Biographical Sketch - Mable Jane McGee

Mable Jane McGee McCourt Hughes

My great-grandmother, Jane McGee, has always been a missing puzzle piece in my family history research.  So very little was known about her and the McGee family when I first started researching the family.  What I started with was little more than her name and place of birth.  I knew nothing of her parents and siblings, and except for my grandfather, Thomas Henry, I didn't even know the names of her children.  In recent years, as more and more family history information is made available through greater advances in technology, I have discovered a number of documents and photos that have helped me piece that puzzle together.  There are still many missing pieces, and as time goes on I'm sure more will be discovered, but I've found enough to allow us to begin to see what the finished picture of this family looks like.

According to family knowledge - most of which has been passed down by her son, Thomas Henry, her full name was Mable Jane McGee.  While that is the name that is reflected on group sheets and other family history documents, I've yet to find a historical document that lists her full name.  Everything I have found to date simply records her name as Jane. 

Her birth record is yet to be discovered so her birth date and place have been taken from other historical records.  From her death certificate, I learned that she was born May 4, 1855 and that she was the daughter of Edward and Mary Farrell McGee.  The earliest historical document I have found to date is the passenger list from the SS Neera which lists the family of Edward and Mary McGee.

Passenger List from the SS Neera

The SS Neera sailed from Belfast on August 14, 1873 and arrived in Quebec on August 29th for a total trip of 16 days.  At the age of 19, Jane was listed as the eldest child of this family and her status was listed as spinster.  Her father, who was 40-years-old at this time was listed as a laborer.  Jane was the eldest of nine children, eight of which are listed on the passenger list above, the youngest, Thomas Henry McGee was born after their arrival from Ireland.  This younger brother only lived a few weeks but I find it interesting that Jane would later name her first born son, Thomas Henry.  Her siblings on the list above were, in order of age, Robert, Catherine, Margaret, Mary, John, Edward and Elizabeth.

Two years to the day after her arrival in Quebec, Jane married Joshua McCourt in the Anglican church (St. Peter's) at Sherbrooke, Quebec.  The date was August 29, 1875.

Marriage record of Joshua McCourt and Jane McGee

According to this marriage record, Jane was living in Lennoxville at the time and Joshua was living in Sherbrooke.  Neither could write their own names and therefore signed the record by placing their mark next to the notation made by the priest. 

Joshua and Jane were the parents of seven children.  The first six were born while the family was living in Lennoxville.  Below is a page from the 1881 Canadian Census showing the family of Joshua and Jane with the first four of their children.

1881 Canadian Census

Jane was a devout Catholic and saw to it that each of her children were christened in the Catholic Church.  I have copies of the christening certificates for each of the children and it is noted on each one that the father was not present at the christening ceremony. The McCourt's were largely Protestant in their religious preferences and this might explain Joshua's absence from the christenings.  It's unknown to what extent the differences in religion were between Joshua and Jane but I've been told most of my life that it was a major point of contention.

Sometime between July 1885 and November 1888, the family relocated to Brockville, Ontario where the youngest child, William was born.  Brockville is located on the St. Lawrence river directly across from Morristown, New York.  It's in this area of Upstate New York where the family would later settle (See the earlier post "Biographical Sketch - Charles John McCourt").

I'm not sure of the exact date, but it was about the time William was born that Joshua and Jane separated.  Thomas Henry, their eldest child, would leave with his father and both would end up settling in Utah where Joshua remarried and had eleven more children with his second wife, Rhoda Evelyn Brundage.

A few years after the separation, Jane would also remarry.  Her second husband's name was Patrick Hughes.  Like Jane, he was an Irish immigrant who came to Canada years before and settled in Brockville, Ontario.  The 1900 United States Census shows that Patrick and Jane Hughes were living in Morristown and that they had been married six years.  It also showed that they had a son, Earl James Hughes who was born in Hammond, New York on September 20, 1894.  By this time, Jane's children from her first marriage were either married or working as servants and farm laborers and living with other families in the area, except for William who would have been 12-years-old.  It appears he wasn't living with his mother and stepfather at the time, but I have no idea where he was.

Ten years later in the 1910 United States Census, Patrick, Jane and their son, Earl are shown living in Theresa, New York.  Theresa is a small village in Jefferson County about 30 miles southwest of Morristown.  William appears again in this census but is living with the Parke family in the neighboring town of Philadelphia.  He is listed as a hired hand.

From the 1910 census, I also learned that Jane's widowed mother, Mary had come to live with them in Theresa.  The census listed her age as 70 but I believe, based on other documents, that she was actually older than that.  Mary died March 6, 1912 in Theresa and was buried in the Oakwood cemetery.  The date and location of her husband's death is still a missing puzzle piece.

Jane's husband, Patrick died of stomach cancer in 1919.  He is buried near his mother-in-law in the Oakwood cemetery.

In September of 1922, Patrick and Janes' son, Earl James Hughes died of pneumonia.  He was 28-years-old and the father of three small children.  A fourth child and only daughter was born 10 weeks after her fathers death.  Earl James is buried next to his father in the Oakwood cemetery.

The tall headstone in the top-right corner is the headstone for Patrick and Jane Hughes.  The two smaller stones below this headstone are the foot stones for Patrick and Jane.  The headstone in the bottom-right corner of the picture is that of Jane's mother, Mary McGee and the small headstone just to the left of Patrick's foot stone is the marker for Earl James Hughes, son of Patrick and Jane.

Closeup of Patrick and Jane's headstone

Closeup of Jane's foot stone

The last historical document I have for Jane is her death certificate which indicates that she died in Dexter, New York, a neighboring town of Theresa, on June 30, 1927.  The cause of death was listed as "fatty degeneration of the heart."  In addition to learning who her parents were and the date of her birth, I also learned that at the time of her death, she was employed as a kitchen maid, specifically as a "salad maker" by a Mr. Hiram F. Inglehart.  Mr. Inglehart was a wealthy merchant and financier in Watertown, New York.  He served as Mayor of Watertown from 1893 to 1894 and was the proprietor of two resort hotels in the area.  I'm guessing she worked in the kitchen of one of those hotels.

As my research continues, I've been focusing a lot of my time on the McGee family.  I've learned that while living in Ireland, the family didn't stay in the same place for very long.  Nearly every one of the children were born in a different location.  After arriving in Quebec, some of the children would marry and settle in parts of Vermont and New Hampshire while others remained in Canada.