Book details Gray’s descendents

Nancy and Jonathan Perkins of Castine certainly paid tribute to history when they named their children in the first part of the 19th century.

Among their offspring were Marquis De Lafayette Perkins, Thomas Jefferson Perkins and Benjamin Franklin Perkins.

They are but one of the interesting families I found the evening I spent reading the 719-page “The Descendants of Joshua Gray,” just published by the Gray Reunion Committee.

You may be familiar with “The Gray Family of Hancock County Maine” by Almon Gray and Walter Snow, published in 1976 and again in 1987.

That book has now been redone – reorganized as well as expanded. The genealogy follows the lines from Joshua Gray, born 1714 in York, and his wife, probably Jennat Elliott. They lived in Brunswick, Harpswell, Castine and Sedgwick-Brooksville.

The book is organized according to their sons Andrew, John, Reuben, James, Samuel and Joshua Jr. Daughter Mary Gray married Joshua Snow. A lot of information has been added from census records, obituaries, personal interviews and other sources.

The reunion committee acknowledges several individuals for their work, among them Sumner Lymburner, Norman Keefe, Suzanne Gray Black, Susan Black Varnum, Murray Gray, Margaret Gray Pert, Sherris Lymburner Babson, Phyllis Pemberton, Katherine Keefe Smith, Nicholas Martel, Madeline Clement, Darryl Rowles, Susan Lessard and Charles Ferden, as well as all those who contributed family information.

I am impressed with the amount of work that went into this publication – and the information that it provides. It will be of great interest to those with lines back to Joshua – especially if they know what their lines are.

I say this because the book has only a very small index of male lines grouped according to the six sons.

In this day and age, such a genealogy must have an every-name index. Lacking that, it will receive only a small fraction of the use it would receive otherwise. Those who find the book in a library – and I do hope libraries acquire it – are unlikely to spend the time it would take going through the whole book.

I hope that a complete index still will be compiled and made available as inexpensively as possible to those who purchase the book.

“The Descendants of Joshua Gray” is available for $65 from Gray Reunion Committee, Susan Varnum, 1009 Cape Rosier Road, Brooksville 04617. The next Gray Reunion will be held Aug. 14 at Blue Hill Grammar School.

Priscilla Mullins and John Alden? William Brewster? Francis Cooke? Isaac and Mary Allerton? John Howland? Richard Warren?

No matter who your Mayflower ancestor is, you might like to attend an open meeting of the Maine Society of Mayflower Descendants at noon Saturday, May 7, at the Spectacular Event Center in Bangor.

Society historian Judy Elfring will conduct a workshop at 10 a.m. for those wishing assistance with the research and the process of joining the society. The requirement for joining is proof of direct descent from a Mayflower passenger of 1620.

The guest speaker will be Susan R. Shaw, curator of the Howland House in Plymouth, Mass. John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley lived in the house, built about 1667.

To attend, send $21 for the luncheon by April 28 to Maine Society of Mayflower Descendants, Carol Gagnon, 189 Blanchard Road, Cumberland 04021. No tickets will be available at the door.

The Aroostook County Genealogical Society will meet at 6:30 this evening in the Caribou Room at the Caribou Public Library. The program will be how to renovate a “brick wall.”

Patti Leland, president of the Hancock County Genealogical Society, will speak on the “Maine Memory Network” at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, April 28, at the meeting of the Brooklyn Keeping Society.

3325. CUSHING-MUTTY. Am looking for my great-grandparents. The information I have so far is: Frank Cushing, b. 1843, Canada, to Frank and Mary Cushing, married Feb. 18, 1871, Mary Mutty, b. 1852, I think to Edouard Alexandre Thibodeau (also Mutty) and Basilice Caroline Veilleux. Children baptized at St. John’s Catholic Church in Bangor were: Amelia Anne Cushing, b. Sept. 15, 1874; Francis, b. May 24, 1876; Mary Josephine, b. May 15, 1878; Elenora, b. Jan. 9, 1881; Joseph Henry, b. July 27, 1883. Marie Cushing, I have no information on her except that she became a nun. Barbara Seibert, 491 Crescent St. No. 202, Oakland, CA 94610; e-mail Barbseibert@aol.com.

Send genealogy queries to Family Ties, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; or send queries by e-mail, familyti@bangordailynews.net.