Wordless Wednesday; Twins

Twins, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Norval and Lillian (Hyde) Lamprey's twin children, Clarence and Rachel. Don't you love the baby carriage?

Tombstone Tuesday: Lamprey Family

Tombstone Tuesday: Lamprey Family, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

If you have been following along as I find the gravestones for my husband's family, you are probably trying to figure out how this family fits in.

Looking at these names you wouldn't easily see the connection to the people on the other side of this monument who are named Hyde.

The woman on this side who is the Hyde is named Lillian. Now you can see that she married the man named Norval LAMPREY (the "his wife" helps us out here) whose parents are listed above him.

That much I figured out before I took the photo (avoiding the poison ivy).

Lillian's middle initial is given as B. Her mother's maiden name is BRIGHAM. It is a big name in this area. A descendant of that Brigham family was Peter Bent Brigham who was associated with a hospital in Boston (in which my maternal grandfather died). Things just keep snapping into place and this isn't even my family.

Norval was a farmer. Notice that he died before his parents. Lillian was already dead as she died in 1898. So, who was Clarence? Most likely the infant son of Norval and Lillian, right?

On this gravestone, Clarence died in 1896. That is not correct. Clarence died in 1895. This makes me think this gravestone was erected by a Hyde-Lamprey descendant.

I really had to spend time with the Massachusetts Vital Record of Southborough to get a picture of this family. That's when I found out that Norval and Lillian had three children. Clarence had an older brother and a twin sister.

Poor Lillian. Her baby son, Clarence died (of "teething") and then consumption got her. Norval remarried to have a mother for the two remaining children and then, he died. This is a nightmare.

Just to make it creepier, his second wife was born on the same day, the same year in the same town as his first wife. They must have known each other. I hope they were friends because she had to raise the first wife's children.

New England cemetery work can be very sad.

Troublesome Spelling

LAMPREY, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Even without the poison ivy, I knew I was going to have to do a lot of work with this family. As soon as I saw this side of the gravestone, one thing was obvious.

This family name is LAMPREY, not LAMPHREY or LAMPHEY as they are identified in the family records of the Hyde family of Southborough.

I was working from the handwritten records of the family, typing away in my family tree. Well, I couldn't find this family in the vital records or in the census.

Clearly, something was wrong.

Sometimes, a gravestone can be a huge help with a simple problem. "There, I thought, Gotcha." Don't make spelling assumptions. I felt very smug.

So once I got the spelling in correctly, the records literally leapt off the monitor.

But, there was still problems ahead.