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Nallen family in Virginia/ West Virginia from County Mayo

Nallen family in Virginia/ West Virginia from County Mayo

Posted: 22 May 2015 6:45PM GMT
Classification: Query
Surnames: Nallen McAnallen
I found my Nallen family In County Mayo about 10 years ago near Crossmolino. They told me that my ancestor couple walked the length of Ireland carrying their 1 year old baby to take a Coffin ship to the U.S. in Black '47 the worst year of the famine. If so, that would be John Nallen b.1815, his wife Margaret Hopkins b.1813 and their baby James Nallen b.1846. The family said they were quite sure of this because originally only 3 Nallen brothers lived in County Mayo haven been forced west by the English. One of the men I met with was Father "Jim" Nallen who had been the parish priest for many years but when I met him he was a professor in the local college. Father Jim has since died as has his brother, "Mick" Nallen. This meeting changed my life in that it made my Irish ancestry "real". Soon after John, Margaret and James arrived in the U.S. they moved to Randolph County, Virginia. Now, after the Civil War, Randolph County, West Virginia. Recently I have learned that James at age 20 enlisted in the U.S, Cavalry in 1866 and fought in the Indian Wars. He later built the Delmonte Hotel in Elkins, West Virginia which was operated by the family for 50 years and is currently being renovated. Family records were kept by the parish priest who were hunted and punished by the English. I am told the priests didn't like to admit they didn't know a name so on the birth records for example the father's name was sometimes wrong. That error was not helped by the habit of naming a child after a relative so that there could be several different males named, for example, "James", at the same time. i was also told that the original name was McAnallen anglicized by the English to Nallen (No Macs or Os allowed). There is or was a world wide large McAnallen ancestry gathering somewhere every 5 years.
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