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Roy Mahlon Shelbourne

United States federal judge

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ7373109 ↗
Source-derived summary

Roy Mahlon Shelbourne (November 12, 1890 – December 29, 1974) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky.

Education and career

Born in Bardwell, Kentucky, Shelbourne received an Artium Baccalaureus degree from Union University in Jackson, Tennessee in 1912 and a Bachelor of Laws from Cumberland School of Law (then part of Cumberland University, now part of Samford University) in 1913. He entered private practice in Bardwell from 1913 to 1927. He was county attorney of Carlisle County, Kentucky from 1918 to 1926. He was President of the Bardwell Deposit Bank from 1926 to 1936. He returned to private practice in Paducah, Kentucky from 1936 to 1946.

Federal judicial service

Shelbourne was nominated by President Harry S. Truman on January 17, 1946, to a seat on the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky vacated by Judge Shackelford Miller Jr. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on February 5, 1946, and received his commission on February 8, 1946. He served as Chief Judge from 1948 to 1960. He assumed senior status on November 1, 1964.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Roy Mahlon Shelbourne” as united States federal judge. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1890, 1974, 1912, 1913—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1890-11-12. The account is most persuasive where Mahlon, Shelbourne and United can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as united States federal judge. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7373109. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1890, 1974, 1912 and 1913.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Roy Mahlon Shelbourne” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.