Thanks Sandra.

I see Ancestry has a Nicholas Cunningham in their passenger lists of about the right age (if similar to Catherine) sailing in the 10 years after 1900. I haven't got the right membership package to get any more details than that. The Ellis Island website is only showing me dates of 1918 & 1919 for that name. It would be interesting to know what happened to him, and what he did in America if that is where he ended up.

I've also always wondered what exactly happened to Eleanor McQuiggin's husband, James, as the story in our family is that he drowned at sea early on in their married life, but I've never been able to find out any more about it. I have got him in the 1901 census, on a ship in Kent.