Tag Archives: Shields/Simons

Corrections to Grandma Benac’s Personal History

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In Grandma’s acknowledgements page of her personal history book (written and printed in 2001), she says, “Write your own book in rebuttal, but not while I’m still around to read it.”

Well, she has not been around for almost two years now, so it’s time we started mentioning the things we know now that Grandma didn’t know. No disrespect to Grandma intended: I know she’s cheering me on up above as she sits and chats with Margaret and her mother Ann Dunlope about life, family, and the gospel.

As I’ve mentioned before, when Grandma passed away, I felt a strong need to pursue a specific line of family history. Frank and I were successful in finding a few different family lines related to James and Margaret (Shields) Simon (pages 25-28 in Grandma’s book). With my baby being born I’ve not focused on the family for more than a year now, but I’m feeling the spirit of Elijah very strongly again, so expect more of these posts in the next few days and weeks.

Here are some general corrections to the story of James Simon as found in Grandma’s book. More detailed information to come, with links to the records we’ve found.

On page 26, Grandma was unable to find a birth record for Grandpa Simon but knew that he told Greenfield cousins about “when he was a little boy in Dublin.” We do not know for certain when he was born, that is true. However, chances are nearly 100% that he was born and raised in Manchester, England. Certainly not Dublin, since his family came from Galway County, Ireland in 1847.Grandpa Simon was born between 1847 and 1850.

On page 27, Grandma says the family tradition stated that James’ father Thomas died at sea on the way to America, but she states it was not true since they could not find record of it. With closer inspection of the ship manifest, we know it is true. Thomas Simon died of apoplexy literally one day before the ship arrived at Castle Garden, New York City.The manifest transcribes his age as 12 1/2 years old. But it seems clearly a misread of the sloppy writing, which has been crossed out at his death.

As for Grandma’s further thoughts on Maggie and the baby Edwin, we have not yet found them in America or even found any evidence of Edwin’s birth, but we are not finished searching yet. There may be an Edwin somewhere, and Margaret probably did not disappear in to thin air.

There is lots more to learn about Margaret (Shields) Simon another day, for her story is far more complicated than Grandma’s book suggests. Note that on page 26 of Grandma’s book, she says they were married in 1867 and James D was born in 1866…notice any thing about those dates?!

Bottom line is, there was a first marriage, and James Delaney was the son of Denis Delaney. I’m still working on details of this, and we don’t yet know what happened to Denis. More info to come. In 2012, the Catholic Family History Society finished digitizing baptismal and marriage records for St. Wilfrid’s Catholic church, which is the church where Margaret and James were married. I have ordered a copy of that (a CD-ROM; it is not online), because I found evidence that a James Delany was baptized there, with Thomas Simmons as his godfather.

I’m working on a write up about the two families (the Shields and the Simons) for those who may be interested in the sources and so forth. Watch this page for more information! You can also log in to New Family Search and see what Temple work has been done.

2011 Goal Number 2: Do Family History Work

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I was walking the dirty and crowded back streets of Greater Manchester, England, in the summer of 1885, searching for them. Then I remembered their address, and asked a passerby for directions. I was a strange sight in my modern day clothes, but I hadn’t had time to prepare for my journey: I didn’t know I would be time traveling, after all.

As I approached the small cellar, I saw two men approaching, and I knew it was James (senior) and his brother Martin. James was a bit wary of me, but when I’d explained that I was his descendant, come to visit from 2011, he was willing to answer my questions. I asked him question after question, and I’m sorry to say that I cannot at this time remember what I asked, let alone the answers he gave me! Just one question I remember: why hadn’t he gone yet to New York looking for Margaret? She was his wife, after all!

As I tried to find my way out of the time warp, Margaret Ann and her father were starting to pack their bags. They said it would take a few weeks to get enough cash together, but they were ready to go to New York and find Margaret. They realized they’d waited too long.

The streets got darker as I stumbled along in the maze, and suddenly I was awake, Paul asking me for help with something this worldly.

It was just a dream. Upon waking, I knew immediately that I’d had some of the details wrong. James and his children did not live in the cellar at Back Acton Street: that was the address of Thomas Simmons and his family during the 1851 and 1861 censuses. What was his address in 1881? I should look it up for the next time.

Remember how I claimed that this year I’d make New Year’s Resolutions after I’ve accomplished something? I’ve been meaning to tell you about my resolution number 2, but every time I sit down to write about it, I get distracted on Ancestry.com or some other site. Tonight I’m determined to get it down for your sakes.

Saturday, January 1, 2011, my Grandma, Helen Ruth Wilson Benac, peacefully passed away. I shared some thoughts in January on my reading blog about the power of reading her personal history.

