I’m looking for the family of Lillie Slayton from Danville, Virginia to see if they recognize this picture. Hazel King shared a few Gray family pictures that were unlabelled, hoping some Gray kin could help her identify the people in them. So far the pictures have all been of children and grandchildren of John Gray and Sarah Jones. It took me 10 years to find someone from Frank Gray’s family to look at these pictures. This descendant positively identified this picture of Frank Gray’s house with his family out front (Pictured below. This house is no longer standing.) I believe these two pictures go together.
Frank Gray’s house and family, Alberta, Brunswick County, VA
Frank Gray was born in Mecklenburg, VA. He was raised on a farm on Hall Rd. He married Elizabeth “Bettie” Clary in Brunswick County in 1885. Soon after Frank’s parents died (late 1890’s), Frank and 5 siblings (all except Alginon and Nannie) moved their families to Danville, VA. In 1911, Frank’s wife Elizabeth “Bettie” Clary died. Six years later, Frank married Eula Bernard. Frank had 5 children from his marriage to Elizabeth, one of which was John Robert Gray. Eula had 2 children from her previous marriage to Adrian Jeffries. Frank and Eula moved their family from Danville to a farm near Alberta VA soon after their marriage, where Frank lived the remainder of his life.
John Robert Gray was born in Brunswick County, VA in 1886. He moved to Danville, then later to Brunswick with his family. He married Lillie Slayton in Brunswick in 1910. Lillie had a daughter named Gracie Bailey from a previous marriage. Lillie and John had 3 daughters: Donna, Leona and Odell. They attended Bethel Methodist church in Alberta. John died after 10 years of marriage, (March 1920), of flu followed by pneumonia. I saw two graves without tombstones in the cemetery on Frank Gray’s old farm. Frank Gray’s grand daughter, who was there at the funeral and burial, said Frank is buried in the cemetery on his farm. John preceded his father in death. I theorize that John and his father Frank Gray are the two burials beside each other without tombstones. After John died, Lillie and her children moved in with her sister Bessie, in Danville, VA. On the 1940 Census Lillie is living with her brother Thomas Slayton.
John Robert Gray was a tobacco farmer according to his death record. John was age 24, and Lillie was age 22 when they married in 1910. I’m wondering if this picture at the arbor was John Robert Gray with Lillie, and Lillie’s parents: Henry Washington Slayton and Eliza Jane Owen. I’m also wondering if this picture was taken about the time they married, since the families didn’t live near each other. Lillie was widowed young and moved away about 1920. That could be a reason why the Gray descendants I’ve corresponded or spoken with did not recognize the people pictured. Lillie’s parents and siblings lived many years in Danville. I’m not sure if this unlabelled Gray picture by the arbor was outside of Danville or Alberta. I asked Frank Gray’s grand daughter if she recognized the picture. She pointed to the younger man and said, “he looks like he’s part of Frank’s family, but I really don’t know anyone in this picture. I think this was long before my time”, which it was. If you know this Gray or Slayton family or might know of pictures you can compare this too, please let me know. Or if my idea is wrong, & you think this looks like different people please let me know.
I love the genealogical treasures you can find in chancery cases! In this post, I’ll try to explain what a chancery case is, and how they help me with family history; using the chancery of Jimmy Kidd’s estate as an example. Chancery records are not “beginner genealogy”, but it’s so worth it to learn more about these records because they tell us: women’s maiden names, when people died, relationships stated under oath, depositions about how people are related or how they know the plaintiff or defendant, copies of wills, copies of plats, etc. It depends on the type of complaint in the chancery case how much of that is included. In Virginia, all chancery cases before 1930 were sent to LVA (Library of Virginia), also before 1930, divorce cases (which were part of the circuit court) were sent to LVA, and are part of the chancery collection. LVA has an amazing searchable index which is available online. You can search by county for plaintiff, defendant, or just surname(which includes “other”, like a witness). I always search “surname” which includes searches for all 3 categories (see image below). When I first started researching my Virginia ancestors, I was disappointed that my family didn’t have any wills. But then I discovered that because they didn’t have wills, their estates were divided in chancery, with much more information in the chancery case than a will would have contained. Chancery records are some of the best proof I know for family links, especially if you are researching Taylors & Jones.
