In a message to Barb Reininger, Tim Shelor poses this question:

My line is off of Ruah/Ruanna Shelor who appeared in the 1840 Montgomery Co. census. This seems to be the forgotten Shelor line in the area. She seems to have shown up in the same area of Montgomery County as did other Shelor's of the Capt. Daniel Shelor line ( to the east of Christiansburg ). I live in Va. and have been going to the Library of Va. and pouring over court record books looking for a clue and haven't been successful yet. One possible connection was that Ruah/Ruanna was a nickname and her real name was Ruth Ann. This leads me to the question. You have a Ruth Shelor off of Daniel Shelor who married Samuel G. Vest on 20th Oct. 1838 and had her death as 30 Sept. 1842. What record of her death is out there? In early census records she is said to have come from Pa. but her later census records state she was from Va. Also, after many women I have found have reverted to their maiden names after the death of a husband, case in point being *Lucy Shelor going back to *Lucy Page in one of the census records. Have seen this on quite a few occasions. Any help would be greatly appreciated. And if I can provide you with anything I have on this line let me know.

My thoughts:

Tim poses an interesting question. Since the Shelor’s are also my line, I am very interested in finding an answer to who Ruanna Shelor is. I had always thought she might have been a descendant of Lawrence Shelor Jr who remained in Pennsylvania since most of the desc. of Capt. Daniel have been pretty much worked over, but Tim has his doubts. Anyone who has any ideas, please contact either Tim or myself. Thanks.

(Note of clarification: I agree, women sometimes did revert to their surnames but that was not the case with Lucy Shelor. The Lucy Shelor Tim was referring to did drop the Shelor surname after Thomas B. Shelor divorced her on the grounds of infidelity, but she reverted back to her previous married name of Page. Her maiden name was Barringer.)