Genealogists discover Massachusetts strangers are rightful heirs to $1.5 million estate in Ireland

Heirs of Mary Broderick receive stake of her estate, and new knowledge of nearby cousins

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Cousins Margaret Shaughnessy of Newton (left) and Patricia Shaughnessy Fontaine of West Roxbury grew up a few miles from each other but met for the first time last year.

Photo by Video still from “Dead Money”

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Brophy was put on task to find the descendants of those three people, who would be Broderick’s first cousins. Despite an abundance of Shaughnessys in Massachusetts, Brophy was able to quickly locate the ones he needed using vital records and obituaries.

However, trying to convince Broderick’s heirs that they were entitled to a piece of her estate turned out to be the tricky part.

“People are skeptical. [They think] it’s the e-mail from the Nigerian prince,” said Brophy, referring to a prevalent online scam. “Their first reaction was that it was a scam.”

Beth Schiavone, whose father William Shaughnessy was Mary Broderick’s first cousin, and her six siblings certainly believed it was a scam when they first heard they could be getting an inheritance.

However, her father, William Shaughnessy, whose father Henry Shaughnessy had emigrated to Massachusetts from Galway, who had suffered a debilitating stroke and was nearing the end of his life at the time, hoped it was true.

“It was laughable to him that now that he can’t even walk he might have a little bit of cash,” Schiavone, of Worcester, said in a recent interview. “He sold automobiles most of his life and it was a struggle.”

Unfortunately, William Shaughnessy passed away in 2009 never knowing if the inheritance would be held true or not.

A few years later, the family received a letter indicating they were among 17 beneficiaries of Broderick’s estate, each getting $36,000, Schiavone said.

“And the next thing you know, they were trying to get all of us to meet,” Schiavone, 46, said. “We have Shaughnessy relatives from Newton, Massachusetts. We had no idea.”

Roger Shaughnessy, the son of Edward Shaughnessy and Broderick’s first cousin, comes from nearby Newton in Massachusetts and stepped forward to claim his stake.

However, the family of heir Margaret Minihan, daughter of Elizabeth Minihan, did not come forward to claim the inheritance, believing it to be a scam, Brophy said.

With the cousins agreeing to meet, the creators of ‘Dead Money’ knew they had television on their hands.

“We wanted to have the ‘Oh my God!’ when they met each other,” said O’Connell, whose inspiration for the show came after seeing the state’s unclaimed property list published in The Boston Globe while visiting the city several years ago.

“When this family walked in, I recognized them immediately from the family resemblance,” said O’Connell. “It was amazing, it was extraordinary.”

At the unexpected family reunion, Patricia Fontaine also said she could see the family resemblance between her own father and Roger Shaughnessy.

“It was really fascinating really how people look like each other,” the 60-year-old Fontaine said. “We couldn’t get over some of the stuff. It was so familiar.”

One of Broderick’s cousins from Galway was even flown in by the ‘Dead Money’s production company.

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