I'm looking for descendants of a William Wray who emigrated from Northern Ireland to Pennsylvania in 1856 aged 8 or 9. I believe some of his descendants may be living today in Northampton county. I've been posting in some other Pennsylvania genealogy forums and have received a lot of help from local researchers.

He 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.


Samuel married Lotta ("Lottie") Groner between 1910 and 1913. They had son, William G. Wray, but Lottie died in the great flu epidemic of 1918.
Samuel worked as a slate quarry labourer, and as a machinist at Bethlehem Steel.
Samuel died in 1950, while his son William lived until 2004 in Wind Gap, Northampton. In his 1943 draft papers, his civilian job was listed as Tire Rebuilder or Divers Helper, Marine. He was married (I think his wife's name was Margaret J., who died in 2003)

I'm interested in hearing from anyone who knew the family, and in particular if they know how and why William emigrated from Ireland as a young child. His mother, brother and sister remained in Northern Ireland, eventually moving to Scotland. I have not found his father, Samuel Alexander Wray in the records and now suspect that William emigrated with his father and never saw the rest of his family again. I do have a copy of a letter that William wrote to his brother in 1873, offering to send him a ticket to come to America, but his brother never took up the offer. Samuel Alexander Wray is listed in his children's death certificates as a police sergeant. As I haven't found him anywhere in Irish or Scottish records, it's possible he was a policeman in America.


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