John Gillespy of Shawangunk

In my periodic review of records and DNA matches, I found one very remote match to me and two other of our elder Gillespie relations. This DNA match has a direct ancestor named Martha Jane Gillespie, 1832-1908, daughter of John Gillespie and Maria Klyne, wife of Andrew J Evans. These families lived in the Shawangunk area of Ulster county, which is the general area of New York where our early Gillespie and Greer families lived.

This new John Gillespy deserves some attention. He was born in Orange County around 1803, which means that his family was in America before our relations came around 1812. Who was he? Here is my latest research exploring that question.

It's exciting to think that we have finally found some connection between my Michigan Gillespie family and the Samuel Gillespy families of pre-Revolutionary New York. It means that Michigan Gillespie's are remotely related to all those early New York Gillespy's. The evidence of that connection, however, still only stems from a fairly trivial DNA match. All of this learning about the family group of John Gillespy of Shawangunk still provides no documented tie to the Gillespie's who migrated to Michigan in the 1830s. But, I feel we're getting closer. The better we understand each Gillespy family group, the more likely it is that more connections will surface. Closer and closer.