Crail: Do I or don't I have the line back across the Atlantic? That is one of the many perplexing questions on my maternal grandmother's family. Beginning in 1860, I was able to located the Crail boys in the Indiana census. Sylvester, John and Aaron [my ancestor] had all married and started families. They would be off to fight in the Union Army during the next four years. None of them would come out well. Sylvester died a near invalid in the State Soldier's Home at Lafayette in 1898. John survived until 1907, but was ill much of the time. My Aaron died from "lung fever" in 1868, leaving a wife and six children 10 or under. His eldest, James [my great-grandfather], was a blacksmith turned veterinarian.
What of Aaron's parents, James Crail and Mary A. Jones? They do not make an appearance in the census between 1840-1870. Mary shows up as a widow in 1880. She had also been in the Indy city directories since 1875. Mary resided with John during her later years. Previous to that, Mary and James were involved in the purchase and sale of town lots in Marietta, Shelby Co., Indiana in 1851 and 1854.
I have been told that there was a 4th brother, George. He seems to fit. Same parents, missing from the same censuses, no record before 1880 except the city directories. Some of the details given to me, different combinations of Sylvester, John and Aaron for brothers and the assignment of one of ggf James' sons [Harry] to George have made me wary. Neither my mother nor her brother recalled a George.
If my elder James is indeed James Berry Crail, Jr., then I can trace the family back to Scotland, I have located church and tax records for a James Crail in Hamilton Co., Ohio at the time the family should have been there around the birth of Aaron two elder brothers. Also, Crails who would have been family appear in the tax records.
James Berry Crail Sr. resided in Bartholomew and Brown witsh most of his children nearby. If my James was part of this family, why did he go elect to break from the family?
Where were James, Mary and possibly George in 1850, 1860 and 1870? When was James born? When did he die?
Finally, did James and Mary get along with the aliens that whisked them from the planet in 1854? :)-
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