February 26, 2008 - Historians

I have been in touch with a woman named Margaret Bell who works for the Ballard County, KY Historical Society. She will be looking up all info she has on the Mayberry family...ie. birth, marriage, death, census, cemetery records and a Mayberry pedigree chart that they have. When she emails the info to me I will forward it on to you.

I am still waiting to hear back from the Crawford Co, OH Historical Society about David Shay & Sarah Warden's family. Sarah's middle initial is M. I do not know what the M. stands for.

Our ancestor James Shay had an M for a middle initial. I am hoping that there might be some record at Crawford County that would give the middle initial or name of James Shay son of David & Sarah. If he does indeed have a middle M initial/name then it will look more likely that he is our James Shay.

I believe the Shay & Warden branches are all descended from Irish, Scottish and German. I don't think there is any room there for Native American blood. I truely think it must come with the Mayberry side. If we truly are descended from Frederick Mayberry then we have roots in Virginia. I wonder in one of our branches were one of the early Virginia settlers. Most of our ancestry from the Heath branches are old New England so it would be neat if we did have old Virginia blood in us.

I guess I will just have to have my DNA mapped out. Haha. I have looked into it, less than $200 to have the X chromosomes mapped out. That would tell me for sure if I have Native American blood in me and how many generations it mixes in.

Thats all for now. I hope to have more info later on when the historical societies get back to me.

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Thanks for the update. I've been reviewing the census records for Ballard/McCracken Counties - there is a James Shay - son of John Shay (I think). I didn't get a chance last night to continue my "searching" but hopefully tonight I can look again at the records.

I have some other documents that I will send you.

It's a little ironic because I remember hearing that a "Cora Bell" was maybe the name of the descendant who had the Native American bloodline. Maybe this Margaret Bell is a "relative." :)

I received an email from one of the individuals regarding Rebecca and Stephen Peal - Her research stops at Stephen Peal but she will send out some emails with our request to some of her contacts.

I'm trying to reach a Janeth Hargis - I believe Rebecca Jane Peal was her Aunt. This Janeth has done alot of research and has several postings on the Scott County MO GEN website.

Maybe we should set up a DNA website -- asking our relatives to volunteer... I believe the Seeley Website in California has one - as well as one of the Mayberry websites.

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I cannot find James Shay or John Shay in any census records for Ballard/McCracken Counties. However, if you do come across it again with more details the two key things we want to look for is a 1836 birthdate (+ or - 2 yrs) and a Ohio birthplace. If that matches up then that puts us in another Shay direction. Could be very interesting.