Fact Checking Frustrations ...

I've had a fair number of emails and facebook messages from people who have also been on their own search for Capt Jesse Gray's roots over the years.  Some have been very helpful, mainly in regards to more recent ancestors, like Capt Jesse's grandchildren or great-grands.  This information is often provided via old family bibles, which is an excellent source.  I love getting copies of these pages, mainly because they were usually written down as the events happened, so how much more accurate can you get?  Headstones are often mis-named in spelling, or name order (mixing up first and middle names according to how they were used, rather than how they were actually named), and sometimes if a stone isn't placed immediately after a person has passed the dates are guesstimated and often off by a year or so, but the bible records can usually be counted on to be pretty accurate.

Then there are the people who have done their own family tree online and have read something somewhere on someone else's tree and copied it over to their own.  This is great IF that information is correct, but unfortunately is often is not.  Too many people still figure if it's on the internet it must be true.  I have news for you people:  THE INTERNET LIES.
I fell for it too at one time, for about 3 minutes, then once I saw the unsubstantiated claims of "truth", lack of documentation, waaaayyyy too much guesswork, I pretty much stopped believing most of what I see online unless it's in an actual official document.  And even then sometimes you have to take it with a grain of salt.  Always try to remember that the information recorded online is only as accurate as the person who put it there.

There are two lines in particular that several people have decided are Capt Jesse's family.  These trees do both have a Jesse Gray in them, and in theory if you're not really looking closely they could be plausible.  I'm not going to say right out that it's impossible, because at this time I just can't prove it beyond a doubt.  But I will say that both are highly unlikely.  Like super sky-high unlikely.  I do have my reasons, so I will elaborate. 

One of them is the family tree of Henry Gray and Sarah Harding.  We do have many Harding relatives sprinkled throughout the tree, so even there we could be related to her, but I haven't found a link there so far.  This is probably the most common tree that people have brought to my attention, swearing up and down that this is IT.  Nope, sorry people, I do not believe it is.

Henry Gray  (1714-1773) and Sarah Harding/Hardin (1702-  ) did have a son named Jesse.  They lived in Virginia, which is one of the possible places Capt Jesse may have come from.  Their son Jesse was born in 1738.  Now here is why I don't believe he's my guy.
Capt Jesse Gray died in Kemptville around 1843.  I don't believe he was 105 when he died, that would have been extraordinary considering the rough life he led and it would have been documented somewhere as such.  Plus his youngest child was born in 1815 .... I really don't think he was still making babies when he was 80, which is how old he would have been if he was born in 1738.  Plus every family story and historical records of the American Revolution state that he had a brother named Samuel.  Henry Gray did not have a son named Samuel.
Now, it could be that one of Henry's sons was the father of Capt Jesse & Samuel Gray, but so far I haven't been able to find anything that indicates this.  I haven't given up on that idea, but I'm pretty much convinced that Henry Gray and Sarah Harding are not the parents of my Capt Jesse Gray, so unless you have absolute definitive proof that they are, please stop insisting the ridiculous.
If you look in my Patch of Gray tree on Ancestry you will find them there, but not because of the Grays.  Rather, my connection to them is through Henry Gray's nephew James Samuel Gray who married into the Mangum family.  Yep, the same Mangums that married 3 of Capt Jesse's sons, or cousins of them, but the same gang nonetheless.  So there is definitely a connection there, and to me it's too much of a coincidence to ignore, so I'm still looking for other ways Capt Jesse could fit in there, but I haven't found it yet, I just know it's not Henry.

There's one other family that many people have also tried to convince me are the roots to Capt Jesse.  This would be the family of William Gray and Lydia Anderson.  They, too, lived in Virginia.  William's parents were John Gray (1690-1751) and Agnes Rose McGowan (1695-1759). William and Lydia have sons Jesse and Samuel.  It's always been a story in my family that Jesse & Samuel were twins ... whether that was true or not, I don't know, but we do know they were brothers.  So far, so good, right?  Nope. This Jesse Gray was born in 1765, which is both logical and likely for my Capt Jesse.  But this particular Jesse moved to Kentucky, where he was married twice and died in 1819.  See what I mean when I say it pays to do your homework.

One thing I've learned over the past few years is how bloody common the name Jesse Gray was in the southern states in the mid to late 1700's.  There are a LOT, like seriously a LOT of Jesse and Samuel Grays and it's really hard to distinguish them from each other unless you do a ton of serious digging and reading.

I do appreciate each and every piece of information anyone offers me that they've found in their own search, and I will do my utmost to try to prove or disprove whether it's valid or just another wandering trail to the wrong family.  So please do keep messaging me and keep sending me whatever you have or think you have and we'll go from there.

For now, the search continues .......

What it takes ...

Every year after a trip to NS I return home with many, many cemetery headstone pictures.  By "many" I mean literally hundreds, often over 1,000.  A lot of actual work goes into all of this, I often wonder if people realize exactly what's involved.  I know I didn't when I first started this project.  I figured hey, I'll just pop out to a few cemeteries, take a few pics of stones, no big deal.  That first time turned into taking pictures of ALL the stones in 13 cemeteries.  

