JAY FAMILY INDEX The descendants of William Jay (born Harford County,Maryland, 1720) and Mary V~stal Jay from tha Workbook of Cassius Milton Jay 1886 - 1953 Copied and Editad by B~ssie Kohn~r Published by the Jay Family Association 1963 TABLE OF CONT~NTS Introduction----------------------------Paga i Jay Family Association Membership List-------------------------Page viii Ihd ~x .cf P~·rs-;...,ns Named Jay--------------Page l Indax of Persons Otl1er Than Jay---------Page 18 T!1e Name and Fainily of Jay(e) Currt:,>il~d b.t...... ~,.1..-iia R~s .1arcfi · Bui; .;au--.11.:..---Page 31 Bibliography----------------------------Page 36 Jay Family Indax------------------------Page 37 INTRODUCTION The gr~ater part of this manuscript was copied from the Workbook of Cassius Milton Jay (1886 - ~953). It is his in- ,. dex to the Jay Family in America, thosa who are dascended from William Jay (born in Harford County, Maryland in 1720) and his wife, Mary Vestal Jay. But it is mora than this, f~r it is a compilation of the work of Cassius Jay and the work of Eli Jay before him (1826- 1911), whose lifetime accumulation of data was tumed over to Cassius on Eli's death. It bears witness to the diligance and patience of these dedicated Jays. to tha many years spent in s~arch of Jay data and to the hours spent in recording it all in a naat spidery longhand. It was Eli Jay (No.1568),the staunch ouakar, the educator, pionaer, professor of mathematics at Earlham Coll0ge, Richmond, Indiana, and historian of the Pearson and Jay families, who first s~t about Jay ganealogical work. Naxt to follow in Eli 9 S footstaps was Cassius Milton Jay, thG prodigious latter writer, the compiler of family data,the dreaffier and successful business man who was born in Keokuk, Iowa on 5 Feb. 1886 and died in Los Angeles, California on 3 Jan. 1953u He was graduated in 1904 from the Quaker college. Whittier Collage, California in the first graduating class and later attended tha Univarsity of Southern California- School of Law. He ratired from the Security First· ·& Nat" 1. Bank of 1 Los Angelas as a Vica Prasident. Cassius Milton Jay was a prominent mamb~r of tha Cali- fornia State Soci"aty ·of tha ·Sons of ~-::· .-·-:.; ... :~ .. Ravolutic,n . and· a one ti1ne Editor -of their magazine, 11The Bulletin". He . was very active in this Society·and was cons~dered by them to be an excallent ganealogist.· He possessed a valua~le and axtensive private library containing a larga number of genea­ logical research papars, which the Society had expected to receive on his daath. Cassius had ratirad- b·efore his wife diad, and.for two years before hts·own death he sufferad from h-~art troublG and lived the life of a virtual .. recluse. From the numbers and references used in his workbook we know that there were in Cassius's library othar genealogi~~l work.books and charts and a vast file of correspondence, but th~ir wl1·.3reabouts remain a mystery. Accordirig. __: to his wife• s sister-in-law the disappearance of his extensive library is also a mystery and sha thinks that the two have soma connect- Mrs. B0ssie ~ohner of Los Angeles, who c9pied .and arranged the material of the workbook, checked Cassius Milton Jay's , probate records. He had no lrothers and sisters, therefore no nieces or nephews, and he also had no children of his own, therefore no descendants. According to the terms of his wi~l, . all the money went· to his in-laws, with the exception of a bequest to a Robert .. J ~ Stevenson. The reason for this. ac - l.J.• I cording to his will, was tha fact that the money had been largely inherit~d from his late wife and he felt that it should raturn to her people. The Robert J. Stevenson was a domestic in the Jay ~ousehold and at the time of distri­ bution his-address was. Hayward Hotel, Los Angeles. So far, '' we have been unable to trace this man. When the brother-in-law and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Jarnas J. Davey, were permitted to antar Cassius Jay's home aftar his death the library was practically empty and all his bool~s w~ra gone, with tha exception of a collection of novels and one very old genealogical book which Mrs. Davey took homa. This was written in ink on sheets of yallow l~:gg­ er paper in Cassius's own handwriting. It was very heavy; Wi.;ighad about twelva pounds. This is the 11workbook 11 of this publication. The home and furnishings were purchased by Jay L.Shenk, a neph~w-in-law, mentioned in the will, but who did not receive any money. When .he was contaced by Mrs. Kohner ha knew nothing of the