841 and might make a difference. I have seen an 1841 Census for Co. Cavan and there is a  Shaw family with an Alexander aged 2, so that could be a possibility I suppose. Now I don't know how to confirm it!

Cheers, Alison

If you have had an ancestry test done....

pop into your cousins list  (4th and closer) and if you haven't already start adding people to groups- first id someone from the visible tree or common ancestors and create that group for "Smith" or whatever. Check who their shared matches are and you can eliminate a whole load you know aren;t Shaws. Do that for as many different groups as possible.

Stage two - once you have grouped up as many as possible you can start on a bit more leg work. Start looking at your more distant lists- 5th to 8th who have public trees. You probably won't have any common ancestors showing and they may not have any shared DNA matches but you can compare them with other trees to see which lines are common- eg Cousin A's tree shows Joseph West married Myra Bella Jones in the 1800's. Cousin B's tree shows descent from Joseph West and Myra bella Jones as well- bingo- you can group them- that is their common link with you (assuming they have no other same ancestors) and cuts down the amount of leg work you need to do. Cos now you are in the leg work stage- of chasing back Joseph and Myra to see where they cross your line- if you have no West's in your tree then you will be after Josephs female ancestors. It is pretty time consuming :-( 

But if you get lucky like me you may find a cousin who crosses your line somewhere and who has more information than you do! PLUS even if they have no more information if you can find someone linked to the Alexander Shaw in the 1841 census who is DNA linked to you it is a pretty good chance that he is yours! (hopefully :-D)

So my example is my GGGF George Lovett. Born in Drumlane 1800 to James and Mary Ann (Irwin) (from the 1841 census and George's pension records) his NZ death cert wrongly shows his parents as George and Margaret (his wife was Margaret Biggs and their daughter Jane Garret obviously got confused when filling out the paperwork) . 1841 shows he had a sister Jane who had gone to "USA". Then I found a burials and marriages (well two actually) for Jane Potts- bc 1793 Co Cavan  - but in Canada. One was buried in 1855, gravestone states born in Drumlane- she was the wife of William. But there was also a Jane Lovett who married an Alexander Potts about the same time and also went to Canada! Both couples can be found on the Canadian census with their children. Long story short- checked my 5th -8th cousins (as above) and found someone descended from William and Jane Potts via several different surnames. So now happy to link to Jane as wife of William not Alexander (I do need to run a few more fact checks to allow for possible mistakes in their tree but it's looking pretty good) 

George was a Howick fencible and one of the soldiers who helped build All Saints in Howick :-D. He had his acre of land in Howick (Elliott Street) but swapped out for 5 acres at the foot of Pigeon Mountain next to his friend Patrick Fitzpatrick. George died 1876 (just in time to get the new death cert format!) , Margaret (who was 20 odd years younger) died in 1899.

I just realised that some of my lines show Kelso's- but I haven't ever followed it up (leg work y'know :-) ) may (probably) be entirely unrelated .

If you are NZ based I would recommend a visit to Howick Fencible Village and a trip to their library (ring them in advance for access). There is lots of "stuff" (much of it not catalogued - groan) there.Plan for a day for a quick trawl but the uncatalogued "stuff" needs more time (hence I haven;t managed to get through much of it)

Wow! That's a lot of information! Thanks for that. The Shaw family farmed a large amount of land in and around Howick, including Pigeon Mountain, right up until about 1980. I have plenty of info about that. My great-grandfather Alexander was the original landowner and then it passed down to two of his sons, but my grandfather was not one of them.

If you have Kelsos in your family tree they will almost certainly be related to my husband's family in some way. My husband Terry Kelso was born in Banbridge, Co. Down in 1933 and he emigrated to N.Z. in 1955. We met and married in Auckland but we now live in Nelson, which is a bit far away from Howick! Although I was born there I seldom visit Auckland these days as I am almost 79 and I find it really difficult to get around Auckland now. I left there in 1969! I have heaps of information about the early Kelso clan in Scotland, right back to the era of Robert the Bruce, but I am missing about two generations to make an unbroken link with Terry's line in Northern Ireland.

Cheers, Alison Kelso

I don't have Kelsos in my own tree- but some of my cousins do- but I haven;t worked out the links to those people- so kelso mught just be a coincidence and no connection even by marriage- I think there were Shaws as well in some lines but I haven't gone throughj them all.

Nelson is certainly a bit away!

I would be really interested if you have any info on the Pigeon Mountain holding. My uderstanding is that the first non Maori owners were the Fitzpatricks. they lived next door to the Lovetts in Howick and seem to have been good friends. patrick 's wife Ann was apparently the mover and shaker in buying the land, they had 17 acres there. My GGF George Lovett had a few acres at the southern edge, he died in 1876 so I'm guessing the land would have been sold up around about then. George and margaret's oldest son William went to Hamilton c 1870's and I think next oldest John went with him and probably my GGM their youngest sister Abigail. sister Jane Garret I think was in PapaToetoe area, sister margaret meredith was off keeping the post office in Pirongia, brother Charles seems to have been in Taranaki, so no one to keep the farm? If only they had hung onto it and I had a claim on some of that real estate :-D

When did your family buy it? and which bits?

 

JNZ

I have a booklet produced for a Shaw family reunion in 1988 which explains the history of the Shaws in Howick. If you want me to scan some (or all) of this and email it to you it would be about 17 pages. Just give me your email address and I will do so. But briefly my great-grandfather Alexander purchased two allotments (numbers 214 & 215) from a Mr. Burns on 25 November 1872, for which he paid forty pounds, then a further allotment 213 in June 1874 from George Wagstaff snr. Then on 6 November 1878 he purchased allotments 217 & 218 for thirty-seven pounds 10 shillings,  allotment 216 in December 1904 for thirty pounds. A further 109 acres of land were purchased in 1938 on Botany Road from the Guy estate and there were further purchases made to add to the Pakuranga end, but from 1961 the Howick blocks were gradually sold. The last of the land was sold in 1971, thus ending 100 years of association. The family homesteads were in Drake Street. Alexander's sons and grandsons farmed this land after he passed away in 1909. I hate to think what this land would be worth today!!!!!

I'm not sure that they did actually own land at Pigeon Mountain, but I have a photo of their horse team at the Pigeon Mountain quarry so that's probably what I was thinking of.

Cheers, Alison Kelso

I'd be very interested if that's possible- thank you

contact through

jtpfarmside  "at" gmail "dot" com 

many thanks

I am now fairly certain that the Alexander Shaw born in Killashandra in 1839 to George and Margaret Shaw was my great-grandfather. I believe he must have falsified his age when he emigrated to New Zealand for whatever reason. Perhaps for employment purposes? Anyway, I am pursuing that line in the meantime. George Shaw was born in Killashandra in 1816 and his parents appear to be Alexander (born 1771, died 1836) and Elizabeth Shaw. Has anyone else got these people in their family tree?

Yay! I have finally broken down my brick wall after around 30 years of searching! My great grandfather did falisify his age on arrival in New Zealand, or else someone made a mistake on the shipping list of arrivals in 1865. Because it was a difference of 6 years I needed proof that I had the right Alexander Shaw, and today I got some DNA matches on Ancestry that proved he was indeed my great grandfather. His father was George Shaw and when I tentatively posted this information on Ancestry I got distant matches to Isabella Shaw, the sister of George my great-great grandfather. Oh joy! And thanks to all those on this site who have done some searching on my behalf over the past three years.

This is brilliant Alison.

 

Regards Carmel