Family Reunion: May
Going four generations back to find another line
This surname can be found among my Sixteen great-great-grandparents. We have to go that far back to find the first May:
Mary Frances May - 30 Oct 1858 - 19 Mar 1882
Mary (May) Reynolds was the maternal grandmother of my maternal grandfather, Russ Clark. Her parents were John Shaw May (1824–1895) and Frances Mary West (1825–1871). You may recall that John S. May and his father-in-law, Thomas West, were on opposite sides of the Civil War - I told their story in a guest post on Projectkin: Dangerous Times in Kentucky.
Mary married the Reverend James Thomas Reynolds (1852 - 1911) - also see the Reynolds family post here:
The most fascinating thing to me about these families is the way they intermarried - the West, May, Reynolds, Clark, Arthur, and Smith families, in particular - and resided in the same three- or four-county area for several generations. Ashland in Boyd County, Kentucky, seems to be the place where most of them made their homes, but they can be found in Greenup County, Kentucky, and in Ironton and Lawrence, Ohio, or the area around Huntington, West Virginia. Spreading the records across multiple states and county courthouses means that if I don’t find information about a particular family in one place, I need to check three or four others before ruling anything out.
I have been able to find a conclusive document that says John S. May’s parents were Patrick Curtis May (1792–1870) and Catharine Spence (1804–1870) - but they probably were. I am still working on tracking down documents about his siblings. I was interested to learn that his two younger brothers, Joseph Spence May (1826-1890) and Henry Clay May (1828-1878) fought for the Union Army in Ohio units during the Civil War.
One of John’s sisters, America Ann May (1839-1926), stood out for having an unusual name. She married Evan H. Day (b. 1839) in 1861, and later became the second wife of Henry Clay Prater (1836–1920) of Lewis County, Kentucky. I contacted a fellow Substacker,
of , to see if there is a connection there to her Kentucky Paters, and while she does have a Henry Clay May (1860-1948) in her tree, it isn’t clear if he is part of the same May family.For now, though, I have to resign myself to the fact that there were more people than records back then and keep digging. If you happen to have ancestors from this area or recognize any of these names, please let me know!
And, of course, subscribe to see any progress I make.