library or tha genealogical records. Cassius Milton Jay had a particular system of number­ ing, but for his purposa it worked very wall and The Jay Family Associati_on proposes that all genealogists of the Jay family follow.t~is system in tha future. It will be easy for tha members of the Association to "tie in" their .. lines to this Index, using Cassius's numbering system. iii ~at ~assius Jay actually di4 ~as_ ~o assign_aach Jay . : ·: . male an· individual number, if _and w~en he found any formation about him beyond his birthdate. Only two Jay women re~-v-ed numbars •••••••• the two who never married but who bore children out of_wedl9ck. In the upper right~ . hand corner of each family grqup_will_ be foim,~ the number of the male head of that ~amily. In the lowar lefthand cor­ ner of each family group will be found~the name and num­ ber cf the father ot that man. If in the index, one man .. ..- appears to have more than one number, it may seem confusing, but it will not be to a~yone who is familiar with genealogy. The explan~tion is that the man has his own individual num­ bar, also hJ appears as a child in tha household qf his father who has a different nu~her, and if ha himself, has mala children who recaive their own individual numbers, then ha appears on those pages_as their father. When the original manuscript was copied a. sheet of paper was not allowed for each sheet in Cassius Jay•s book. Instead a line was drawn across the paga to indicate the end of a page. This procadure has been continued in the present manuscript. The pages are arranged chronologically, although the numbers are not consecutive. Males of names I , other th~ Jay have nu1:ltbers al~o, but th~sc,ws are certai~, " . : . " refer to other books or charts which so far.h~ve not been found. ..• .. l.V T;hrou9h the kindness o_f -intere.ste_d persons material • I I . •• I has been sent to us from all se~tions o~ t~e country, some ' . .. .. of it is data accumulated through research of professional gen~alogists. We make particular reference.. to the Mildred M. Warren manuscript and the John Edwin J~y .nanuscript. We I .• are sorry that we are unable to prin~ this valuable infor­ mation with this volume. Such data should be added to f.his . - do~ument however, fo~ ~ntil we have _definite proof of the lineage of William Jay, bom 1720, we can only record what we find and conjecture as to the progenitor of our Jay an­ cestry. As is indicated by the first entries in ~ha workbook, 3 (Thomas Jay1 (501), John Jay2 (9.01), John Jay . (1001), Cassius Jay did more than conjecture. Apparently he be - lieved that he had found the· immediate ancestors of William Jay, b. 1720. The proof necessary f~r the inclusion of these names in the index may have been in the mysteriously - lost files, for Cassius Jay was a cautious worker and had such _nationally known genealogists as Gilbert Cope of Philadelphia 1.mrastigating the 'Jay problem'. However, in 1935 he was dangerous pastime of still in doubt and. .in~ul.ging. in ~e. ' I wi.shfu.l tbjnk.icg .. In a letter written to John C. Jay of Gz:aensboi:o,. A.tabama. on l.O October 1935 he wrote: ••••••• I , "And just between the two of us, let•s cel.ebrata the !r'1rcen.t.ennial Anniversary of Thomae Jay•s departurs from ii V England •. It is ·given in tha 11 ~ist of Emigrants" as Octobar 24, -1635 •••• just almost exactly 300 years ago. "I don't know of anybody alse who will so enjoy the-re­ membrance, and especially in sometime being able to show that· he was th,.3 ances-tor c.,f William who married Mao· Vestal. 11 · And he was a real patriot too, because ha got into trouble in the Massachusetts Colony along about 1646 for helping circulate Dr. Child's Petition which was a demand ~ for more lib~ral rights •••• one of their very first uprisings and before-the Quaker and Baptist troublas began. ""He was jail'3d11 and probably came near having his aars chopped off like some of the other folks of the day. As a mattar of fact he wasn't abl~ to stage a comeback 'til long about 1660, when he was able to return from Hingham to Boston and shortly th,3reafter to build tha first old State House. "Thara were savaral interasting situations in his life. So fir~ a firecracker or somathing with ma on the 24th." No matter how undocumented and therefore unreliable tha first three entrias may ba, the Jay Family Association feels that th~ only known existing copy of the valuable manuscript should be published and copies be placed in all tha laading libraries· of the country in ordar that it may be made a­ vailable ·.