Raby: 1800 migration from Maryland?

Here's the theory. George Dement Robey and family moved from Port Charles, MD to Lincoln Co, NC in 1799, the year our J.C.'s Robert Roby/Raby was born. Census data from Lincoln Co shows an infant in the household that next year, as well as an adolescent, and multiple adults. J.C. has located a website with a chart for George Dement Robey and we receive an update from the site owner, Jim, but no specific census data. So J.C. spends the day at the state library in Raleigh and meanwhile Jim's curiosity is piqued and he pours over Heritage Quest census files; they cross-post in emails.  Doris is volunteering this day at the History Center near her in Texas. I'm still working for a living, but scan the emails and attachments with great curiosity.

J.C. notices that the children of G.D.Robey are listed by their middle names in the census. He has no other name for his Robert, but yes indeed, Geo. Washington Raby II b. 1836 is listed as "Washington Raby." Another soft connection. Or maybe just human nature to shorten such an august identity to a simple "Wash." In 1860, age 23, Wash and his young family are in Catawba Co, Hickory Twnship. Ten years later, Robert Roby is there, too, but Wash has moved back to Caldwell Co by then. Maybe that's a clue. The Civil War creeped in then and Wash enlisted from Caldwell, I found, and I got completely distracted by that story. Captured, trekked to Illinois, imprisoned, exchanged, and saw a little more of the world before returning three years later. Odysseus. Cold Mountain.

On other fronts, the Lincoln Co Register of Deeds replied to my request for a copy of a birth certificate for Geo. Raby of 1810. No birth records are available in NC before 1913. Wow. I want to live in a country like that.