Cousin Connections

For each petal on the shamrock,
this brings a wish your way:

Good health, good luck, and happiness

for today and every day.

~Irish Blessing

Discovering An Irish Connection. Before this Irish month of March is over I want to mention a recently discovered Irish connection. Dee Shannon is the wife of my cousin Joan Shepard. Ever since I met Dee a few years ago I have wondered about her last name and whether or not there might be an actual historical family connection. Shannon is a very common name, so I did not pursue the matter at first. But after some recent research I did find a connection, due in large part to the help of the book Shannon, by the late Dexal Ray Shannon. 

I have mentioned the Shannon book before in this blog. It was self-published in 1990, just a year before the death of the author, who was a 3rd cousin of mine. (He was a 1st cousin of my Grandmother Nola Shannon Gower.) A number of those among our Shannon kinfolk have the book. In recent years I have discovered that it is increasingly in high demand among genealogists in general. It is a great resource for family history research, cataloguing thousands of Shannon descendants in America. I do not know if copies of the Shannon book are available for purchase anywhere. If someone reading this post has information about the book's availability, please let me know by email or by posting in the comment section.

Thanks to the Shannon book and other online research, I discovered that Dee Shannon and I are both direct descendants of the Irish couple Robert Shannon Sr. (1630-1724) and his wife Annel Wood Shannon (born 1635). Four of their sons migrated to America from Ireland about 1700. One son was Thomas Shannon, from whom I am descended through my maternal Grandmother Nola Agnes Shannon. Another son was William Shannon from whom Dee is descended through her maternal Grandmother Marie Margaret Shannon. Dee and I are therefore 8th cousins, sharing a common and proud Irish heritage. 

Another Cousin Connection. In recent weeks I have also discovered another new cousin, this one on the Shepard/Davis side of my family. My paternal Grandmother Bura Davis Shepard (1896-1986) was the granddaughter of Malinda Wright Davis (1846-1920). Malinda is our connection to a wonderful, colorful, very Quaker part of our family history. 

Via a comment left on The Shepard's Crook, I connected with Jean Schubert who lives on the Olympic Peninsula of Western Washington. Jean and I are both descendants of Quaker ministers Rachel Wells Wright and her husband John Wright, making her and me 5th cousins. Ministers Rachel and John had a daughter named Charity Wright Cook (1745-1822) a well known, and very well traveled, Quaker minister in her time. She may have been the most well traveled Quaker minister in all of Colonial America. I have written before in this blog about Charity and about her parents John Wright and Rachel Wells Wright. Charity's life and travels are so compelling and heartwarming that cousin Jean has written a novelization of Charity's life. 

Published just last year, Of Hearth and Highway & A Bold Quaker Woman is a fascinating book about religious life in Colonial America and the adventures of one particular Quaker woman, who happens to be an ancestor of ours. It tells the story of Charity Wright Cook's deep faith and her courageous life as an itinerant minister serving the Lord far and wide. This devout Quaker woman and her family are folks from whom we are descended, which means that to some degree their story is our story. They tell us about ourselves as well as about their lives. I just completed reading Jean's book about Charity and found it both engrossing and inspiring. I highly recommend it. If you would like to obtain a copy, email Jean Schubert at jeans05@embarqmail.com. She will gladly send you all the info on how to purchase a copy. 

Happy Easter to all of you!
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Steve Shepard
(he/him/his)