What I didn’t mention on that blog was that on Sunday, the day after her passing, I began to feel like I was supposed to be doing family history work. “I don’t know how to do that!”I told myself, shrugging it off.

I had tried for a few weeks when Paul was newborn, and I never seemed to have enough time to get into the groove before he’d need my attention again. In Australia, I had nearby access to a family history center, but I still didn’t make much progress. I had heard about James Simon and his wife Margaret’s mysterious disappearance, and I was fascinated by it. But I decided that there was a season for everything, and family history work was for those who had more time than I did.

This January, after Grandma’s passing, the urge to revisit James and Margaret’s story persisted for weeks. I kept thinking about Grandma, and I kept thinking about Margaret’s story. Finally, in the middle of January, on a Tuesday morning after I left my son at preschool, I stopped by the local family history center and said, “What do I do first?”

The librarian showed me how to correct errors on New Family Search, how to add information I’ve found, and how to start discussions. I left the Family History library praying that somehow I’d find Margaret’s mother, because I was certain the two of them wanted to be found. After just one hour of studying Margaret’s name and her mother’s blank line, I felt a spiritual bond with them.

I called my mom to say how excited I was about the progress, and a few days later, my brother Frank sent me an email saying he was working on these same people and maybe we should collaborate. Suddenly, there are three of us working on finding this family extensively.

It has been delightful, time consuming, exhausting, frustrating, exciting, boring, and over everything else successful.

Thanks to our combined research (and some funding from Mom and an ancestry subscription from Frank!) we’ve discovered Margaret Shield’s mother: Ann Dunlope. (See Margaret’s birth certificate). We’ve found so many more than just Ann, because we didn’t know much about these people. We have more than 20 new names to take to the temple for baptisms or marriages. Just a quick rundown: Margaret’s father is Patrick and she has two younger brothers (and a sister we knew about). James comes from a family of not three children but ten, and we have names for at least five of them, plus his parents (although their work is almost done!). We know when James and his family came to England from Ireland, and we may have found that James was actually born in England after their arrival. We’ve found that Margaret may have been married before she married James, that what we thought was the oldest child may have been from another marriage, and that our ancestor Margaret Ann (who was born to Margaret and James) was born a year before the two of them were married. In fact, Margaret may have been a bigamist, a thought that makes me, a reader of Victorian literature, rather excited to discover just what really happens at the end of this real-life family novel.

Each answer we get from the English records only opens up another set of questions.

Although my mind has been mainly full of Margaret Sheilds and James Simon and their children and their siblings, as I’ve thought of my open-ended goal to “do family history work” this year, I keep thinking of Ann Dunlop. To me, she is the image of success, for we have found Margaret’s mother. That is what Margaret wanted me to find back in January. As I left the family history center that first day, I felt Margaret’s presence along with her unknown mother’s as they asked me to find her so they could be sealed together.

Date for that sealing to be determined. I keep hoping that we’ll find a few more names this week.

I am the daughter of Ellen Margaret Benac, who is the daughter of Helen Ruth Wilson, who is the daughter of John Wilson, who is the son of Margaret Ann Simon (and Charles Edwin Wilson), who is the daughter of Margaret Shields (and James Simon) who is the daughter of Ann Dunlop and Patrick Shields.

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If you are a part of the family, log in to the New Family Search and you’ll see it for yourself. If any of you, especially those related to James and Margaret, want to be in on our email discussions, please let me know in the comments and I can send you our emails. Sometimes I send five in an evening, just so you know.

The True and Unknown Story of James and Margaret

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The story of James and Margaret touched me deeply when I first heard it. What happened to Margaret? I wanted to find her. Since today it is Grandma’s birthday in the USA, I thought I’d post about them again.

Before I began the research for this family, I found that James M. has been sealed to Margaret and to his three children. We think we know Margaret’s parents and James’ parents. They’ve all been sealed, and James has been sealed to his brothers. Now we need to go back a generation.

In doing some very preliminary research, I’ve found holes in this romantic story: I don’t think this story is actually true, and I don’t think we have the children of James and Margaret correct. Here are some things I’ve found and the questions that are raised. If any of you know anything about family history research, I’d love pointers of where to go next.

