Dathai,
I have been adding all these characters to my tree Stewart/Ball/Walker/Fox/Scott/Flack/Gillone on ancestry, which makes it easier to search, and am choosing to believe, until I can prove otherwise:
1. Nicholas and Michaelis Fox are the same person
2. Catherine Fox and Alicia (Alice) Fox are sisters, as well as Margaret Mary Fox. Alicia (Alice) married in Liverpool in 1919 and so did Margaret (Keith Stewart). (I was named Alice when I was b. hmmm)
3. A couple of reasons our family might not have known Margaret's mother's name is she was too young when her mother died, and she lived elsewhere with other people or an orphanage, possibly not with her father.
4. After his wife died Nicholas may have not had the capacity to raise young girls. Or maybe he sailed away.
5. I found Margaret Shelly's (Fox) nephew Thomas Joseph Shelly crossing the border in Detroit to Canada in 1926 and he is listed as b. in 1898 in Dublin and his mother as Annie and wife as Mary. Other family could have exited Ireland for Canada.
Regarding the marriage certificate you purchased, I wonder if the occupation of porter can relate to shipping and then Nicholas advanced to stevedore. I also wonder how and where you got the marriage certificate (thank you and how can I repay), as I was looking at GRO Ireland today which is difficult to navigate payment.
I have just started to add Smith/Smyth to my tree starting with Mary Shelly and husband unknown Smith. I see you have Mary Shelly as James Smyth's spouse. I will follow that lead.
And of course, we cousins have had no luck in tracking Nicholas Fox with many wrong turns and starting again and again. He may have just picked up and left. The only reference to him is the marriage of Margaret and Keith 1919 where he is deceased and a Master Mariner.
Thank you!!
Alleson
