My father, Thomas Grayson, was the son of Thomas Porter Grayson and Alice Oyler. The Family name Grayson is of English origin. It derived from son of a Grave or Greyve.  Greyve is an occupational name, middle-English for steward.  A steward was a manager of an estate, a household or someone's accounts. Spelling variations of this family name include: Graveson, Grason, Grayshan, Grayshon, Gration, Graveston, Graveson, Grayston, Graystone, Graiveson, Grayfson and many more. First found in Yorkshire, where the name appeared in the early 14th century, the name is prevalent in historical records on the East coast of England, particularly in the counties of Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire. In Lincolnshire in the period 1600-1800 the spelling Graveson was found twice as often as Grayson or Grayson.

The reason for the variations in spelling of surnames was probably due to the fact that most parishioners were illiterate and the entries in the register were made by a member of the clergy. It was often he who decided how a name was spelled. For example, in the Parish Register of St.Mary’s in Nottingham, over a period of 20 years, all entries for Elizabeth were spelled Elyzabeth. The next clergyman spelled the name Elizabeth.

The first confirmed record of my ancestors in Lincolnshire is my great, great, great grandfather William Grayson who married Ann Lewis in Kirkstead on the 8th June in 1790. Although it was written in the Parish Register that William was “of this Parish” (meaning he was settled there) there is no record of the birth of any William Grayson in Lincolnshire near his birth date, nor is there a Grayson family near Kirkstead. Most of the Graysons in Lincolnshire lived further east, near the coast. William Grayson’s birth date is estimated from the information on his gravestone which records his death in 1839 as “aged 75” which means he was probaby born in 1764.

I looked for William Grayson/Graveson born in 1764 in other nearby counties. I also looked for a William with siblings born around the same decade, with a repetition of the names William called his children as it was common in that time to name one’s children after immediate family members. My search took me to Nottinghamshire where I found a William Grayson baptized in 1765 (a child was not necessarily baptized in the same year as his birth) and Graysons and Gravesons going back as far as the mid 1500s. The first trace I have of Graysons (Gravesons) who could be my ancestors is in the Blyth, Nottinghamshire Parish Register.

Parish Registers

Parish registers were first introduced by Thomas Cromwell in 1538. From that date, every parish church was supposed to acquire a 'sure coffer' (i.e. parish chest) within which their records could be securely stored. They were also responsible for purchasing a volume into which an official, usually the incumbent or parish clerk, could enter details of the week's baptisms, marriages and burials. Unfortunately, the earliest registers were usually kept on loose sheets of paper so have rarely survived, despite the fact that they were supposed to be kept safe in the parish chest.

In 1598, Queen Elizabeth I approved an order which stipulated that every church had to: use registers made of parchment; copy any old, surviving records into the parchment registers; copy the year's baptism, marriage and burial entries and send them to the relevant bishop annually for safekeeping; these later became known as Bishops' Transcripts.