James Clavin

Three years after his sister Mary Ellen, James Clavin (1884 – 1964) immigrated to New York. He arrived on the Majestic on September 8th 1904 and he was 20 years old. Unlike Mary Ellen, who had paid her own fare, his mother Julia paid for him. His occupation is given as a labourer and last place of residence was Brosna. His end address on the Passenger Manifest is 444, 88th Street New York, his mother Julia’s home.

We presume he was helping Patrick (Thomas and Julia’s brother) on the farm in Ireland, but could not afford the fare to New York. The Manifest address is incorrect. Both West and particularly East 88th Street are quite well-to-do areas of New York. The correct address was West 58th Street, a little more humble, as is shown on the Baptismal Certificate of Mary Ellen’s first born child, John Francis Boyce dated February 7th, 1904.

In 1914, James Clavin married Alice Hickey (1883 – 1938) and they had three children, Patrick (1917 – 1990), Mary (1918 – 2003) and John (1921- c.1968). Patrick married in England during World War 2 (see Mary Clavin’s Estate below) but Mary Clavin remained single. Little is known about John, but according to a professional genealogist search, it is believed that he died before 1968. Neither Patrick nor Mary mentioned John’s existence to Barry Tobin in 1970. To Barry’s great disappointment, they would not give him any information that would lead him to Mary Ellen McCarthy, who was still alive in 1970; and her descendants. Apparently they felt justified in withholding information from a cousin, who’d travelled half-way around the world, because of an old family feud [see The Search for our American Cousins]. Both Patrick and Mary died in sad circumstances in the Bronx, New York.

There is a family saga connected with Julia Clavin’s children and a rift that flowed down to Julia’s grandchildren. It is believed that it started when James’s wife, Alice, resented his close relationship with his sister, Mary Ellen (Clavin) Boyce/McCarthy. The children of the Irish immigrant brother and sister grew up having little or nothing to do with their cousins. The grandchildren were unaware of their cousins’ existence until Barry Tobin, from Australia, ‘introduced’ them. The following is from Mike Boyce, Julia Clavin’s great grandson.

Mary Clavin’s Estate

Mary Clavin died on December 13, 2003 in New York City. She was the daughter of Mary McCarthy’s brother James Clavin. I was unaware of her death, as were all the relatives on her father’s side of her family. Unfortunately, she had been estranged from her father’s relatives for most of her life.

Mary McCarthy was my grandmother and so James Clavin was my grand uncle. As a child, I never heard of Mary Clavin even though she was my father’s cousin and she lived fairly close to where I grew up in the Bronx, New York.

A year after Mary Clavin’s death, I received a letter from Jaisan Recovery Corporation. Jaisan’s business is to locate heirs to unclaimed financial assets. The letter from Jaisan stated that the nearest living descendants of Mary McCarthy and John Paul Boyce (my grandparents) were entitled to funds being held by New York State as “unclaimed assets.” Jaisan contacted my siblings — Peter, William, and Gloria — as well as my cousins Pat Boyce, Donald Boyce, and Kathy Grant.

I discussed this situation with my brothers, sister, and cousins. They agreed to sign the agreement with Jaisan, allowing Jaisan to work on their behalf to recover the funds. At that time, Jaisan revealed that the money was from Mary Clavin’s estate and that the amount was around $700,000.

For the next two years, Jaisan’s genealogist worked on gathering the family details. She discovered that Mary Clavin had two brothers: Patrick and John. All records on John Clavin disappeared after the 1940’s, and it appeared that Patrick had no children. On Mary Clavin’s mother’s side of the family, there were no descendants. So it appeared that my siblings, cousins, and I were the only heirs to the estate.

In October 2007, an unexpected heir came forward and filed papers indicating her claim to the estate. She claimed to be Patrick Clavin’s daughter. And she eventually found the documentation to prove that she really was Patrick’s daughter and Mary Clavin’s niece. Since my family members and I were first cousins once removed, Stella was obviously the closer relative.

Jaisan’s genealogist discovered that Patrick Clavin was in the army during World War II. While stationed in England, he married an English woman. The couple returned to New York after the war, and their daughter (Mary Clavin’s niece) was born in the U.S. The couple then moved back to England, where they soon divorced. Patrick returned to New York, and it appears he and his ex-wife had no further contact.

Patrick’s ex-wife remarried, and the niece was raised by her mother and stepfather. After her parents died, the niece decided to locate her birth father. She discovered the death certificate for her aunt Mary Clavin, and further research showed that Mary Clavin had left an unclaimed estate.

In September 2009, the court awarded the estate to the niece. It’s sad that Mary Clavin didn’t want to have anything to do with her aunt (Mary McCarthy). When Father Barry Tobin came to New York all the way from Australia in the 1970’s to seek information about American relatives, Mary Clavin refused to tell him where he could find my grandmother Mary McCarthy. It would have meant the world to my grandmother to meet Father Tobin and to learn of her Australian relatives.

The final chapter to this story occurred when I found the name of one of Mary Clavin’s distant cousins. My wife had a brief chat with her, and we learned a little about Mary’s life. Mary never married and lived in the Bronx all her life. She was active in her church. She worked for an insurance company and lived very frugally in a small apartment. Her cousin appeared to be one of her only friends.

Mike Boyce July 15th, 2011.