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My gggrandmother, Frances Roberts (1777-1824) was the dau. of Reuben Roberts (1750-1803). In 1797 they lived in Montgomery Co. of Old Virginia, along the banks of New River, adjacent to the farm of Mitchell Clay Sr. (1735-1812) on land Reuben had bought from Clay in April 1797. This area became Tazewell County in 1800 and in 1806, it became Giles County. Frances moved to Lawrence County, KY before 1822. She most likely left Tazewell when Reuben died abt 1803.
Family history says that her son, Saint Clair Roberts (1798-1889), was fathered by someone named Clay whose wife was named Ora. Further, the history says that Frances stole her son from his father and brought him to KY. and that Saint Clair had lived with his father and Ora until he was six years old (1804? Shortly after Reuben died). This does not agree with the marriage date for Ora. Saint Clair and his first wife, Anna Stambough (1801-1864) are said to have named a dau., Ora Elizabeth, after his stepmother.
My guess is that the father was Charles L. Clay b. 1774, (the son of their neighbor Mitchell Clay Sr. (1735-1812) and Phoebe Belcher (1740-1810). Charles' wife was Ora Stewart b. abt 1773 , which matched the family history. When Saint Clair was born, Charles would have been about 24 and Frances would have been about 21.
By 1824 Reuben's second wife, Elizabeth Susannah Roberts, had remarried to someone named Webb who lived in Cable County VA. (That part of Cable Co. is now Wayne Co. W. Va. and is across the river from Lawrence Co. KY). Also by 1824, Frances, her brother George and sisters Sally and Elizabeth all lived in Lawrence Co. KY. That year they sold the farm on New River to John Peters, husband of Sarah Clay who was the dau of Mitchell Clay Sr.
I couldn't find much of a paper trail on her, because women did not usually own property or record wills in those days. Do you know how I can find out more about this? Does Virginia have some kind of Bastard File on line? Would there be some court records available that are searchable?
Your distant cousin,
John Paul
Hi. My great-grandfather was Laban Thompson Clay
(http://www.twobees.com/cgi-bin/igmget.cgi/n=Agan?I14784), born 3 Nov
1861 in East Lynn, WV, and died 26 Aug 1944 in French Lick, Indiana. He
was married to Nancy Ellen Copley, born in West Virginia.
Laban had six children, Byron, Garland, Wilton, Gallie, Ivy and
Ernestine (Ernesting died as a child or young adult, I believe, and had
no children). Gallie Clay was my grandfather. He married Geneva Rogers
and they had a daughter, my mother, Nancy Jane, who married James Bond.
My grandfather was extremely interested in genealogy, and did a great
deal of work on the family tree all the way back to Scotland. At the
time, I really didn't understand why anyone would be interested in such
a thing, but that was before I was the oldest living person in the family.
We visited the Clay family in the 60s and 70s when my grandparents were
alive. My grandfather had first cousins in Catlettsburg, Kentucky, a
Carolyn Clay, her sister (sorry, I don't remember her name), and as I
recall, they had a brother who just up and disappeared. Most of the
family were in Wayne County, West Virginia (Wayne and Shoals, on the
Twelve Pole).
Interestingly, we have returned to the mountains, though in the Alleghenies.
Anyway, I just wanted to introduce myself.