Grayson page 2
HOME

GRAYSON
Introduction

Graysons of Nottinghamshire

William Grayson Sr. (Nocton, Lincs)

William Grayson Jr. (Nocton and Timberland)

Thomas Porter Grayson Sr. (Martin, Lincs & Westerham, Kent)

Thomas Porter Grayson Jr. (Donnington Lincs & London)








OYLER

PRICE

MADDOCK

BERNARD

GAYER

ABOUT ME



George Grayson died in Austerfield, (Yorks.) in 1783 aged 41 when William would have been 18 years old.  His mother Mary died in Austerfield in 1804 aged 69. It is not known if she re-married after George’s death.  There is no further record of William Grayson (born 1765) in either Nottinghamshire or Yorkshire. There are no marriage or death records. I therefore have made the assumption that William Grayson, born to George and Mary Grayson of Everton and Austerfield left home either before or after his father’s death and journeyed to Lincolnshire where there is a record of a marriage of a William Grayson to Ann Lewis (of Kirkstead) on the 08-Jun-1790 in Kirkstead. He would have been 25 years old at the time of his marriage.

According to William Grayson's death certificate he died 26th November 1839. Present at the death was Robert Lewis, his brother-in-law.

If William Grayson of Austerfield is the same William Grayson of Kirkstead he would have travelled approximately 48 miles between the two towns, a journey of two days by horse or longer by horse and carriage. The question that remains is why he left Austerfield and why he went to Kirkstead. If he left in 1783 (after his father’s death) he left behind his widowed mother and two sisters: Elizabeth aged 14 and Ann aged 11. Perhaps he left to find work to support the family.  He had an Uncle Charles who lived nearby so it is possible that his uncle and aunt supported his mother.

I developed two theories on why William would have moved from Austerfield to Lincolnshire as a young man: John Dyson (an engineer) based in Bawtry (2 miles from Austerfield) carried out drainage projects in Lincolnshire in the l700s and may have hired William Grayson. A second theory is that William’s father George was a tenant farmer on lands owned by the Milne family of Bawtry Hall and Austerfield Manor. The Milne family also owned lands in Timberland, Lincolnshire. It is possible that, if William was farming with his father, he may have been transferred to the Milne’s Lincolnshire holdings. Timberland is less than 5 miles from Kirkstead where William met his future wife.


CLUES

Name Repetitions
To check my assumption that William Grayson born in Blyth Nottinghamshire was the same William Grayson that married in Lincolnshire I searched all Grayson families in Lincolnshire looking for a William, born in 1764/5 and found none. Nor did I find any Grayson families with similar name repetitions as William’s children or names similar to the Graysons from Nottinghamshire, as this is what one normally expects to find in families of this era.

The forenames of Graysons in Nottinghamshire preceding William were:

  • Charles, John, Ann and Mary
  • Charles, Elizabeth, George and Sarah
  • William, Elizabeth, Ann, George and Mary

 

            Children of William Grayson (Nocton, Lincolnshire) were:

Charles, Mary, Elizabeth, John, Sarah, Ann, Maria, William, Rebecca, George, James and David. This repetition of names is not found in other Grayson families in Lincolnshire.  

A cousin's memory

Another clue which contributed to my assumption that William Grayson of Austerfield and William Grayson of Kirkstead was the same person is a memory from a distant cousin, David Grayson who, on being told that the Graysons may have originated in Nottinghamshire, said.

“.. when I was still a child, whenever we were driving along the A631 westwards into Notts., as we were passing Grimley-on-the-Hill, my father would mention that that was where the family hailed from. It always confused me a little as I knew the family structure according to the family bible and Nott’s just didn’t feature 

Grimley-on-the-Hill is close to the communities of Blyth, Ranskill and Austerfield.

DNA matches

In 2015 I submitted samples of my DNA to FTDNA and Ancestry.co.uk. for autosomal testing. Autosomal DNA is inherited from both parents which allows descendants to match their DNA to both maternal and paternal lines.

A DNA match provided irrefutable, scientific proof that William Grayson, my great, great, great grandfather was from the Nottinghamshire Graysons.  My DNA matched with a descendant of Ann (Grayson) Ackroyd, William's youngest sister, both children of George and Mary Grayson of Blyth and Austerfield. I have also found a match with a descendant of Charles Grayson of Blyth, brother of George Grayson my 4th great grandfather who moved to Austerfield.

   




NEXT PAGE