Contents   Newsletter Editor's Page

    In the first newsletter we presented three wills found in Mcklinberg Co., NC.  I posed a few questions in the second edition of this paper and received some conversation concerning your thoughts on the matter.  (Please refer to the wills printed in the first issue of the newsletter.)  The following is a portion of a letter received from Irene Morgan who has done extensive research on the family line.

    I found these documents very interesting reading for a variety of reasons.  First, in addition to the genealogical aspect, I am basically a social historian at heart, and the glimpses they give of the personal lives of these Cryes is wonderful.

    Second, the fact that John Crye mentioned his son William and his dau Margaret only to leave them one Spanish milled dollar is of note.  Why did he do this.  It usually indicates that there was some discord if such an item appears in a will, even today.  However, dau Margaret was the wife of Thomas Walker, and he was named one of the exrs, something you wouldn't expect if there were bad feelings of some kind.  It has been suggested that perhaps father John was a Tory and as both William and Thomas Walker fought on the Colonists side in the Revolution he didn'tike that.  (It's hard for me to think John was a Royalist, however.)  However, dau Sarah was the wife of Andrew Walker, a brother of Thomas, who also fought on the side of Colonists. (The Walkers were from Ireland, incidently - that was mentioned in their Rev War military records that I looked up in the National Archives, just for fun. Another thought is that all the children, except William,  stayed in Papa's area and perhaps that is why he left him out, but that doesn't explain doing the same with dau MArgaret.  An interesting conundrum.
    Third, John and James made out their wills within months of each other; then JAmes outlived John by five years.  Makes one wonder what their "...sick and weak" was associated with.

    Fourth, it looks like Samuel made out his will immediately after his father's death and passed away six months later.  One wonders, again, what his cause of death was.

    Fifth it is noteworthy that Samuel actually left land to his sister Sarah, as that was a departure from the norms of those times.  You'll notice that John and James left stock and belongings to their daughters, but not land, which was the prevailing practice at the time.  Women were not usually given that kind of economic power in Colonial times.  John did not leave land to his wife, even, although he did leave her money and the right to remain in the house. Of note, too, is that James does not mention a wife at all, and neither does Samuel.  Since he doesn't list any children one wonders if he had ever married at all or perhaps he ahd and wife and child died in childbirth.  One wonders.

    Sixth, both John and JAmes had John McCorkle as a witness, who must have benn a neighbor and close friend.  He appears in the 1790 census and also on a number of land transactions involving the Cryes that I have and on John's another witness was Elizabeth (C) Gordon.  With two of John's daughter's, Sarah and Margaret, married to Walker's one wonders if this might have been their mother?

    Seventh, John, for sure, appears to have been a prosperous land owner considering he gave three sons farms.  When you stop to think about the size of the Isle of Man, from which he came, which is 30 miles from top to bottom and 12 miles across at its widest point, he must have taken great pride in the ownership of so many acres.  On the Isle of Man, as you probably know, actual ownership of land was extremely difficult and the pieces of very small. (I still wonder if the Cryes were land or sea people on the Isle of Man.  I haven't come across anything that indicates that one way or the other, but either way, I'm sure it was the lure of land ownership that motivated them to the Colonies.  What do you think?)  Enjoy!  I look forward to further exchanges in the future.
 

In the last edition I mentioned that I thought Sarah might have married Jacob Ormond, but seeing the marriages and information provided above it seems to show that Sarah was married to Andrew Walker.  I have been sent some information on the lineage of Andrew and Sarah, so far I have three children listed.  If someone has further research on this line, please contact me so I can up date my files.  Anita