Wed. - Albany, NY

Started the day by getting lost, naturally, trying to find the breakfast place my hostess recommended.  Ended up going to a cafe which was really a bar, so I sat at the bar and ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, which was $10 for a very greasy omelette.  Ugh.  But having skipped dinner the night before, nourishment t'was necessary. 

As in Michigan, the State Archives in New York are housed in the same building as the State Library, and both have a historical museum to boot.  It's a huge building, and the Archives is up on the 11th floor and is quite an impressive place.  They have lockers for "stuff" and major security screening - basically you don't enter "the clean room" with anything but folders that have no pockets.  Because they let me contact them ahead of time by email, they had everything I wanted ready and waiting.  So it was somewhat of a let-down when in the space of 30 minutes, I knew there was nothing pertaining to Gillespie or Greer.  Normally this might seem upsetting but since this is now the 4th State Archives I have visited (MI, CO, NJ, and NY), I have learned that State Archives only hold STATE records and nothing more (well, that's not exactly true, but that's what people who want to cut finances to archives will tell you).  Generally speaking, the records we care must about are generated by counties and cities, but it's good to cover the bases.

I did, however, get the attention of one of the archivists, and he said that I need to check the index for state land patents.  Even though I kept telling him that my people did not arrive early enough to be getting land from the government, I decided to check any way.  There were two Gillaspy's that didn't look familiar at all, but then one for 11 legal representatives of Robert Gillespie, deceased.  The deed (or whatever this is) was dated August 16, 1807 and was for a military tract in Sterling.  Never heard of that, right?  Well, we go to the desk and ask for the gazateer and NY has three places called Sterling - one in Herkimer County (no idea about that one), one in Cayuga County but that was established in 1812, after this transaction, and the other (TA DA) was part of Warwick township (called Sterling Works) in Orange County!  This place is right on the New Jersey line, and qualifies as a possible location where pre-Michigan Gillespie's might have been.  Even though there are MANY Gillespie names in other parts of Orange County - most notably Montogomery and Walkill, we have NOT been able to make a single connection - although there are so many collateral families that match those who married Gillespie's and Greer's it's hard to ignore.  Even so, this new location is worth looking into and remembering, mostly because of the date which is when I hypothesize our people were definitely on the ground, so to speak.  In any case, the 11 legal representatives ARE named and here they are:  James, James Jr., Jane, John, Matthew, Olive, Polly (probably Mary), Samuel, William, Burr, and Barbara - all Gillespie's.  As a final note on this topic, this patent leads us to believe there was a Robert Gillespie who served in the Revolutionary War.  You'd think this would be the place to find such records - but I didn't have any luck there either.  The archivist told me that if I don't know what militia he served with, there's no good way to track it, and even if we did have the militia info, it wouldn't tell us much more than a name.  In those days, joining the military did not involve writing down where you came from or where you lived or who your family was, especially during a revolution against the King's redcoats....

I spent the rest of the day in the State Library, which was truly disappointing.  At least half of the things I pulled from the catalog could not be located on the shelves - which seems preposterous.  My feeling is that a good many things have been misfiled (which then makes them lost) and/or their catalog has no relation whatsoever to what is on their shelves.  VERY frustrating as a number of titles were full of promise, like Pleasant Valley Church Records, to name just one.  However, I did find a few things, and made notes about other Gillespie families I find.  I think I have mentioned this before, but I have found lots of evidence that the Greer's were Presbyterian (Covenanters), but no trace of that affiliation for Gillespie's.  For example, in Montgomery where the most Gillespie families appear during 1800-1830, the following families are having lots of kids and christening them at the Montgomery Dutch Reformed Church:  Martinus Millspaugh & Susannah Gillespy, James Sloat & Phebe Upright (father of Henry Sloat who married Mary Ann Gillespie, and became guardian for Thomas Gillespie when he was declared incompetent), Robert Gillespie & Lea Crans, Andrew Gillespie & Elsie Crans, Andrew Van Buskirk & Mary Gillespie, Matthew Gillespie & Mary Tiers, Adam Lebolt & Hannah Gillespie.  And this area is just brimming with names tied to Greer or Gillespie:  Rainey, Crawford, Hunter, McKinney, Beattie.  On and on.  But how does it all fit?  Still no clue.  The best I can hope for in the next two days is a miracle even if it comes in form of one tiny clue - just one.  We have to be close!