A big thank you to everyone who has contributed so far. My principal focus at the moment is actually on John Stonyer and his wife Elizabeth, and I have been chasing him around Derbyshire and Staffordshire now for quite a while. I have him up to the 1841 census. As the Stonyers (I tend to use a standardised form of the surname) were millers, and worked watermills, this is the first in the family I have found that have any association with windmills. Sadly, the miller is oft not recorded, so there is always an assumption as to which mill they might have worked, but in this case, the association is quite clear.
In researching quite so intensely, it is a frequent trap to fall into in using a small set of search strategies, which is why I posted here trusting that new pairs of eyes might see something I missed.
Peter Heath senior was baptised using that name, so that is the name I use. He is recorded as Peter S Heath on the 1855 Albany US census, as is his son. The S may be for Stonyer, but until I have evidence to confirm this, I'm not making any assumptions. I have not yet investigated Peter senior's parentage, but the information given earlier I will follow up, particularly as a further aspect of my reseach focuses on millers.
It may be, of course, that Peter and Martha never married, but it might also be that it was a nonconformist marriage of some description, and as my research is 99% carried out online, the relevent transcripts and/or images may simply not be available yet. The banns for Peter Heath and Eliza Atkin for which a marriage has to be found might indicate that that marriage was called off for reasons that might include Martha Stonyer. I need to check dates on this.
The follow-up to this particular stage of research is to try and identify which mill or mills John and his "son-in-law" worked. I have a possibility, but maps of the period seem not to show such features as mills, so I have to search for other features commonly found in association with mills. I know they emigrated on the SS Niagara on 13 July 1847. I have 1850, 1855, 1860 and 1880 censuses for Peter and Martha. Martha died in March 1901 and is buried in Catskill, Greene County. I have yet to discover a death and burial for
I suspect John Stonyer died between 1860 and 1880 (I haven't yet found an 1870 US census for him or Elizabeth), but have yet to find a record of his death and burial. Elizabeth I have in 1880, but not after that, and again no death or burial. I will be looking further for these.
