Loyalist arrivals in NS

Capt Jesse was supposedly born in either North or South Carolina.  Different people say different things and as we know I haven't figured out which is right yet.  There is consistent mention of him being in the Fairforest militia and that of Ninety-six District, both in South Carolina.  Once he was finished as a soldier, he fled to St Augustine, Florida, then from there he moved to Nova Scotia.  He arrived at Shelburne, NS on the spring transport in 1785 (I'm not sure if "spring transport" means the ship was named the Spring or they arrived in the spring.  There were 2 other Grays on that ship, an Isaac Gray (from Pennsylvania) and a Peter Gray (don't know where from).  I've done some poking around on each of them, of course, and have determined that Isaac ended up in Lunenburg, married to Anna Herman.  If Isaac is related to my Grays I'm pretty sure it's not the ones in Capt Jesse's line.  Not directly anyhow.  As for Peter Gray, I haven't found much of anything more on him yet.

Then we have Robert Gray.  There are several Loyalist Robert Grays, so of course first we have to weed out the ones we KNOW are not ours.  Then there are some that we don't have enough information on to make a final decision ...... yet.

The Robert Gray whose signature is shown here was born 7 Sep 1747 in Dunbartonshire, Parish of Kirkentilloch, Scotland.  His parents were Andrew Gray and Jean Gray (cousins, both of the Grays of Lanarkshire).  

** over and over I keep finding all these cousins marrying cousins and again I'm amazed that I don't have 3 arms and a tail

Robert's family was tight with Thomas Hamilton's (of Overton) family ... Capt Jesse's Grays are intermingled with many Hamiltons.  He served under Col Edmund Fanning in the American Revolution, Capt Jesse served under John Fanning.   Robert landed in Shelburne around the same time as Jesse, Isaac and Peter mentioned above.  He moved to PEI in 1786.

There's another Loyalist Robert Gray, a Colonel, who was the paymaster of the militia in Charlestown, SC.  In some of his pay lists we find a number of Grays, including Capt Jesse and his brother Samuel. Then we have a Robert Gray who is known for his "Gray's Observations", written about various events going on at the time.   Are they related?  Are any of these Roberts actually the same person?  I don't know ...... yet.  But that's where I'm focusing right now ... until I have definitive evidence that they are not related, I consider them too coincidental to be anything but.

Connections

As I search I try to be as thorough as I can at every branch of this convoluted tree of mine.  I know Capt Jesse's people are in there somewhere, it's just a matter of figuring out where.  He did a damn good job of wiping away the footprints that would lead anyone from his military service back to his parents, grands, etc.  

Most of the families from about the early 1900s and back had many kids ... often more than 10, some with the same or similar names even within the same family.  That makes for a lot of spouses, children and inlaws.  The branches just keep spreading the further along I go.  

Many times I'll be working my way through a branch and I get lost ... no idea how I got there, so I pick a name and click "view relationship to me" for a little perspective and I get something like this:

"wife of grandson of husband of aunt of husband of 1st great grand niece of husband of mother"

... maybe just a tad off track, you think?  But I am convinced that this is the way to find him so I'll just keep on filling in the names until I find THE name.

Tragic ends

Been reading a lot of death certificates and records lately.  You can find a lot of information in them that isn't necessarily in other records ... like parents' names (including mother's maiden name), birth & death dates, spouses, children ... and if it's from a list in a death registration book you can also see who lived nearby, since they usually list by area.  Often they also list the person's middle name, which is also very helpful to help discern from others born around the same time.  

I'm getting used to the way they list cause of death, sometimes what they call it isn't always what we would call it now.  Like "consumption" was tuberculosis, "dropsy" was encephalitis, "phthisis" was wasting away due to tuberculosis, "dyspepsia" was often misdiagnosed as bad heartburn but was actually heart attack symptoms.

It's very sad when I'm going down a list and I see a whole family wiped out due to typhoid fever, tuberculosis, small pox ..... makes me grateful that I live in a world where many of these old diseases are either extinct or very very rare.