And This Is What Happens When You Have A Break With Sanity While Trying To Prove Ancestors...

Sources, sources, SOURCES!  They are so important when documenting genealogy.  What happens when you've tried to write one too many biography with too little sourced information?  The following...

All that is really known about Charles Meredith is that he was married to Miriam Griffin and they had children together.  Okay, so a little more is known, but I can't find sources for it. I'll put it here anyway.

Muster Roll of Capt. Eli BRANSON's Company of Independent North Carolina Volunteers Attached to the New York Volunteers from 25 August 1783 to ye 24 of October following- Captain Eli BRANSON
Lieutenant Samuel JONES
Ensign John BLOXHAM Absent with leave
William BRYAN
Moses STARN
William WHITWORTH
Charles MEREDITH
Philip HENRY
Thomas FRANKLIN

Charles received a land grant in York, NB
MEREDITH, Charles
Volume: B
Page: 41
Grant: 106
Place/Parish: St. John River
County: York County
Date: 1787/02/20
Accompanying plan: No
Acreage: 200
Microfilm: F16302
Comments: New York Volunteers

Esther Clark Wright's "The Loyalists of New Brunswick" listing of the loyalists, did note one Charles Meredith who was in the NCV (North Carolina Volunteers) attached with the New York Volunteers. He settled in Keswick.

Charles received land in Grimsby Township in 1794. Lot 7 con: 10, Date ID 1, Issue Date 1794 1212, Trans Type: FG, Archival Reference RG Series: MF Ms81, Vol. 050 page 055. He is listed in the Sons and Daughters of American Loyalists as being born in Pennsylvania. Charles' son William told the census takers that his father was born in North Carolina. Charles was probably a Methodist. He was one of the early Loyalists to settle in South Grimsby Township, which qualified him and each member of his family for a Land Grant. His name is on the first map on Lots 7-9 conc. IX near Smithville.

In October 1797, Charles signed a letter addressed to D. W. Smith, Acting Surveyor General complaining that the survey of Gainsborough and Grimsby townships wasn't carried out as instructed by a law of 1794. This letter was signed by the following (among others):
Charles Murredeth, Jonathan Griffin, Solomon Hill, Smith Griffin, Nathaniel Griffin, Isa Griffin, Stephen Roy, Hooks Roy, Abraham Griffin, et al.
!West Lincoln: Our Links From the Past 1784-1984: 1985, West Lincoln Historical Society.

Charles served on the Township Council in 1798 and thereafter until 1815, when it may be assumed that he died. He was overseer of Roads in 1798. In 1803 and 1815 Charles was again listed as an overseer of Roads. According to a family historian he was buried at Smithville with members of his family but only one stone inscribed with the Meredith name yet stands in the United Church yard there, and it bears the inscription Abraham Meredith, 1800-1882, Susan, wife of, 1811-1888.

Sons and Daughters of American Loyalists book refers to Charles and his family as being from Grimsby, Niagara, Ontario, Canada. Annals of The Forty, No. 6, Loyalist and Pioneer Families of West Lincoln 1783-1833, compiled by R. Jane Powell also include information about Charles.

Birth:
Birthplace is not known for sure. Charles may have been born in Pennsylvania or North Carolina. North Carolina seems best supported by the evidence. Daughter Deborah, in the 1880 census, gives Maryland as the place of birth for her father.See 1st sources entry.

Some trees have a date of marriage for Miriam and Charles, but I can't source it.  I'll just say they were married sometime before the birth of their first child, Richard in 1791, in Canada.  Miriam herself was born in the United States and is first found in any census record living with her son Abraham and his family in Enumeration District 7 in the Township of...anyone's guess because that information is on another page.  No, this isn't very scientific, is it?  Well, I'm a bit upset with these ancestors who didn't leave hardly any records to document their journey through life, leaving ME to grasp at straws to try to prove they existed at all! So all I can really say is that Charles Meredith existed.  I think.  He was born, he grew up, he married and had children, he was given land too far away from me to prove, and I'm only here because one of his sons was Jesse Meredith, and Jesse was my 3rd great grandfather.  I can be relatively sure of that because it says so on the death records of my 2nd great grandfather's siblings.  And they must have been my 2nd great grandfather's siblings because he's mentioned in a couple of their obituaries.  Since I am descended from one of my 2nd great grandfather's daughters, I can't use DNA to tell me for sure that I am descended from Charles, but I'm claiming him anyway.

Charles Meredith died, probably in Canada.  There is no known headstone to mark his final resting place.  When I die, I'm going to ask him if we're related.  I'm sorry I won't be able to document that answer here, but at least I'll know, finally and for sure.




== Sources ==
Information from: http://don.lisaandroger.com/getperson.php?personID=I25462&tree=Don.  This link is no longer valid and takes the user to Roger Moffat's new website, which DOES have a genealogy site, but there are no Merediths in its database.  I have left a message on the new site and am awaiting a reply.