William Shaughnesy and family

[Forfarian]

I'll give it a go tonight.

Go for the birth certificate of Bridget Frances in 1862 rather than Catherine because (a) it will tell you the date and place of the parents' marriage and (b) it may shed some light on why SP indexes it as Bridget Frances but the IGI/FS show William.

[Bellevue]

The 1862 birth cert for Bridget Frances was very helpful as it stated that the parents were married 28th Mar 1860 in Clonmel, Tipperary, Ireland. Which is exactly where I wanted them to be!
Note - (which prob explains the two certs) the first cert was registered as William and then corrected to Bridget!! Quite a dramatic change, male to female!

I also looked at Kates birth cert 1860, no info on parents marriage was was expected.

The one thing I would note is that Kate was born October, so thats 7 months from marriage. Could they have left for Scotland for this reason, I wonder..

William works for the Inland Revenue, this sounds like a good job so why did they up sticks to the USA just a few years later?

[Forfarian]

The 1862 birth cert for Bridget Frances was very helpful as it stated that the parents were married 28th Mar 1860 in Clonmel, Tipperary, Ireland. Which is exactly where I wanted them to be!
Note - (which prob explains the two certs) the first cert was registered as William and then corrected to Bridget!! Quite a dramatic change, male to female!

I suspect a misunderstanding when the registrar asked for the child's name and the father thought it was his own name he was being asked for, and only realised later and had to get it corrected.

FamilySearch/IGI must have indexed the original certificate and not looked at the correction.

[Bellevue]

I suspect a misunderstanding when the registrar asked for the child's name and the father thought it was his own name he was being asked for, and only realised later and had to get it corrected.

Exactly what I image happened

[Neale1961]

William works for the Inland Revenue, this sounds like a good job so why did they up sticks to the USA just a few years later?

Sometimes people emigrated following other members of their family, who sent word about how good things were on the “other side of the pond.” If you work sideways on your tree you might find siblings, or cousins of either William or Joanna who also went to the USA.