Working the numbers ....

That's what it all comes down to ... the numbers.  If the dates don't line up within reason, then certain names and associations go right out the window.  This is one of the 3 main reasons I have discarded the many Jesse Grays I've come across until now, the dates just don't work.  The next reason is locations.  Based on the bits of information I do know about Capt Jesse since the American Revolution, I can reason out certain places that just don't make any sense.  This goes along with the 3rd reason, which is common names.  First names were handed down through the generations, naming children after parents, grand-parents, uncles, etc.  Often a child would be given the mother's maiden name as a first name.  They also married locally, so often we have brothers marrying sisters or cousins, with common surnames popping up all over the place within that particular section of the tree.

Using these 3 main processes of deductive reasoning I've eliminated pretty much every Jesse Gray I've come across.  Every now and then I get an email from my dad asking if I'd checked out a name he'd gotten from Uncle Gary (his brother).  So far every one I've been able to definitively tell him they're not the one we're looking for.

But every now and then I get a family line that looks too good to NOT be ours.  There's a Fielding Gray who was born in 1799 in VA, died 1850 in TN.  On the face of that it doesn't look like anything.  Just another Gray.  His middle name is Wells.  Interesting ... Capt Jesse's father-in-law's name is Wells.  Still, not much to go on.  Fielding's father is usually listed as James Gray.  Again, no big deal, there are lots of James Grays out there.  Then I discovered his name is actually James Samuel Gray and he married Mary Mangum, of the same Mangums that my Capt Jesse and Samuel had dealings with in the Mary Postell trial and more.  Capt Jesse has 2 sons that married Mangums.

James Samuel Gray didn't, to my knowledge so far, have a brother named Jesse.  But he did have a cousin Jesse. 

On the face of it I'm only related to these Grays through the Mangums:

James Samuel Gray (1750 - )

husband of 2nd cousin 5x removed

Mary Mangum (1775 - 1800)

wife of James Samuel Gray

Micajah Mangum (1730 - 1787)

father of Mary Mangum

Joseph Micajah Mangum (1710 - 1762)

father of Micajah Mangum

John Mangum (1674 - 1737)

father of Joseph Micajah Mangum

William Mangum Sr. (1706 - 1787)

son of John Mangum

William Mangum Jr. (1736 - 1818)

son of William Mangum Sr.

Mary Mangum (1800 - )  ***** married to Capt Jesse's son, Jesse jr. ... she is 2nd cousin to the Mary that James Samuel Gray married!

daughter of William Mangum Jr.

Benjamin Samuel Gray (1820 - 1890)

son of Mary Mangum

Edgar Athlene Gray (1863 - 1925)

son of Benjamin Samuel Gray

Keith Albert Gray (1908 - 1976)

son of Edgar Athlene Gray

Keith Gerald Gray (1940 - )

son of Keith Albert Gray

Deborah Gray

No matter where I start to dig and add names to fill in holes in the branches, I always have to return to these people.  The dates line up.  The locations are plausible.  The people are familiar.  I have to keep at this until I can definitively say that these people are or are not Capt Jesse's people.  Then I can either do a happy dance or roll up my sleeves and set this branch aside and move on to another.