  • Tradition shows James M. and Margaret being married in 1867. The marriage certificate I found places their marriage in January 1869. This is the one Grandma and my mom believe is theirs, and the parents listed as witnesses are those James and Margaret have been sealed to.
  • James D. claims his own birth as June 1866. This is what he claimed on the 1900 Indiana Patoka census. I don’t think he’d mis-claim his own birth year when he was more than 30 years old. This birth year seems odd given his parent’s marriage date, either the certificate year of 1869 or the traditional year of 1867.
  • In an 1871 U.K. census, I find James and Margaret listed with James Delany, a nephew. I believe this is our James M. and Margaret because it is in the district their wedding occurred in. Also, on the census, James M. is listed as a brick labourer, which is what we know his occupation was in England. This raises many questions. First, where is Margaret Ann, who was supposedly born in 1869? Also, if James D. is James Delany, and he is a nephew, then we’ve sealed him to the wrong parents! Who are his parents? Grandma Benac doesn’t recall Uncle Jim being anything but James M.’s son, but since he was already living with James and Margaret in 1871, maybe something happened to his parents before then and he was adopted at a very young age.
  • I found a 1881 census that lists James M., Martin (James’ brother), and Margaret Ann. I believe these are the correct ancestors, given the district they are found in and their ages and occupations. However, Edwin and Margaret are not to be found on that census, and neither is James D./James Delany. Supposedly, then, Edwin and Margaret already left for America. When did they arrive in America? I have been unable to find them on any ship manifest between 1880 and 1885. Did they make it to America? And where is James D./James Delany? If he’s been adopted, would he still be at home as a 15-year-old boy? Where did he go?
  • I found the 1885 ship manifest from England to New York which lists James Simmons (42), Martin Simmons (46), Margaret Ann Simmons (17), and James Simmons (19). So, by the time they were coming to America, four years after that last census, James D. was already “adopted” into the Simmons’ family and had taken on him their surname. Where did his family go? Who were his family? And why did James M. wait four years before coming after Margaret and Edwin?
  • James D. married late in life. He and his wife, Neicie, were unable to have children. They adopted a boy they named Logan, which was James M.’s mother’s maiden surname. Was James D. related via James M.’s family? On which side, Margaret or James, was he a nephew, as was indicated in the 1871 census?

I need to find James D.: when he was born, who his parents were, where his parents went. I don’t know where to begin. There is so much unanswered, and the search function on Ancestry.com is not the easiest to manipulate. U.K. records are not digital — only the indexes are. So I suspect I’ll have to order the records when I’m sure I have the right one. And how can I be sure? I can’t.

Here’s what I am sure of: there is more to this family than I thought. The most important thing will be finding the right parents so our family can be sealed to their right parents.

The Romance of James and Margaret Simon (Simons/Simmons)

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I started a Benac family history project a year and a half ago. Then I got distracted by a big box of Sorenson Family History. While I remained in Chicago, I scanned the Sorenson family history stories. I am grateful I could get those stories into an electronic format. All of the baptisms and sealings have been done for the Sorenson side, back for a long time.

Lately, I keep thinking about the Benac family history project I started a year and a half ago. I know I need to work on it. I keep feeling the promptings of the Spirit urging me into action. I’m beginning again. Since it is Grandma Benac’s birthday today (it’s already April 14 in Australia), I thought I’d post about this couple in her honor.

I’ll begin telling you the family folklore. In another post, I’ll tell you what I’ve discovered.

James M. Simons (Simmons/Simon) and Margaret were both Irish Catholics, married in the 1860s in England. They had three children: James D., Margaret Ann, and Edwin. James M. was a bricklayer. When Edwin was quite young, the family decided to immigrate to New York City. Margaret had been offered a job working with her sister at a home of a well-to-do woman. She would be the housekeeper for this woman.

In 1881, just when the family was prepared to head for New York, James took a fall and broke his leg. Margaret would lose the job if she didn’t continue to New York City, so she took Edwin and traveled to New York without James, James D., and Margaret Ann.

In the course of time, letters were exchanged. Supposedly, James M.’s housekeeper, who liked James, wrote to Margaret that they were having an affair. Margaret accused James of this. James, in a stubborn Irish way, insisted that she come home and see for herself that it was not true. She refused to do that. When she stopped writing, James got worried and decided to come to America himself. James M. left England for New York with his older brother Martin, James D., and Margaret Ann. They headed to New York City to find Margaret and Edwin. (Tradition says his father Thomas also came and died on the voyage but there has never been any evidence of this.)

When they arrived in New York City, Margaret was nowhere to be found. The people at the house where she had been working told him she’d left. There was no forwarding address, and no sign of her or Edwin anywhere. James took his children and went with his brother Martin to Indiana, where his other brother, Patrick, lived.

His daughter Margaret Ann married Charles Edwin Wilson in 1888, bore him five children, including John William Wilson in 1891, and died in 1895. John William Wilson later had a daughter named Helen Ruth.

For the rest of James M. Simon’s life, he pursued his quest to find Margaret. He hired private detectives to search for her. All was in vain. He never found her. He died in 1927. Grandma Benac says she remembers the day of his funeral. His dog “Old Vick” lay on the porch by the front door after his death and refused to let anyone enter the house.

But what happened to his wife, his Margaret?