In the last couple of weeks I've found out more about this family than in the last four years. Thanks to all those Pennsylvania researchers who have respond. It should now be a bit easier to find the Wray family back in Ireland.

I'd of course be very interested to hear from others researching this family. I believe some descendants still live locally.

William Wray, I have now discovered, emigrated to America in 1856, aged 8 or 9, leaving behind his mother, brother and sister. Perhaps his father, Samuel Alexander Wray went with him. He was a police sergeant, but I've never found him in the records anywhere. Maybe it was in America he was a policeman.

William Wray married an Irish girl, Jane Chittick, in Philadelphia in 1869. They had two children that survived to adulthood, William J. Wray who spent most of his life in Whitemarsh, and Conshohocken, Montgomery county, and Samuel Wray, who spent most of his life in Upper Mount Bethel, Northampton county.

William J. Wray married Mary H. Nixon in 1894, in Whitemarsh. Three children survived to adulthood. William J. Wray was a World War 1 Navy veteran, at later merchant Marine machinist. He was unmarried and lived in Coleston, East Norriton with his sister Rebecca and her husband, Harry P. Lawson. He died in 1972. Rebecca died in 1984. Her daughter, Mary M. Milton died the same year.

Samuel Wray, son of William Wray and Mary Nixon, was, variously, a private chauffeur, pipe fitter at a rubber maker, and a welder at the John Hood Mfg. Co. His wife's name was Anna. he died im 1966 in Allentown, Lehigh.

Details are published at http://familytrees.genopro.com/bonjedward/terkelanderik/Wray...