The comment about John Ray being a Baptist caught my eye because my grandfather E.D. Wilmer was a Baptist minister in the same area but much, much later -- about a century. If memory serves, the Methodist movement, originally an effort to reform the Anglican Church, was in full swing in the 1780s in America. The Baptist revival movement that swept the south came later. No doubt, some history on these religious movements would provide many of us with good background information to set family events in context. Ann