These Aren't Even My Relatives For Pete's Sake

 

     I wonder how many other researchers do this?  I follow a family member, one I'm not directly descended from, in the hopes that something about my direct ancestor will turn up in their records.  I follow them through their childhood, their marriages, and the births of their children. I follow their career choices, accomplishments and tragedies. Then that peripheral relative of mine dies.  Do I then stop following their surviving spouse?  The one who isn't related to me?  Of course not!  At this point I'm invested, I've probably spent weeks living with these people, I have to know how their story ends.

     Today was a prime example.  I've been trying to figure out who were the parents of Daniel Gray who married my second great-grand-aunt Phebe Galloway in Phelps, New York on New Years Day in 1851.  Both Daniel and Phebe died while their three children were still quite young but I don't know exactly when.  They were last seen in the 1850 census of Phelps, both living with Phebe's parents Russell and Hattie Moore Galloway though they weren't yet married.  Daniel was employed at Russell Galloway's mill that year and resided with him and his family.

     The children of Daniel and Phebe were Charles Henry born in 1852, George Edward born in 1854, and Ella Harriet born in 1856.  I would no doubt find them in the New York State 1855 census, but it appears they had moved to Wayne County by that time, as had Phebe's parents, and the Wayne County census for that year is not online though it can be found at the historian's office for towns beginning with letters A-P.  Several years ago I found Russell in Arcadia in 1855 but Phebe and Dan were not with him.  At that time I wasn't aware of Phebe's marriage to Daniel so I hadn't looked for any Grays in Arcadia.  A surname index for 1855 online shows two Gray families in Arcadia and I believe one of them was "my" Gray family.  At some point I will have to visit the historian.  I've found no mention of Phebe in her parent's or sibling's records after her marriage, so that left the records of her children and of Daniel's parents to be searched, if I only knew who they were.

     I found a David Gray, also living in Phelps at the same time as Daniel and Phebe, who had a son listed in the 1840 census of the right age to be Daniel.  Being a head of household only census I couldn't be sure I had the right family but it was worth checking out.  Unfortunately, I could find no connection between David and Daniel.  Then a fellow researcher with ties to David Gray messaged me that Daniel and Phebe's middle child George Edward could be found with Hannah and Jesse Cole in Hannibal, New York in the 1860 census and that Hannah Cole's maiden name was Gray.  That was promising! That year Dan and Phebe's daughter Ella resided with her Galloway grandparents in Wolcott, New York and Charles was living with John Arnot and his wife Livona Douglas in Huron, New York, not far from Wolcott.  I can't find any connection with that couple and the Grays or Galloways, but at age eight I wouldn't think Charles was working for them.  An online surname index for the Wayne 1865 census here, shows the Arnots still in Huron, but nobody by the name of Gray.

     After much searching, I finally found the man I believe to be Daniel Gray's father living in the town of Ulysses in Tompkins County, New York in 1830; Edward Gray, also a miller, who was granted a patent in 1840 for an improvement to the grinding mechanism of grist mills.  Edward had another son, Jacob S. Gray, who was also a miller as you recall was Daniel.  Edward was living in Kane County, Illinois in 1850 where he presumably died sometime before 1857, the year his second wife, Sophronia Harriman married George Holliday.  The 1850 census of Illinois showed Hannah from New York, (the future Mrs. Cole who would later take in Daniel's son George), living with her father Edward that year. 

     It's Hannah and her family I've been looking at today.  It seems she returned to New York where she had older siblings living and married Jesse Cole in Cayuga County. The New York census of 1865 showed her there in Cayuga with Jesse and their three children and gave her birth county as Tompkins, linking her further to Edward Gray.  The poor soul had three children, all of whom she outlived, and died in a horrible accident when her clothing caught fire.  She raised Raymond C. King, the child of her daughter Ida after Ida's death and he too would perish before Hannah, at age twenty-four.  Part of her obituary reads,  …her early life was passed in the western states but on losing both parents she came to the town of Throop at about age 18 to reside with her brother Jacob Gray who was proprietor of a mill in that place.  The obituary confirms she was living in a western state, like Illinois, and sounds as if her mother had died there, but given the vagaries of newspapers I would need more proof of that.  Hannah was born in 1833 so if she left Illinois at age 18 Edward must have died around 1852.

     I felt terrible for Hannah, and for Jesse.  Losing all their children and their grandson; it was too much. What on earth had happened to Raymond?  And where was his father Ellery King?  I had to know.

     Using the website Old Fulton Postcards and the New York State Death Index I found Raymond died in 1914 in Ulysses in Tompkins County, where Hannah had been born.  What was he doing in Tompkins County?  His obituary gave his cause of death as tuberculosis and mentioned his father Ellery lived in Syracuse, so I began looking for Ellery.  I found him in Syracuse in 1910 living in a boarding house, while he claimed to be married no spouse was with him.  I found his marriage record to Louise McKinley in 1913 and they are together in the 1915 NYS census in Syracuse so perhaps the 1910 census is in error. No obituary has turned up yet but I doubt it would contain any information about his former father-in-law or Daniel Gray.

      I still don't have definite proof Daniel Gray was the son of Edward but I strongly believe he was.  None of Daniel's sibling's obituaries mention him, but early twentieth century newspapers rarely gave the names of predeceased brothers.  That's another reason I need to see Daniel in the NYS 1855 census, that census gave the birth county for those born in New York State.  If his entry says Tompkins, I will be ready to close the book on Daniel.