Unconventional Genealogy

4th August 2019 – topic Unconventional Genealogy presented by Stanley Blackburn.

Are you looking for the unusual, the different and do you want to find that important link? Come to our meeting on August 4th and hear the unusual way Mr. Blackburn found his roots in Fayetteville through the Reuben Gay house. A house that has been standing in Fayetteville since early 1880s. He will share the story of his ancestor Reuben Gay and tell us how he went about verifying the genealogical records to this family.

"Reuben was born in 1828, in South Carolina, a slave serving the Stubbs family in Marlboro County. The Stubbs would relocate to the area with the Gay family, whom they were related. In 1840, when William Stubbs died, William’s wife sold the family’s slaves. Reuben was sold to the Gay family and by that time, he was around 30 years old and had grown children of his own.

Reuben got his freedom in 1865, and census records from 1866 show him working for the Gay Plantation as a laborer.

Records aren’t crystal clear, but Reuben would soon purchase land that once belonged to the Stubbs family, the land he once tilled as a slave. It would be on this land that the Reuben Gay homesite was built." - Christopher Dunn, Fayette News