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Thursday, November 18, 2010

A FAMILY REUNION OF SORTS

I got off to a late start today so I decided to stay close to
home for my Thursday Road Trip and take a walk at
Mt. Vernon Cemetery here in Abington. My parents are
buried there in the Veterans Plot but I never really paid
much attention to the rest of the cemetery on my previous
visits. Today I took a look around after I visited them.




Both the Veterans' Plot and the nearby G.A.R. Civil
War Veterans Plot had been decorated with flags for
Veterans' Day.  I took some pictures of both, then
a nearby family plot drew my attention. In its center
stood a monument with a headless statue seated on the
top. I took a picture and then walked over to see the
inscription on the side. This is what I saw:


It reads:

"Cornelius T. Dunham
April, 1823-August, 1895
`Blessed are the pure of heart,
For they shall see God"


Ann Ball Dunham
September 1823-February (year is illegible)

Cornelia T. Dunham
April 24, 1862-November 8, 1944" 


I was, as we geneabloggers say, gobsmacked. Recently I've
been wrapped up in adding my Dunham ancestors and
collateral lines to my family tree on Ancestry. Chances were
very good that Cornelius was a distant cousin who I just
hadn't found yet in my research. I took more pictures of the
other sides of the monument and the other markers in the
plot for further reference and went off to do my laundry.

Needless to say, I had a lot to think about while at the
laundromat and once I got home, I started researching
Cornelius and his family. As it turns out, there's more 
than the Dunham connection and I'll be blogging next
about what I found. But above all that, I am struck
once more by what I call the "circle game" of my Dad's
family history.

What are the odds that my Dad who was born and raised
in Maine would end up being buried only a few yards away
from his distant unknown cousin in Massachusetts?

3 comments:

Charley "Apple" Grabowski said...

I have that in my family tree too. My mother was raised in Michigan and moved to Syracuse after WWII not knowing that her ancestors had lived there 100 years previously.

Elizabeth O'Neal said...

Awesome find, Bill! That's what happens when your ancestors move to a spot and stay there for centuries (I don't have this luck). Hope you can make a connection!

J.M. said...

Great find! Clues do have a habit of popping up in unexpected places, don't they?