Daniel Slane (say 1738 – 1795), sometimes Slain, was my probable 6th-great-grandfather as the grandfather of Nancy Slane. He immigrated from County Tyrone, Ireland, near Cookstown, and had six known children. His will is undated but was proved 1795-04-20, so presumably he died not long before then.
Some give him a middle name of McBride, but I can find no credible source for this. A James McBride was an executor for his will, but that means little.
The town of Slanesville, West Virginia is named for this family.
His son Benjamin’s Bible says they were from County Tyrone. Irish records from 1766/7 show a Daniel, Hugh, and John Slane in MacKenny town, Kildress parish, outside Cookstown.ref This would be Daniel and his two oldest sons.
There are many claims about Daniel’s father, none supported. The name Benjamin is often suggested, due to land records with the name Benjamin Slane for both a father and son in Ireland, but there appears to be no evidence connecting them to Daniel beyond the surname. Phillips’ compilation proposes the name Hugh, since it’s the name of Daniel’s first son, but he plainly states that this is only a guess.
The earliest American record of Daniel is 1777-08-26 in Rapho Township, Pennsylvania. He moved to Hampshire County, Virginia (now West Virginia) in 1783, where he lived the rest of his life.
I have only meager and ambiguous DNA evidence linking me to Daniel.
Another descendant claims a segment of their chromosome 2 can be traced to Daniel and/or his wife.
Daniel’s first wife’s name is uncertain but is often said to be Nancy Ann McDonnell; as Phillips put it,
[W]e do not know the name of Daniel Slane’s first wife, by whom he had at least six children. Some say her name was Nancy Ann McDonnel and that they married in Ireland about 1760 and that all of their children were born there before they emigrated from Ireland. We have no evidence of this. However, we have published it in this biography in the hope that someone will either corroborate it or correct it. In any event, we assume his first wife died in York County, Pennsylvania, shortly before he moved to Hampshire County.
His second marriage was to Ann, daughter of John Caudy, who he married around 1785. They had no children.
He had six known children, who are all those named in his will, all probably by “Nancy”:
I am likely descended from James or John, or possibly Hugh; see Nancy Slane for discussion.
There is a town called Slane in County Meath about 80 miles from where our Slanes lived in Ireland, and there a Slane Castle. It was built in the early 18th century on lands of the Slane estate, and today is a popular venue for rock concerts, including the Slane Festival.
It is plausible that these lands are connected to our Slane family. Descendants of holders of the title Baron Slane or Viscount Slane might have used Slane as a surname. However, there is a lack of written records to demonstrate this, and there may be no connection at all.