Our Maryland Heritage, Book 36

This is the thirty-sixth book in Mr. Hurley's series on Maryland families. This study began with the goal of providing information about the Ray families generally found in Montgomery County, as listed in the various census returns from 1850 to 1900, and expanded to include information from a number of other sources. The Ray families in Montgomery County appear to be rather clearly divided between those found in the lower southeast section and those found in the upper northwest section of the county. One large group appears to be descended from Joseph Ray, who was born about 1755, and is the subject of Chapter 1, with his descendants discussed there and in chapters 2, 3 and 4. The second large group is descended from William Ray, who died about 1737, and was thus born considerably earlier than the Joseph Ray just mentioned. That William Ray is the subject of Chapter 5 with his descendants discussed there and in Chapter 6. A number of Ray family members have also been found who have not been identified in either of the two lineages included in Chapters 1 thru 6. A fairly large family is descended from William H. Ray, born about 1818, and they are discussed in Chapter 7. Finally, Chapter 8 contains a large group of individual bits of information, not placed in any of the other lineages. Numerous other surnames emerge, including Birckhead, Blundon, Brown, Burdette, Burriss, Davis, deVries, Dumbroski, Dunn, Duvall, Earp, Gloyd, Greenfield, Havener, Johnson, Kelly, King, Lowe, O'Donnell, Oland, Parlsey, Pearson, Perry, Pope, Ricketts, Schneider, Selby, Sullivan, Thompson, Ward, and many others.