Hi Denise,
In response to your old inquiry, I believe we are distant cousins. My great (x3) grandmother was Sarah Nuzum (1777-1851) who married Gardiner Leonard (1771-1851). My great (x2) grandparents were John Allen Leonard and Josina Evans, and my grandparents John Albertus Denison and Bertha Leonard, who all lived in West Virginia. I believe our ancestors were of Monegarrow, a townland of Kilgorman parish in Co. Wexford.
As you saw in previous replies, records are few and far inbetween in Ireland pre-1800. Our people left Co. Wexford by then but by looking at sources such as the 1776 religious census of Ferns, Tithe Applotment Books (1814-55), graveyard indexes (www.from-ireland-net/kilcavan-graveyard-records-wexford/) and the c. 1830 Griffith's Valuation, I've seen the surnames of Leonard and Nuzum that to seem to be of our wider family.
For example, in the 1833 Tax Assessment I see a Leonard (no Christian name) and Thos. Nuzum, who I believe were related to ours but stayed in Ireland. By 1901, there was still a Nuzum in Co. Wexford, Frances, a Protestant who lived in Enniscorthy. I see on quite a few genealogical sites that my Leonard was born in Londonderry, but I believe that was the port location from which he left Ireland with his father and brothers.
So, although we have no vital records to prove, I'm quite certain our folks were from this part of Wexford, a lovely area near the Irish Sea between Gorey and Arklow. Perhaps DNA testing will help solve our Irish beginnings.
Please feel free to get in touch. I live in Ireland myself now, in Co. Sligo, and wouldn't mind tripping over to the East coast to explore our roots there (my only experience in that area was a concert in Gorey c. 1980!).
Kate (nee Denison) Bell