Hi there! I'm working on assembling my mother's ancestry; her mother was born in Hawick, a Helen Bain Gray, daughter of Helen McGregor Seth Bain and John Gray.
John Gray, and his siblings appear to all have been born in Galashies, but when the children started emigrating, their parents, Archibald and Jane Wilson GRAY, were living at 19 Trinity St in Hawick. Their childrens' emigration papers reference it repeatedly, and the family story has always been that "we're from Hawick." (At least one sibling, Margaret Jane Alison ("Meg") Gray, remained in Hawick and made the Border TV news in the late 1980s talking about the working conditions in the factories.)
One of the first to leave was Thomas GRAY, b.1879 in Galashiels; he arrived in Alberta, Canada circa 1906 and is listed in the 1911 Canadian Census in Red Deer, Alberta... but I could never find more information from the 1920s, when his siblings listed him as their Point of Contact when they also left for Canada via the Overseas Settlement Committee.
It finally occurred to me to search military records, and so I have found Thomas GRAY's enlistment attestation paper, filed in Stettler (Alberta), his assignment to the 31st Battalion of the Canadian Infantry, and then subsequently his death near Lens, France on 10 July 1917. A number of different memorial websites list his burial and have images of the headstone and cemetary near Pas de Calais.
This raises, for me, the question of communications at the time: whether news of his death had traveled to Hawick... and whether the family knew he was not in Alberta when they headed for Canada themselves in 1920 - 1923. (At least one of his brothers had visited him there prior to the war, then returned to Scotland.)
Long story short (!), I'm wondering if he's in the book. I've also had no luck tracking down his other male siblings post-war and wondering if they may have been involved:
George GRAY (b. 1875 Galashiels) (m. Agnes (?))
Walter Scott GRAY (b. 1877 Galashiels) (m. Helen Ann (?))
James GRAY (b. 1883 Galashiels) (in Niagara Falls, NY 1914, per sibling's travel papers)
Archibald GRAY (b. 1886 Galashiels)
Any information your book contains about these men would be greatly appreciated. It's very kind of you.
Thanks...
Anita
