Since I started my quest for Jesse I have been discovering all sorts of distant relatives that I had never known existed. I've had emails from people who have seen the blog, the facebook page, or my tree on Ancestry, each with their own stories on their search or questions on things I have recorded, all sorts of great information.
Most recently I got in touch with another distant cousin, Dale, who has been researching our Capt Jesse much longer than I have, with many interesting theories of his own. He's of the school of thought that our Jesse is the son of William Gray and Lydia Anderson, William being the son of John Gray and Agnes McGowan, immigrants from Ireland. On the surface it looks like a tidy package, since William did have a son Jesse with a brother Samuel, they lived in North Carolina, they were in the American Revolution .... but I'm not entirely convinced. Not convinced at all really, for a number of reasons.
First off, our Capt Jesse joined the Fairforest militia in the Ninety-six District Regiment in South Carolina. All of the military information that is available online about the Jesse in that regiment state that he was from South Carolina. Sure, he could have moved to SC just before joining up, but wouldn't something mention North Carolina somewhere? Nothing does. He went to St Augustine, Florida when South Carolina was evacuated in 1782. He bought Mary Postell in South Carolina, and when he evacuated South Carolina his household list included himself and 2 slaves, Postell and her husband William Wearing, also from South Carolina. All of the court documentation in Shelburne, NS regarding Jesse and Postell state he was from South Carolina.
I've often considered this line of Grays myself in my research, because it does make a tidy storyline, but every time I go back to it I come away feeling less convinced than ever. I've actually named the tree I use to store this information "Not my Grays". Here are a few more reasons ...
When William Gray of North Carolina died in 1794 he stated in his will "I give unto my son Jesse one hundred and twenty acres of land whereon he now lives ...". Whereon he now lives. In 1794 Capt Jesse was in Nova Scotia with his wife Sarah, making babies. Granted, it is believed that he traveled back and forth between Nova Scotia and somewhere in the States to do business with his brother Samuel, whom we have very little information on after the war (he's another story altogether), but he didn't LIVE in the States. There is also an 1800 United States Federal Census for Guildford County, NC (picture shown) on this family of Grays listing a bunch of them, including their Jesse, showing him as having himself, his wife, and one other person living there. It doesn't show the categories at the top of this page, so it's unclear if the other person is a child or a slave, but regardless, my Jesse wasn't living in NC in 1800. He had a wife and 8 kids in Nova Scotia by that time.
Probably the most convincing piece of information I have though, is DNA. My dad is what he likes to call "pure Gray" (I often think he's pure something, not necessarily Gray, but that's beside the point) because he is a direct descendant from Capt Jesse through both of his parents. His mom, Helen Geneva Gray, descends from Capt Jesse's son Samuel, and his dad, Keith Albert Gray, descends from Capt Jesse's son Jesse. There are a few others who are "pure Gray" for similar reasons, but not many. Needless to say, his blood/DNA is about as straight a line as possible to Capt Jesse Gray. Dad got the results of his Ancestry DNA and it shows that he's 86% Great Britain, which includes England, Scotland, and Wales. 7% is Scandinavian, 2% Ireland, and the last 5% is spread out across Europe. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd think that if Jesse was of Irish descent as Cousin Dale believes, we'd have more than a mere 2% Irish blood.
So anyhow, everyone has their own reasons for what they believe is the truth about where Capt Jesse came from ... this is just my reasoning for where I believe he did NOT come from. It doesn't mean I'm necessarily right, but to my mind this line is a dead end.
The search continues .......