Over time I figured out that the time of day needs to be taken into consideration when photographing certain cemeteries, certain stones.  Some stone materials don't photograph well in bright sunlight, others aren't great in shadows.  It's nearly impossible to go to any given cemetery and get perfectly fantastic shots of every single stone the first time out ... there are always some that have issues.  I am getting better at narrowing my original photo to the stone and just the stone ... the less cropping I have to do later, the better.  And I've learned to get a picture of the cemetery sign before I start doing the stones, even if I'm just popping in for updated shots or scouting for new stones.  I used to think "Oh, I'll remember I did that stone at this cemetery".  No, I won't.  There are just too many to remember exactly where each one was.  So a shot of the cemetery sign then the stones within it, another sign, more pictures, makes it so much easier to figure out what goes where.  Live and learn.  Once a cemetery is done, it's still not actually done.  Every time I'm there I revisit all the ones I've previously done to check for updated or new stones.  Plus some cemeteries could have done maintenance work to clean up old stones, which is a great opportunity to get a clearer picture.

The flour will be a must-have from now on.  I'm going to have to experiment with darker concoctions to use on the unreadable light stones like Louisa Cook.  I know her name, and where she lies, who she's among, whose plot she's in, so I can guess who she was, but without being able to read the actual stone info it's pretty much all guesswork.  This one has been edited on the computer to try to better define what's etched on it, but it's still not very legible.  She's a mystery to me, that Louisa, but I'll figure her out in time.


I keep a copy of all my cemetery pics on my home pc and on a memory stick so I have them with me no matter where I am.  That way I can use them when I'm away in NS, or at the library, or wherever.   Plus, a backup is always good to have just in case.  Once the photos are all uploaded from the camera and my phone they have to be cropped and sometimes fiddled around with to make them brighter or more easy to read, then renamed from the image number to the actual names on each stone.  Yep, every. single. one.  Each is saved in a folder named for that particular cemetery.  I have done about 28 cemeteries now, some aren't yet finished being cropped and renamed from my latest visit.

I maintain a few different trees on Ancestry, but  my main one is A Patch of Gray, my original tree in my Search for Capt Jesse Gray.  It quickly spread out to tens of thousands of entries, demonstrating to me how we really are all related, so I decided to make the Yarmouth County, NS tree.  So now I try to use A Patch of Gray for stuff more closely related to me, and everyone else goes in the Yarmouth County one.  Once the stone photos are all renamed and ready to use I head to Findagrave.com.  Some cemeteries are already started or done or partially done on there, some I've done completely myself.
Findagrave is great if all you're doing is looking for someone that has already been documented.  You find your person, and if it's done well it's got the photo of the stone, maybe even a photo of the person, with links to their parents, spouse, children, etc.  Getting all that information in there is a mammoth task.  Here's where my multi-screen computer system at home comes in super handy.  I have 3 screens and I use them all, with a couple of Findagrave windows open, plus Ancestry, census, NS Vital Statistics, and other cemetery registries.  With one stone entry on Findagrave I have to enter the person's full name, date and place of birth and death, then add the photo, then edit the entry to add parents and spouses.  If it's a relatively recent death (like within the last 10 years) I also look online to see if there's an obituary.  This helps out a lot in figuring out relations, often there's a photo of the person, and I also copy the obituary to the Findagrave page. There's no quick and easy drag/drop way to do this, it all has to be done manually and it's SO incredibly time-consuming, but I get such a sense of satisfaction when I finish up a family and can compare it to Ancestry and see that everyone is there and linked up properly.

When I'm doing a tree that has already been entered or started by someone else I tend to get a bit annoyed because it's rare that they've been as thorough as they could/should be.  Often the page is just the name and year of birth and death.  No exact dates (that's why I keep the NS vital stats open, so I can find these nitty gritty details) or places, and rarely are they connected to the rest of their family.  I appreciate the effort, but like I always say, any job worth doing is worth doing well.  I hate to see someone half-ass it, then take credit for the "wonderful" job they did after I've had to go in and do all the actual work.  It's kind of like those people that take a picture with a bazillion filters to make it pop and sparkle, then post it for all to see and people oooh and aaah like they're some kind of fantastic photographer.  Sorry people, give the credit to photoshop.

As each photo is entered on Findagrave I also add them to the correlating profile on Ancestry.   My trees are public, so anyone can see them and have the photos ... that's why I'm doing it, after all.  Why take all these pictures of other peoples' family stones if I'm not going to share with them? 

So this whole adventure started with a "few" photos in a couple of cemeteries and has exploded into thousands of photos in many cemeteries.  I foolishly started out just taking pictures with my phone ... ohhh so silly, no phone has that much room LOL 
Now after doing this for a few years I have cemetery gear that goes with me to every one.  This includes my actual camera (with 2 32gig memory cards), a notebook, a tablet (paper, not computer, though my other tablet may be added in the future), pens and pencils, a good stick (for scraping off lichen - sorry Dad, but I need to read the stones), a small bag of flour (next trip there'll also be something for the light stones), a rag to wipe off dirt or excess flour, moist wipes, and rubber boots.  I made a bag to carry all my stuff in (it's reversible, pockets inside and out) but I may have to make a bigger bag ... my gear just keeps increasing as I discover new obstacles in my photo-taking. 

It may sound like I'm complaining about all the work it takes to do all of this, but believe me when I say I'm not at all ... I truly love it.  I love the cemeteries, the older the better.  I love walking among the stones and feeling the history that surrounds them.  I love the feeling of a job well done when I've got everyone all linked up and documented.  And it's not something that I have to worry about what I'll do when it's done, because it'll literally never be really done.  I'm not looking for thanks or praise for the work either, though it is very labour intensive, I'm happy to do it and love it when I see a message on ancestry that someone has benefited from it, especially people that live far away and want to know about their people.  And I love a good mystery ... like my friend Louisa Cook mentioned above.  If you have a brick wall, or someone you can't figure out and they're buried in Yarmouth County, I will do whatever I can to help figure it out.