March 6, 2008 - Allegheny Connection

I was reviewing the Warden descendant document and comparing the names in that with a few of the census pages that I printed out.

The Heath bio document indicated that Wm Heath's parents married in Allegheny township. There are several references to Allegheny County in the Warden document. This weekend I'm going to check out some of the census records for the Warden descendants in Allegheny and see if I can find a reference to the Shay girls.

My sister wasn't aware of another son for Wm and Jane - she said maybe our Aunt Margaret would know something - I'm sending out a note to her tonight. In fact, my sister wasn't aware of Katherine and Ira's son Herbert that died as an infant. She knew of Dorothy. We both realized that these babies must have been born after Katherine and Ira moved to NYS but buried in Fox Hill Cemetery.

Hope you made it home before the ice storm. It appears that it was quite bad in areas of Steuben/Chemung and Northern PA near the border.

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I did manage to get out before the storm. I left by 5pm on Mon and was already in CT by the time the storm hit.

Another interesting fact which had caused me to extensively research the Shay family of Sweden Township last year was that according to a marriage record at the Potter Historical Society...William Heath married a Miss Jane Shay of Sweden Township in Sept 1885. Although she is not related to the Shay family of Sweden Township...and because William and Jane were married in Allegany Township...I wonder why Jane lived in Sweden Township shortly before her marriage.

20 years ago a genealogist for the family of Richard Shay looked into this and concluded that he had no clue to how Miss Jane Shay fit into this family. It was chalked up to a coincidence that she lived in the same area with the same surname as Richard Shay's family. I will find the letter and scan it for you. I have all of Richard Shay (1784-1861) siblings, children and grandchildren traced out. There is no way James or Jane fit into the equation. I can go back 130 years to the 1750's on both lines and still find no connection. Our Shay line originates in Maryland, their Shay line originates in New Jersey.

Allegheny County is several counties to the West of Potter County. I will look into this to see what connection there might have been. We have to wonder how strong family relations were for Jane and the Wardens. All of Jane's uncles, aunts, and 1st cousins were accounted for on the Shay side. If she knew her Warden's relations...it was 2nd cousins or great aunts & uncles. The most likely situation is if one of James Shay's 1st cousins on the Warden side came to live in or near Scott County, MO so Jane would have known some family then left to come back east in the 1870's to 1880's. Jane might have known these relations and jumped on the chance to head out to OH or PA.

Also we may want to thing about the Withrow/Ashley/Peal connections. Jane might have grown up knowing a lot of step family...one of which may have connections to Potter County. I guess the niece of Rebecca Peal could possibly help us with that.

Luckily we only have to fill in the 5 year gap of 1880-1885. Jane is accounted for 1866-1880 in MO and 1885-1898 in PA.

Unfortunately my mother's aunt Charlotte will probably not be able to fill me in on any details...she doesn't remember much of anything about Jane Shay Heath and didn't even know/remember that Jane was from Missouri. All she remembers is that her father George was much more talkative about his father William and those relations, then his mother Jane. Charlotte vagely remembered something being mentioned of Jane possibly being mentally unstable which may have contributed to her death. Charlotte isn't even positive about what exactly was said of that though. Unfortunately the person who would have remembered more about this info would have been Albert Heath, son of George...unfortunately Albert passed away in 2004 and his children do not know anything. They know more about William Heath's family and Emaline Amidon's family. Jane is also a mystery to them.

I guess we have to hope your aunts Edith or Margaret may remember something. You mentioned once before that your uncle Bobby doesn't remember much either.

I will talk to you later.