Well, this isn’t the exciting kind of update, the kind where I announce fantastical stories of Indian ancestry and legends. However, at least the sources we searched unsuccessfully can be crossed off the list, and we can move forward towards the next, even though more elusive step.
While I won’t fully cite everything we searched, we checked:
Centre County estate and O.C. Indexes for Shaney, Shroyer, and variants.
This yielded a few new estate files, although not necessarily any new finds. There was an guardian’s account for Jacob and Barbara Shroyer’s daughters, Christina and Catherine. Catherine and William Lutz were married sometime between Nov 1835 and 15 Jun 1836, when the payment from Jacob’s estate was signed for by Catherine and William Lutz. There was also an estate for an Adam Shryer, who died in Haines Twp in 1809. I’ m not sure who this Adam is – possibly a brother to Jacob?
There were no Shaney or John surnames listed in these indexes.
The Spangler Collection: No reference here of Shaney John, except a handwritten note next to a reference to John Shawnee, “Was he the Indian buried in Jacksonville’s old cemetery?”
County histories yielded no new information about Shroyers or Shaney other than that which we already had.
Searched for an obit for Catherine Shroyer Lutz, but not having an exact date of death, didn’t find anything.
Tax records indicate that Jacob Shroyer was in the first tax assessment of Haines Twp in 1801. Not surprising, since he bought that property in 1796.
So in short – we found no official record of adoption, Indians, or anything else unusual. While you might think that not finding something is bad, it is actually progress. As I mentioned earlier, at least we can pretty much cross off the usual collection of records in Centre County. Where does this leave the research?
I’ve ordered microfilm from Northumberland County – deeds, estate, and Orphan’s Court records- to see what they may hold. Another, probably less productive but certainly more interesting route is this: My mom found an article in a book, Juniata Memories, by Henry W. Shoemaker. The book was published from stories written by Shoemaker between about 1911 and 1915, and are collections of folklore and stories from the Juniata Valley. Wouldn’t ya know it, one of the pieces is entitled “Shaney John”? While a lot of this story is pure folklore, there are a number of biographical bits and pieces worth following up on. To that end, I plan to investigate Huntingdon and Bedford County records, as well as possibly looking through two collections of Mr. Shoemaker’s correspondence at Penn State and the Pennsylvania State Archives to see if there are any further details omitted from the published book that might shed some light on his family life, which the story doesn’t at all mention.
“More as the situation develops…” as they say.
