July 5, 2008 -- Peter Shay Jr -- James Monroe Shay Connection

Thought you might find this very interesting.

James M. Shay is the missing link to Peter Shay's family.

I am exchanging emails back and forth with JK who is a descendant of James' brother Nathaniel.

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Thanks so much for your quick response.

I have been researching the Peter Shay family for a number of years, and your info on Ancestry.com was the first mention of James Monroe Shay that I have found anywhere.

I was delighted to find it, and what I found made me quite sure that we were working on the same family.

Let me first of all tell you where I fit into this family. I am descended from Peter Shay’s oldest son Nathaniel who was born 19 Jan 1829. He would be my great-great grandfather. My mother was a Shay and I grew up just a few miles from where the Shay family settled in Ossian, Allegany NY in about 1812. I have a lot of information on Peter Shay, Sr. and his family from his pension record, family sources and local NY sources.

There have been two books on the Peter Shay family privately printed, one in 1983 by Marian Fox Graves and one in 1990 by Marion E. Scott. I have copies of these, and I did some work in census records and Civil War records for the Scott book. Neither of these is perfect, and later research has proved some things in error, but it was helpful to have something to start with.

James Monroe has been the missing son in the Peter Shay, Jr. family. None of the family that remained in western NY apparently knew that he had gone to MO.

The Peter Shay, Jr. family has been difficult to trace for several reasons. Peter, Jr. met his wife somewhere out west when he was on a scouting expedition. They were married there and then returned to Ossian. The spelling of his wife’s name has never been certain and it takes many different forms: Statira, Stalina, Stavina, etc. The last child, Oscar E., was born about 1843 and Peter’s wife died soon after that. Family tradition says that two of Peter’s children were taken to Virginia to live with his oldest sister Anne who married a Shippey. Peter’s father had died in 1840 and then his mother died in 1848, both in Ossian. I have been unable to find any of them in the 1850 census, in any state, except for Nancy, George, and William living in Deerfield, Warren PA with Mary and Ira Boughton. There is an 1855 NY state census listing for Peter in Burns, Allegany Co. with Nancy A. 22, James M. 18, William 16. That is the only time I have found James Monroe in a census. The stories that have come down through the family about James Monroe were all I had to work with. One was that he was taken prisoner in the Civil War and died at Andersonville, and the other was that he had enlisted as a Confederate soldier. Probably the easiest way for me to get information to you is for me to mail my family group sheets for Peter, Sr. and Peter, Jr. I use the PAF program (Personal Ancestral File) for record keeping and notes, and hard copies would preserve my notes and formatting better than e-mail, I think. If you’ll send your address to me, I’ll get these in the mail right away. I think these will answer many of your questions on the family.

An interesting coincidence is that we are driving up to NY for a Shay family reunion on July 18 in Dansville, and I have been updating my Shay files to take to share. Now I have a great discovery to share! Thanks for all the good information on James Monroe . I look forward to working with you to solve some of the other brick walls in this family.

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You have made my day ..... my sister's birthday was the 4th and I just read this email to her ... she said that it was a great birthday present.

How did you ever find this JK?

Was it thru the name that you sent re: Indian connection?

I can't believe this -- Will you go to the Shay Reunion?-- the Seeley Reunion is the same day - but I would love to meet her - not sure though I could do both.