The LVA site says “There are over 272,000 cases indexed in the database and nearly 11 million images of chancery causes available online.” Mecklenburg and Brunswick counties have not yet been digitized, so I go to the actual LVA to see the originals. Orange county has them microfilmed, so I view those microfilms at LVA. Madison County has them digitized. You can scan through the folder and view the whole case on the LVA website. The search results will tell you about the case, the surnames in the case, and the format so you will know how you can view it.
There are several parts to a chancery case. The genealogical information is usually in the bill of complaint and answer. There’s also the judge’s answer (decision). If the complaint is that a will is not being fulfilled, the will is usually included. If the complaint is that a person died without a will and has land to be divided between heirs, a plat may be ordered and land divided. If someone promised to free their slaves at death and the slaves aren’t freed, there may be written proof and probably depositions of people saying they were told by their friend (or brother etc) that the slaves were to be freed. Other reasons for cases I have seen include: debts or bonds signed, secured with land, but the debt has not been paid by the promised date. The judge would then order the land to be sold to pay the debt. I also have seen debts involving slaves, owners loaning their slaves to build houses, harvest crops etc and charging fees with interest, that the other person could not pay by the due date. Large chancery cases are often full of receipts of people paying debts in payments or receiving payments. After the civil war, many people went to chancery court, because they had no money to pay their debts, or executors could not fulfill the will anymore. This is a link to an LVA document which explains chancery cases in detail. Page 3 gives more detail about the parts of a case. https://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/guides/rn22_chancery.pdf
There are over 272,000 cases indexed in the database and nearly 11 million images of chancery causes available online.
Library of Virginia
The legal language of chancery cases can get confusing. I bought a Barron’s dictionary of legal terms (written for non-lawyers) to help me better understand what some of the more complex cases I copied mean. One thing that confused me when I first started, was why a sibling was suing all his other siblings, yet asking for equal inheritance for himself and all his siblings?! He wasn’t actually suing as we might think of today, but rather this was the legal language used to get the case into court so they could equally receive their inheritance.
What is the difference between a chancery court and other courts? One big difference is that in chancery, a judge decides the result, not a jury. One observation I have is that cases usually involve money, property or land. LVA has a great write up about that as well, here is their explanation: https://www.virginiamemory.com/collections/chancery/faq
Example of Jimmy Kidd chancery case:
I did not know this land was in chancery until a friend found this newspaper article for me. This includes 2 pieces of land owned by Jimmy Kidd and his wife Nannie Gray. I knew that one of these farms was John Gray’s old farm. The other was the farm where Nannie & Jimmy lived. I did not see this chancery case in the LVA chancery index. I took this newspaper article to the LVA archivists and they told me they did not have this case. This is right about the time courthouses were sending older cases to LVA but keeping current cases. I went to the Mecklenburg County Courthouse and they did have it! And it was all typed!
This was a rather large case which included lots of documenting receipts. I copied the complaint, answer and depositions, which are in this file that you can download here. Everything in the chancery was typed, but there was one handwritten page by Ewing Kidd (TE Kidd, Thomas Ewing Kidd), so I copied that as well. The case was still folded & held together in legal folders with clips, so they aren’t all copied straight and even. Here are the pages I copied, if you’d like to view the case:
This chancery case gives a typed copy of Jimmy Kidd’s will, which says he leaves everything to his wife Nannie, then after she dies, the estate is to be equally divided between his children. This chancery case was filed because the heirs didn’t feel the two properties could be divided equally between 8 children. Depositions were taken of neighbors, asking if they felt the land could be divided equally, or if the land should be sold and the money divided equally between the 8 heirs. One important note is that Benjamin Bart Kidd died in 1925, before this case began. So his share was to be divided between his 3 children. Bart’s widow had remarried and she now went by the name of Bettie Johnson. This map shows the two pieces of land in the chancery case, letter A & letter B. The men who gave depositions are also noted with their names on their property locations. Note: Edwin Lambert would have lived above his store at old Bracey, just a little to the west of where this map cuts off.
The judge decided to sell the 2 parcels and divide the receipts of the sale between the heirs. Edwin Lambert bought parcel A, the farm his wife grew up on. Adolphus Kidd bought parcel B, which used to be the Gray farm.
map to go with depositions
Here are some highlights from the 1930 depositions, about land and relationships.
signatures of Bart Kidd & Alma’s children1935 signature of Bettie, the widow of Benjamin Bart KiddEwing Kidd’s handwriting
