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William Shey

Canadian politician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ8018392 ↗
Source-derived summary

William Henry Shey (ca 1770 – September 9, 1854) was a farmer and political figure in Nova Scotia. He represented Falmouth Township in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 1809 to 1811 and from 1826 to 1836.

He was the son of Peter Shey, a native of Ireland, and Frances Duport. Shey served as justice of the peace and custos rotulorum for Hants County. He served in the militia from 1807 to 1812. Shey was first elected to the provincial assembly in an 1809 by-election held following the death of Jeremiah Northup. He died in Falmouth at the age of 84.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “William Shey” is canadian politician. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through William, Shey and Canadian, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1770, 1854, 1809, 1811—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, William, Shey and Canadian is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “canadian politician” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8018392. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1770, 1854, 1809 and 1811.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. 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.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “William Shey”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow William Shey primary sources, William Shey archive and William research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “William Shey”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “William Shey” 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.