All things green

Well I finally changed the calendar on the wall to March, just in time to notice that the Ides of March are imminent, shortly to be followed by St Patrick's Day. I am at a time in my life when time is somewhat elastic; a whole week can become as one day, and to know exactly what day it is becomes important only if a significant event of some sort must be remembered. Like Monday, March 19th; date with baby John, woot! 

Sometimes, St Patrick's is all about green beer, shamrocks, and being Irish for a day. For me, it is a reminder of an unresolved family tree mystery. Recently, having your DNA tested has become something of a current fad, which may provide you with a pie chart showing what percentage of you came from Eastern Europe or Scotland, etc.. This gives you an idea from whence you came, but not the more important, from whomce, whom. 

So, the mystery; until the day he departed this 'mortal coil', my dad thought that his grandfather, Francis Leonard, was born in County Clare, Ireland. We were thusly, Irish. I decided to continue my father's work on the family tree and see what I could find. Before long I discovered that Francis Leonard was actually born in Canandaigua, New York, his father James, having decided for some reason to relocate from Ontario, Canada to Ontario, New York, for a period of time. James is never heard of again.

I think he must have died there because I next find, just the children, back in Ontario, in a little village called Ashgrove.

James was a genealogical brick wall until another researcher introduced me to James' sisters Margaret and Eliza, and his father James. This red letter day led to the discovery that James and his family all came from Manchester, England. 

James Thornton of this Parish and Town of Manchester, Tailor, and Mary Brown of Manchester, Spinster, were married in this Church by Banns Published June 29 July 6 & 13, 1806 this tenth Day of August in the Year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Six By me Joseph Brookes.(AND signed by my ggggrandparents, James Thornton and Mary Brown.)

Turning my attention to my dad's maternal line, I discovered that grandma's roots were in the Inner Hebrides on the Isle of Islay, Scotland, in a wee place called Conisby. Perhaps this partly explains my oldest son, who is all things Celtic, with a dram of peaty whiskey. Still no Irish.

I went back to Francis Leonard and found that he had married a Margaret Nixon in 1876. Great Grandma Maggie turned out to be first generation Irish Canadian, her parents Hugh Nixon and Matilda King having been born in Ireland. Maggie's death record shows Hugh's birthplace, and the gravestone that Hugh erected for his brother George, all confirmed that both Hugh and Matilda came from County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. This goes some way to explaining why my youngest son is part Manchester Oi! with the heart of an Irish rebel. 

So the family mystery is somewhat solved by locating the proper Irish root, and the correct County, but the ancestry home town is hidden yet in the Irish mist in the records of some parish church somewhere in Northern Ireland. One of these days maybe some Nixon descendant will make that journey and find those connections in a set of parish books, or some newly transcribed records will appear on some genealogical website that will save the trip. Not nearly as evocative as being there though.

I wondered why Hugh chose this particular time to leave Ireland. I don't know exactly when he took this journey, and I don't know if he traveled with family, or to join family. I do know that Hugh and Matilda married in 1830 in Ontario, so he arrived in Canada some time earlier. 

"May 5, 1830   Celebrated marriage, by licence, between Hugh Nixon of the Township of Esquesing in the Gore District, Upper Canada, Bachelor and Matilda King of Etobicoke, Home District, Spinster."

Sometimes there was no money to buy the passage for a journey of this kind, so a loan was purchased, and the surety for the repayment of the loan, was that a wife and family must be left behind until the loan was paid in full. Since this was not the case, perhaps it was natural disaster in Ireland. The potato famine which caused mass starvation, disease and emigration did not begin until 1845, so Hugh was raising a family in Canada by then. I suppose there could have been a siren call of adventure in a new world, but I think it more likely that the political and religious climate of Ireland probably provided a much more compelling reason to seek asylum. The political climate at the time was tense. Ireland was managed as a colony by Britain. The Irish Parliament was operated from the seat of government in Dublin Castle. Inspired by the French Revolution, a Society of United Irishmen was established, hoping the Irish, regardless of religious belief, could become a united body to bring about the removal of English control. This culminated in the Rebellion of 1798, which was cost many lives, and was in most ways fruitless because it brought about the end of Irish Parliament and the 1801 Act of Union which essentially put Ireland under much tighter control by Britain. This is the Ireland that Hugh was born in.

This excerpt from the 1871 census confirms that Hugh and his family were Protestant. "N C Meth", stands for New Connexion Methodist and Hugh would have attended, and possibly helped to establish the Ashgrove Methodist Church. As Church politics is as complex as any other kind, suffice it to say that this type of Methodism, and there were others, had its roots in the Church of England.

This building was eventually moved from this location and put to a different use. Only the graveyard remains here on what is now Trafalgar Road.

History shows that issues in Ireland were far from settled and conditions were only to worsen, so the family must have made plans to remove to a new land, and must have had the financial ability to do so. One can imagine that the hardship of the journey, and the difficulty in making a new start, might still pale in the face of the prospect of peace and religious freedom to be found here.

Of the 12 children that Hugh and Matilda had in Ashgrove, only three lived into the new century. Matilda died in 1857, so life in Canada was still perilous and came with a price. 

The other panels on the monument list the children's names and dates, a reminder of the cost of living in that time.

When Hugh passed away in November of 1881, my great grandfather Francis Leonard Thornton was the informant for the official record. He was still living in Ashgrove and was Postmaster at the time.

Maggie Nixon Thornton and Francis Leonard Thornton, Toronto, c1924

It is astonishing, and disheartening, to look back two hundred years and find that many things are still the same. Politics, of all types, are still unfathomable, and still serve the few, while affecting the many. Acts of domination, isolation and subjugation still divide people from one another. While science and technology move us forward at rates most of us cannot fathom, the species seems not to advance in positive ways. My mother would say "twas ever thus", and she may be right.

There is some question as to whether this is Hugh Nixon or not. I am hoping it is. He is one of my immigrant ancestors; a survivor and made of stern stuff. Stern Irish stuff. And Hugh, Son of Nicholas, I am proud to remember your legacy and tell you that you are 3X great grandfather to a wee boy who also bears the name Nicholas.