The Ancestors of Ralph Frank Sheley

My second great grandfather, Ralph Frank Sheley, is kneeling on the right. His wife, Carrie Evelyn Hall, is behind him.

54.2% English

25% likely to be Scottish or Irish

14.1% confirmed Irish

5.5% German

1.2% Welsh

A couple of things my grandpa Graddy told me about his grandfather Ralph Sheley are that the two of them resemble each other and that grandpa Sheley was a talented carpenter. Since then, I’ve found a picture of grandpa Sheley online, as well as his obituary from the Mt. Vernon Register. I have to say the photo confirms the first claim, and the obituary confirms the second. Ralph Sheley’s maternal grandfather was James Gooberry Gammon. Not only does he have an unforgettable name, but of all of Ralph Sheley’s ancestors, it appears that the Gammon line was the first to come to America.

The earliest record of the Gammons in America is also in 1673 when John Gammon was granted 500 acres of land in the area near Chesapeake and Norfolk, where the family stayed for several generations. Eventually, our Gammon line moved to Knoxville, Tennessee and came into contact with the Scarboroughs, a Quaker family that had previously been in England, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. It’s possible that previous generations of Gammons were Quakers as well; I don’t know for sure. My grandpa Graddy told me Ralph Sheley’s ancestors were Quakers from Pennsylvania. So even if that didn’t include the parents of James Gooberry Gammon’s father William, it’s pretty likely that William converted after marrying Agnes Scarborough in Knoxville in 1810.

Eight years later, Agnes gave birth to James Gooberry Gammon in Smith County, Tennessee, a spot just west of Cookeville where Pansetta Jane Means was born in 1826. It’s unknown who her parents were, but Pansetta and James Gammon are Ralph Sheley’s maternal grandparents. They were married in about 1844 in Tennessee, where five years later Ralph’s mother, Mary Ann Gammon, was born. Before long, the family moved to the McLeansboro, Illinois area.

James Grantzer Scarborough (b. 1775), grandfather of James Gooberry Gammon and second great grandfather to Ralph Frank Sheley

To me, “Sheley” sounds extremely Irish, but apparently the name was originally “Schule”, which is German for “school” and pronounced “SHOO-luh”. I don’t know if that means an ancestor of Hans Michael Schule was a teacher, but he was born in 1690 in the Stuttgart, Germany area. In the 1730’s, Hans Michael migrated to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania - a spot near Harrisburg - and it wasn’t long before the name started to be written as “Sheley”.

Being the most popular destination for early German-American immigrants, colonial Pennsylvania was a pretty German place, but I still assume the idea behind the name change was to make it sound more English - especially since the first few generations of men in our family to go by “Sheley” had wives with English-sounding maiden names like Davis, Bailey, and Ashfield.

A drawing of George Washington as a land surveyor

From Pennsylvania, our Sheley line moved to Frederick County, Virginia, where Hans Michael Schule’s son John is listed as a soldier for the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War. John, who is Ralph’s third great grandfather, was apparently a kid when he and his father came to America. His name is recorded as both “Schule” and “Sheely”, and he was also apparently a chain surveyor in George Washington's expedition in the Smoky Mountains in 1750.

Left: Margaret Sarah Sheley, sister of Ralph’s great grandfather, John S. Sheley

Right: Robert Horace Sheley, brother of Ralph’s grandfather, John A. Sheley

From Virginia, the Sheleys moved to Jefferson County in eastern Ohio and then Greene County, near Dayton. That’s where Ralph’s grandfather, John A. Sheley, was born in 1826. His parents and several of his siblings ended up moving to Poweshiek County in Iowa, another state with a lot of German heritage. But in 1846, John married a woman named Mary Jane Patten in Ohio and stayed there - for a while anyway.

Boyd F. Sheley (left) and Alonzo Sheley (right), both brothers of Ralph’s grandfather, John A. Sheley

According to the death certificate of Ralph’s grandmother Mary Jane Patten Sheley, her father was a man named John Patton who was born in Ireland, and her mother was a woman from Pennsylvania named Sarah Little. After marrying John A. Sheley, Mary Jane gave birth to William Henry Sheley in Ohio in 1852. William is Ralph Sheley’s father. I can’t say it with absolute certainty, but it looks like he moved to Illinois pretty much by himself.

In Illinois, William Sheley probably met Mary Ann Gammon - the girl who was born in Tennessee before moving to Illinois as a kid - somewhere near the border of Hamilton and Wayne counties, and the two of them started having children in Wayne County in 1874. Their son Ralph Sheley was born in 1886. He had four older sisters and a younger sister.

For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t be surprised either way as to whether Ralph’s father was a Quaker like the Gammon side was. A lot of Quakers have English and German ancestors in Pennsylvania, a box that William Henry Sheley can check. It would also make sense for him to marry into a Quaker family if he already was one. But I just don’t know for sure.